hello everybody!

Hey everyone!

I'm Parker and my very first dragon is supposed to be getting here on Tuesday, and I am so excited to meet her. In the meantime, I have been doing my very very best to get everything in her tank set up for her to come home. I have been doing research and looking into dragons as pets for most of a year before I actually decided to finally pull the trigger and get one of my very own, but now that I'm so close to her being here, I am so nervous that I'm forgetting something!

I have a pretty big tank for her (it's 48x18x18) so I have plenty of room for her to grow into. According to the breeder I got her from, she is six/seven months old and supposed to be at least 11 inches long (which I wanted because I was scared to take care of a baby baby). I have her UVB light, and two heat lamps to make sure she has enough warm space in there and they are on a timer which I have tested for the past few days. I am picking up some worms and leafy stuff for her tomorrow so it's nice and fresh for her when she gets here on Tuesday. I have lizard carpet stuff on the bottom, a little hidey hole for her to go in, I have a basking rock for her, and I have also ordered her a little hammock which should be here in a week or two since it's being custom made.

I am so excited but also very nervous because I've always had dogs and had a hedgehog previously, and I love them all, but they are very different from a dragon so this feels like entirely new territory I'm in. There is so much conflicting information out there on the internet and I just want to be a good dragon parent! (feed crickets/don't feed crickets! here's sand/don't use sand! leashes are cute and let them explore places safely/never use a leash you cruel mean person! etc etc)

Anyway this got kinda long but here I am, happy to meet you all, and if anybody has any last minute tips for me before my baby gets here I am all ears!

Welcome to the forum - glad you did your research but I haft to ask what uvb are you using? Please no coils! As far as basking lights you only need one- you need to have temps 95-100 for a juvenile- taken w/ a digital probe thermometer- stick ons are inaccurate-- the basking temps and UVB are the TWO MOST IMPORTANT things in the tank

KarrieRee":3odoooqf said:

Welcome to the forum - glad you did your research but I haft to ask what uvb are you using? Please no coils! As far as basking lights you only need one- you need to have temps 95-100 for a juvenile- taken w/ a digital probe thermometer- stick ons are inaccurate-- the basking temps and UVB are the TWO MOST IMPORTANT things in the tank

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no coils! i have a reptisun 10.0 T5 HO in a sunblaster fixture thingy i have attached to the top of her tank (under the mesh because I read it doesn't go through stuff very well). I got a two pack of basking lights because i wasn't sure if I needed more since the tank is kinda big, but I can definitely just not use one! I do not have stick on thermometer things, just a little hand-held gun thing, but I can get something else if that would be better!

The T 5 is a great bulb please make sure the basking decor is directly underneath w/ a distance of 12-15 inches --- yes I would recommend getting the digital probe thermometer- they are the most accurate sometimes IR guns do not read off of certain materials basking stuff is made out of so having the probe will give you a more accurate reading - example hammocks -- you can have the stickons but they are going to give a ambient temp - I use all 3 of the gauges --- but rely mostly on my digital probe- did you get a hygrometer for humidity - I recommend a digital one w/ probe as well - place the probe on the back center wall of the tank it will give humidity level of the whole tank - optimal reading is 30-40% it can go lower to 20% but you do not want it above 70%