Rescued my first dragon, and I'm in for a heap of trouble

A man found this 18'' dragon in his front yard and mistook him for an iguana. He took it to the vet's office where I'm interning and just dropped him off, leaving him in our care. Since we needed to find a home for him, I told the doctor that I could take him since I already had a 45 gallon tank where he could stay...

The first day I brought him back, he ate 20 crickets, 10 super-worms, half a handful of spinach, and 1/4th of a peach in one sitting. I think he must have been starved. He now eats around 10-15 crickets and 2 super-worms a day and ignores his veggies.

My boyfriend named him Drake, but he is scared of him and refuses to have anything to do with him (Drake is obviously much more brave and relaxed than my boyfriend.) Well, what a huge and unexpected commitment I have made! I did not know at all what I was getting into.

Once I started reading up on my new responsibilities, and about the health problems associated with dragons, I started to realize I may have received a very sick dragon who is going to need a lot of care and attention to get better, and I may not have the knowledge or resources to help him as much as he needs.

I'll start a separate topic about his health issues in the appropriate thread. I just wanted to say hello, and show some pictures =). I got him at the beginning of last week, so I've had him for around 2 weeks.

Do you have any other pictures? He doesn't look too well. Also you will need UVB light for 3/4 the span of the tank and a heat lamp to reach 95-105 degrees.

Welcome to the site,

I will look around for your thread.

-Brandon

Visionist":cd8h8kwz said:

Do you have any other pictures? He doesn't look too well. Also you will need UVB light for 3/4 the span of the tank and a heat lamp to reach 95-105 degrees.

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Yes, I went ahead and took some more just now since I saw your post! Those first pictures were taken around the time that I posted, so I was kind of interrupting his sleep. These pictures now are during the day when I put him outside to catch some sun and right after he's had his breakfast so he looks much more perkier. I still agree that he does not look too well, and he especially looks skinny to me. When I took him to the pet store, they said that he looked as if he had lost a lot of weight recently (probably in his travels along people's backyards before he was found) so I am trying to get him to gain some, but I'm not sure he is gaining any what with him being sick right now.

He does have a heat lamp, but the thermometer works with color, so it isn't very accurate. It says the temperature in there is around 80-85 in the cool end and over 100 in the hot end (although i can't tell how much). He mostly likes to hang out in the hot end directly under the light (which is a foot above the floor of his tank) with his mouth open.

He doesn't have a UVB lamp yet, but one should hopefully be on its way. I ordered a reptiglo 10.0 which was dead on arrival, so I went ahead and ordered a megaray for him. It hasn't gotten here. I've been putting him outside for a couple of hours each day to get some indirect sunlight as long as the temperature feels around 80 or higher in the meantime.

I'm also putting in some papertowels to line stuff in there for him for now, since I read a comment today suggesting it.

claudiusx":cd8h8kwz said:

Welcome to the site,

I will look around for your thread.

-Brandon

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Thank you for the welcome! It took me a while to get everything down last night, but here is the post when it was finally done: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=155333&p=1248901#p1248901

I'm just glad people say it doesn't look like fungus, because everything else seems a lot more fixable =).