Hello, welcome to the forums! Congrats on your new beardie!
It's true that there is a "relocation stress" period sometimes when they first go to a new home, or even a new tank, but it usually lasts no longer than 2 weeks, and it doesn't typically represent itself by constant sleeping and hiding away like you're describing, but rather a slow or non-existent appetite and some skittish behavior. What you're describing sounds like a problem with lighting, temperatures, or a problem that existed before you got her due to inadequate husbandry, and now it's continuing.
Where did you get her from at 6 months? Do you know any of her history? She's still a juvenile, but 6 months is certainly enough time to cause issues that would cause her to hide away from lights, for example an eye issue due to the prior owner using a coil
UVB bulb.
I got her from a local breeder, she appeared to also be selling 3 more 6 month old dragons, siblings to mine but I’m afraid I have no idea of her history, diet or lighting!
6 months is almost always too young for them to go into a brumation, so I'm fairly certain that's not what she's doing...Was she sleeping all the time before you got her? (If you know the answer to that, say if you got her at a pet shop, was she awake and alert in her tank there?)
I have no idea of her habits before hand either
You said you have a 24" long UVB tube, but what strength is the UVB tube (T8 or T5), what is the wattage of the tube, and what brand is the tube? (All of this information will be printed right on the tube itself) Do you have it mounted inside the tank so that it's unobstructed, or is the tube sitting on top of any type of mesh lid? Did you check to make sure that the tube fixture that the UVB tube is sitting inside has no clear, plastic cover on it's bottom that is covering the UVB tube itself? Most tube fixtures do not have this, but there are some brands who insist on putting a clear, plastic cover on the bottom of the fixture, which covers the UVB tube, and this clear plastic tube blocks 100% of the
UVB light emitted by the UVB tube, as no strength of
UVB light can at all penetrate any type of glass or clear plastic. So double check, and if there is any type of cover over the UVB tube, you must remove it immediately, just an FYI.
Its a T8 Arcadia bulb which doesn’t currently have a reflector but have just this minute ordered one for it. It’s also mounted inside the tank unobstructed and roughly 8 inches away from her basking spot!
How far away, in inches, is the UVB tube from her basking spot/platform? And how many hours per day are you leaving both the UVB tube and her basking light on? Looking at your photo it appears that your UVB tube is mounted up against the back wall of the enclosure, and it has no metal reflector behind it...can you verify that? This may not have anything to do with the current issue, but it can and most likely will cause a serious problem in the future, as when you have an enclosure built and they put the long, tube fixture like that against the back wall of the tank, and it's the type of fixture where the tube hangs down and there is no where for a reflector to be inserted behind the tube, then 50% of the
UVB light is just bounced off of the back wall of the tank and lost, that's problem #1, and then problem #2 is that in a large enclosure like this, if there is no reflector behind the UVB tube, then basically the only place in the tank where there is adequate
UVB light is directly underneath the tube itself. You need a metal reflector in any type of large enclosure like this, to reflect adequate
UVB light throughout the tank...
As far as the temperature zones inside the tank go, what type of thermometer are you using to measure them? And then what are the temperature readings for the Cool Side Ambient/Air Temp, the Hot Side Ambient/Air Temp, and then the Basking Spot Surface Temp?
I had a Exo Terra thermometer that was already fitted with the tank when I bought it and it didn’t seem to be working correctly. As I live miles and miles away from any reptile shop I have to order and buy everything online so I’m waiting for two new ones to arrive as previously there was just a single one centre of the tank. This may be the problem!
The
UVB light issue can easily be remedied by ordering a clip-on reflector that is the length of the UVB tube itself (not the length of the fixture, sometimes they are not the same length, for instance you can have a 22" UVB tube inside a 24" fixture, in this example you would want to order a 22" clip-on reflector). You can order a clip-on reflector cheaply on Amazon.com, I know that Arcadia brand makes them, as well as many others. This will not only keep half of the
UVB light from being bounced off the back wall, but it will fill the enclosure with adequate
UVB light for her.
That's just an aside, most likely isn't what is causing her to sleep all the time as of now, but it could be the brand of UVB tube that is causing that, but I think it is either a problem with the temperature zones inside the tank, or it's a health issue that existed before you got her. But try to fill in the blanks and we'll go from there.
