Gijs & Sabine use a solution that you can compare with that. They have a ceramic bowl that is placed on the ground. In that bowl they have a plastic, removable bowl. So the ceramic bowl can be surrounded by substrate, no problem there. Yet it can also easily be taken out to clean it, together with the cleaning of the whole cage. The plastic bowl fits nicely in the ceramic one and is taken out for the daily water changes.
But maybe they see this try of an explanation of me and can post a picture of it
