not so new, but yet I am

Hi all. We got our beardie in January. He is actually my DS#2. I have fallen hopelessly in love with him. I am the primary caretaker, so I will be asking all the questions.
I am reading through the posts and think I might be doing everything wrong!
I took all my advice from the pet store, they seemed really knowledgeable.
I have no new pics, so I wil try and take some to download. Not even sure I know how to do that.
So my intro is, I have a 6-7 mos beardie named Bob. He is so beautiful. He is our first reptile, probably my last. I have two cats, fish and a hermit crab. Bob stays in my DS room, which I want to change. He has very little interaction with people in there. We just moved him to a 55 gal tank. He seems to like it, I think it is too crowdwed. We got him a "tree" and he really loves hanging around it in. We feed him crickets, salad and dragon pellets. He has grown so much, shedded quite a bit.
I have so many questions. I will start with:

I leave Bob's pool in the tank all day with water in it. I cahnge it as soon as he poops in it. Not a good idea?
I also mist the sides of his tank and him in the tank, and yes water does pool. Also not good?
I have been using cal-sand, should I stop?
How doo you take him outside? Do you have an extra tank out side for him?
Well those are a few to get you started. I should have not been allowed to take him home, with out a course on reptiles!
Well hope to share much with you all.
Goodnight!

Well, I'm not really an expert on them either, but what I've learned from here is never trust the pet store. And I can only answer a couple of your questions.

Question#3= I think every single person on this site will say don't use Calci-sand. It can cause impaction and kill them, it says digestbale but it's not. You can use sifted, cleaned, play sand instead(usually just for older dragons). If the pet store says it's good they probably just want to make you spend lots of money.

Questio#4=I take my beardie out in a small container and put mesh over it, so the glass or plastic don't block the rays he needs.

Hope I helped!

How much are you feeding him? You should get him off the calci-sand and get either tiles are shelfliner or paper towels for the moment. Most petstores aren't very knowledgable for beardies, so you may not want to take their advice, some are good, but most are bad. Do you know what your humidity levels are? If their pretty high you should take out the pool, or he could get respitory infections. It's great to take them outside, I do it everyday for about 1-2 hours, they love it! You can just leave them outside without a cage, but keep a close eye on him, or he could go explore :lol: Do you have a UV light? If so what kind? Welcome to the forum!

I don't think I feed him enough. Probably should feed him more, I am trying to figure out how much. I try and give him salad everyday, the pellets when I don't have salad. Crickets are a hit an miss, if I make it to the pet store. I want to get them though the mail, but I am unsure of how to keep them alive. He would love them everyday!
I don't know my humidity levels, What should it be? I have been taking out his pool after a few hours, mostly so he has room to move. Should he have a bowl for drinking?
I do have a UV light, Repto-Glo 2.0 20 wat, from Exo Terra. Plus his heat lamp.

I could really use a ton of advice. Should I keep asking on this forum?

tammy69":c6517 said:

I don't think I feed him enough. Probably should feed him more, I am trying to figure out how much. I try and give him salad everyday, the pellets when I don't have salad. Crickets are a hit an miss, if I make it to the pet store. I want to get them though the mail, but I am unsure of how to keep them alive. He would love them everyday!
I don't know my humidity levels, What should it be? I have been taking out his pool after a few hours, mostly so he has room to move. Should he have a bowl for drinking?
I do have a UV light, Repto-Glo 2.0 20 wat, from Exo Terra. Plus his heat lamp.

I could really use a ton of advice. Should I keep asking on this forum?

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, the 2.0 Repti-Glo isn't enough. If you're going to use a flourescent, use the Repti-Glo 10.0. That works great for my boy.

When they are little, they will eat you out of house and home. It slows as they age. But feed them as much as you can; he should eat as many criz as he will in a 15 minute period. Are you dusting them with calcium? You need to...use the Repti-Cal with the pink label. They need that for healthy bone growth.

You can change what they eat as they age (great thread on supers in here somewhere). My boy is now almost a year old, and he now eats supers, phoenix worms, occasional wax worms, and salad. You have to wait until yours is older though for the supers.

Keep asking ?'s. Folks on here know a lot and are willing to help! :lol:

Yeh sorry to break this to you, but 2.0 is not even close to what you need, and you don't need a 10.0, but it's recomomened, you can use 10.0 or 8.0. He should be eating around 50-100 crix a day ( I know the bill kills me too) :lol: It would be best to order online cheaper to. You should find our your humidity levels, thats very important, I would take the bath out just until you can measure the humidity levels. It's best not to put a bowl of water (same reason with humidity levels), just mist him out od his cage everyday, and bathe him atleast 3 times a week, I bathe mine everyday. Are you dusting your crix with calcium? Again you don't have to have rep-cal, but thats what most of us use, so most people tell other user's rep-cal, you should have calcium (pink label), and multivitamin (blue label). Do you have a thermo (digi)? If so what are his temps?

I could really use a ton of advice. Should I keep asking on this forum?

Click to expand...

Are you kidding (sorry if that offends you)???? :? Ask as MANY questions you want :lol: