New!

Hello everyone!

We have adopted a bearded dragon yesterday. The beardie's name is Steve (although we don't know the sex yet). Steve is a few months old and was up for adoption at the local PetCo because he and Steve2 were smaller than their siblings so they couldn't keep them. We were gonna adopt both Steves but we were told that is not the best thing to do because down the road we might not be able to keep them in the same tank.

Anyway, Steve's home is a 40G tank and a 36" Reptisun hood and a basking light. The heat emitter should arrive tomorrow so we can keep him a little warmer during nighttime (I had an infrared but learned that is not the best for them). We've been feeding him crickets and mealworms. I chopped up some dark greens for him as well. He has paper towels as substrates and carpet is on the way. I knew not to listen to the pet store when they told me that they needed sand as we have 4 hermit crabs and I have learned that most pet stores don't give correct pet caring advise.

I would love to know if there is anything we can do to make Steve more comfortable and grow healthy and strong!

Thank you!!!

Welcome. I'm pretty new to the forums myself, but it sounds like you've got everything pretty much down. Make sure the bulb your hood is a uvb bulb. And also, I have read that mealworms aren't really great for them. Someone else may be able to elaborate more on that. I've just seen it a few places in the forums

Brandon1109":3gdjwj3v said:

Welcome. I'm pretty new to the forums myself, but it sounds like you've got everything pretty much down. Make sure the bulb your hood is a uvb bulb. And also, I have read that mealworms aren't really great for them. Someone else may be able to elaborate more on that. I've just seen it a few places in the forums

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Thank you!!! Yes I have a UVB bulb. Thank you for the heads up on mealworms, I will look into it.

One thing I noticed is that Steve doesn’t really hang out diectly under the basking light. I used a temp gun and it says it’s about 85-90F throughout the day (the other bulb should get here today so I can bring the temp up more). Is it normal they donmt hang out under the basking area much?

Also, I read and heard that we shouldn’t handle new beardies for a week till they settled in more, is that a good advise?

Thanks!!!