I know I'm rehashing an old topic that probably has been brought up many times before, sorry about that.

Substrate. I have used newspaper, reptibark, and a few other things. I only have one snake, so I spent some time building a tank and making a fake rock background for it, etc, so that my ball's home is a nice display tank.

The reptibark looks nice, but it's getting to be a bit of a pain. i do not like loose substrates, I'm finding, because bits get caught in background and fall on the floor, etc, and its a huge pain. I'd much rather switch back to something newspapery.

I don't want to throw all the hard work making a nice-looking tank down the drain by sticking in some newspaper though.

Repti-carpet would work for me, except that I'm hoping to find something that doesn't look so incredibly fake, since it'll be right next to the rock background, some fake ivy, etc, which all look pretty nice (clearly not real, but green cloth has a way of ruining the effect )

Any ideas on a fake carpet substrate that looks more realistic than repticarpet but isn't as harsh as astroturf? I want something astroturf-looking that is softer, essentially, if that exists.

Thanks