Unhappy Beardy

Hey!

I was wondering if someone could help on any ideas of what might be wrong with our beardy! He's only a small, young beardy and we have had him now for about a month.
However over the past few days he has stopped eating and is quite black a lot of the time. When we get him out he goes back to a gorgeous orangey light colour again. We have usually been giving him crickets but then a couple of days ago we gave him roaches which he seemed to really enjoy and had a massive feast. We tried again later and he has gone back to not eating again. He's losing quite a lot of weight and i'm rather worried about him!

At the minute he is in a small viv however we have a new big one with all the kit coming in the next few days! I'm wondering whether it might be something to do with the UV lamp? The person who gave us the beardy gave us the lights with it too, can they lose their strength quite quickly?

Please help, thank you
Fleur !

Hi! Interesting that when you take your beardie out he perks up and seems better. Makes me wonder if there is something in his home that isn't agreeing with him! Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it), you are going to be asked a LOT of questions about his home and set up, lighting, substrate and everything in between. It's a lot of questions but it's worth it to get a good answer.
What is his tank size?
What kind of UVB light to you have? (Brand and strength)
Can he get to within 6-8" of the UVB light?
Does he have a bright basking light? What is the temp in his basking spot, directly under the light?
What are the temps on the cool side of the tank?
What kind of thermometer do you use? (The stick ons and dials are not precise enough)
Do you dust his feeders with Calcium w/d3? How often? Does he get feeders dusted with vitamins and how often?
What kind of substrate do you use in the floor of his viv?

Answers to those questions would be a really good start. Maybe there is a very simple fix that will help!

At the minute he is in a 2ft fish tank (that is what he came in!) with wood shavings. He has a basking rock in the corner that he also sleeps under but we also have a log in the middle for him which is underneath the light that he tends to sit on all day. He has a couple of plants in there as well. He was recently cleaned out and then his mood change triggered shortly after then, although nothing other than wood shavings was different. He has had a couple of calci worms today and one roach but that was it.

Under the light the temperature always used to be about 95 and on the cool side about 80 which then goes down to about 60-70 in the night. However it seems to be getting cooler and at the minute is only about 85. Yeah we have one of the standard dial ones, instead of a digital one! The UV lamp is a Repti Glow 10.0 15 W bulb (Exo Terra?)which runs all the way across the top of the tank.

In terms of calcium, at the minute we have been putting the calcium powder on his crickets before they go into the tank, however with the new stuff for the bigger viv we have ordered a cricket feeder.
The new viv that we have coming is a 3ft with plants and we will be using ceramic tiles for the floor. Obviously we will be getting a longer UVB bulb too and another basking light. We were advised that this would be the correct light for him (40W i think it is!) however after looking at other blogs other beardys seem to be in much higher temperature!

Thanks for the help, we took this little beardy as a rescue really as our friend found out at the last minute she had two boys so we took one and so it is quite new for us

Well, for starters, the temps are really important. More important that you would think! How old is your beardie? The babies need higher temps than the older beardies. Without knowing the age, I would advise getting your temp under the basking spot 105-110 degrees. The dragon will bask under that heat light all day and absorb that heat, which aids in digestion and keeps their immune system functioning. Without the correct heat, they do not digest their food. That could be why you are seeing weight loss. Also, he will be more susceptible to illness with basking temps too low.

You definitely need to correct the temps ASAP as in immediately. I keep a sensor probe directly under my dragon's basking light and it is monitored daily. It's really that important. :shock:

Okay brilliant thank you. Maybe it is the temperature then! We shall go and get a higher watt bulb today so then temperature will increase He seems to be having some more food/he really likes the taste of calcium powder! So fingers crossed with the new bulb too he will be alright again!

Thank youuuu

Fleurtyp":qjupmrlr said:

Under the light the temperature always used to be about 95 and on the cool side about 80 which then goes down to about 60-70 in the night. However it seems to be getting cooler and at the minute is only about 85. Yeah we have one of the standard dial ones, instead of a digital one! The UV lamp is a Repti Glow 10.0 15 W bulb (Exo Terra?)which runs all the way across the top of the tank.

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Temps as mentioned before should be higher. The ReptiGlo bulbs are not good for beardies either though. You should really look into getting either a ReptiSun 10.0 or and Arcadia 12% tube buld for UVB. Also, make sure the basking bulb is a bright white light. No frosting or coloration of the bulb.

Ah okay, yeah at the minute it has a frosting on it so that must be preventing the heat getting as high as possible! Should we get a 50W for a 3ft viv?

Thank you for the advice about the UBV bulb too, I'll make sure we don't get repti glo !

Personally I use a 100W flood light for basking in a 4' melamine enclosure. What you can do is buy a rheostat or dimmer switch and put a higher wattage bulb in there. Then you can manually control how much heat is emitted.

...and as if you didn't have enough information, here is a little more! :lol: The frosted bulbs are not recommended because they filter the light. Your dragon needs a bright light basking bulb in order to constrict the pupils of their eyes so the UVB doesn't cause damage.

And the reason people do not recommend the compact/coil UVBs and the Repti-Glows is because they have been linked to eye damage and inflammation. AND they do not continuoulsy give off the right amount of UVB, where the Repti-Sun tube UVB does.

Ahh brilliant thank you!
It's so annoying the man at the shop was giving us all this advice on the bearded dragon saying how brilliant calci sand is and giving me the bulbs and all sorts and it seems he actually doesn't really know anything!!
Thank you for all of your help everyone! I'm looking forward for my little Beardy Ralph to move into his new happy, hot house!!

Fleurtyp":2qijd8ix said:

It's so annoying the man at the shop was giving us all this advice on the bearded dragon saying how brilliant calci sand is and giving me the bulbs and all sorts and it seems he actually doesn't really know anything!!

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Yeah....that's the story with almost everyone. Trust me, my husband and I came home with calci-sand in a really cool color and an infra-red night light, both of which are no-nos. :roll: SO welcome to bd.org and happy learning! I am so grateful that my husband found this website. It's really helped us.

What kind of wood shavings? Cedar can be quite dangerous to reptiles. I've been told pine is bad too, but I saw up close a savannah monitor react to cedar bedding. It's not good. You might want to check on that.

NeosMom":3rj7ij8i said:

What kind of wood shavings? Cedar can be quite dangerous to reptiles. I've been told pine is bad too, but I saw up close a savannah monitor react to cedar bedding. It's not good. You might want to check on that.

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What happened to the monitor?!?! :shock:

Cedar and pine cause serious respiratory problems in reptiles and small mammals. I keep my snakes on aspen, but I avoid anything loose with my beardie because of the impaction risk. Could you imagine trying to catch crickets in wood shavings? You are bound to come up with a mouthful of wood at some point. Yuck. Linoleum and tile are the way to go for beardies!

AtlasStrike":1murd6a6 said:

Linoleum and tile are the way to go for beardies!

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I have a sand colored non-adhesive shelf liner that I cut to the bottom of my vivs. Once a week I remove it and soak it with the rest of their viv furniture and it's lasted for a while now and is so easy to clean poo from. It costs less than $10 ad is really easy to cut with scissors and install.

I also agree the linoleum (non-adhesive) or tile, as well as Repti-Carpet or paper towel!