Newbie beardie parents with Petsmart baby in distress...ugh

Ok, after finding this site/forum today we realize we did not educate ourselves properly to be beardie parents and some critical mistakes have been made. Hopefully it's not too late...

On Friday we bought a 5-1/2 to 6" beardie from Petsmart (I know...I know...don't get me started...). We have been told he is just a few weeks old. The extent of our education/preparation was a 10-minute discussion with a neighbor that has a beardie, and we also made the huge mistake of listening to the advice given at Petsmart, some of which we now realize was very bad ("small screw-in uvb bulb is fine"..."give him meal worms"..."use ultra violet bulb for night heat"...3-4 crickets/day is enough to start"...). We also probably have handled our beardie way too much.

Our little guy has barely eaten for 5 days now...only confirmed/seen consumption has been one skinny 1/2" meal worm and one small cricket. (He may have eaten slightly more...unclear...). We have spritzed him with water 2-3x/day, which might be the only thing keeping him alive. He still looks/moves ok, but it's clear he's in dire need of eating.

The tank setup is decent (30 gal tank covered on 3 sides, with a few nooks and crannies, incl a cave, a shallow bowl of water, and a couple of elevated features), although the basking area may have been a bit too warm (have infrared gun...will adjust 100w bulb height tomorrow). We also now understand we need to increase the uvb lighting...hopefully we can pick up a T5 UVB setup tomorrow. At least we have jetisoned the purple uv bulb night heat light...

We cleaned out all food from his tank tonight because most we wanted to remove any remaining meal worms and did not want our beardie to get stressed by bites from crickets overnight (most of which were probably bigger than the space between his eyes anyway). The thinking is to reintroduce a few of the smallest crickets we can find in the morning.

So, what else should we do besides fix the uvb situation?
Syringe feeding?
Other insects besides super small crickets?

Any help appreciated.

Well, to start off, brands like exo terra actually do offer nicely performing compact uvb bulbs. However, many people still suggest going with a t5 tube since there is less room for error if the bulb is placed at a certain distance and because a tube provides uvb across a section of the tank rather than a small, focused beam of uvb near the basking spot. You only need a night time heat source if the temps dip into the 60s. If you need a night time heat source, a ceramic heat emitter is best as it provides heat without the light. Mealworms aren't a good idea at his age. When I got my beardy he was 6 months old and I fed him mealworms rarely. The reason is that supposedly there is a kink in the digestive tract of young dragons. So, mealworms and other hard shelled Feeders can cause impaction. While I do question the kink in the tract part(I've heard it isn't true before) but, since I'm no herpetologist or vet, better safe than sorry. Has he been pooping daily? If he isn't you should probably give him a bath and maybe some unsweetened apple sauce or pumpkin purée to promote pooping as he might be impacted from the mealworms, the large crickets might cause a problem too. Also try and alleviate pressure on his stomach/back since the large crickets can cause temporary paralysis and permanent as well if they put too much pressure on the dragons back. However, it's not a guarantee but you might want to be safe and do it and also try and give appropriately sized crickets.

It's also best to maintain a basking spot around 100 degrees. For feeding, feed him 3 times a day and as many crickets as he wants in 10-15 minutes. Dust 5 times a week and use a quality multivitamin like herptivite by rep cal twice a week. Also, the whole "crickets will bite your dragon" is more of a precaution. I use to leave crickets with my dragon on occasion and he never got bitten. Not to say it hasn't happened to other dragons but accidentally leaving crickets in like one day usually doesn't hurt any one. Just don't let it happen consistently since the crickets are actually capable of doing harm and Just check the soft spots like the toes, belly, etc if you do accidentally leave them in once. Also, tiny crickets tend not to do harm, its more often the adults with the developed jaws(which actually look really creepy up close).

If he Doesn't perk up you might want to go to syringe feeding and possibly seeing a vet if he isn't looking to well.