Brumation, or not..?

My beardie, Norbert, is probably about 6 months old and he has brumation symptoms, I think anyway. I fed him dusted crickets last night, it looked like one or two were eaten, but the rest were laying dead in the tank after an hour or so. Norbert keeps off of his basking spot, and when I hold him he doesn't really respond to anything... When I put him back, I put him on the vegitation-looking part of his basking spot, but later I came back and he was laying upside-down. I went and checked him, he scrambled up when I touched him, but just laid there. A friend of mine took a look at him and mentioned that he's probably brumating, but to keep a close eye on him... There's no reptile specialists near me, and I have no clue what's going on... His beard and upper part of his stomach is dark. He wouldn't drink either...

No it sounds like something is wrong with him. Being upside down and having a dark black beard indicates distress. Can you provide more information about the lighting you have and what his primary diet is?

CooperDragon":2czy38h1 said:

No it sounds like something is wrong with him. Being upside down and having a dark black beard indicates distress. Can you provide more information about the lighting you have and what his primary diet is?

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He passed away, a local vet was able to confirm it
But just for the future, if I get another beardie, I want to make sure I didn't do anything wrong, or I can fix what I did wrong...
The lighting I have is ExoTerra uvb 10.0 for desert reptiles
The heating light is a low-quality light, but it kept the tank warm; it's an All Living Things 100W bulb
He was on tile, daily spot clean, and ate calcium and vitamin dusted crickets (the dust was mixed together) and very little salad. When he ate salad, it was apples, snap peas, and mustard greens, and a few cherry bits here and there. Every two weeks I gave him one mealworm, also dusted, it was his favorite snack.
I hope I didn't end up hurting him...

It sounds like he had some underlying issue going on. If he was eating plenty of crickets every day that's good. The lighting he had wasn't the best quality but may not have been related to his illness. The All Living Things basking lights have a neodymium coating on them which filters yellow color making the light look bright to us but could make things look distorted to a dragon. The ReptiGlo tube is OK but not the best. It would have provided best output 6-8'' above the basking area and would need to be in a fixture that doesn't have any plastic between the bulb and basking site which would intercept UVB. If you do decide to take in another dragon down the road I will be glad to review your setup and offer suggestions for improvements so everything is just right.

CooperDragon":9n915kcr said:

It sounds like he had some underlying issue going on. If he was eating plenty of crickets every day that's good. The lighting he had wasn't the best quality but may not have been related to his illness. The All Living Things basking lights have a neodymium coating on them which filters yellow color making the light look bright to us but could make things look distorted to a dragon. The ReptiGlo tube is OK but not the best. It would have provided best output 6-8'' above the basking area and would need to be in a fixture that doesn't have any plastic between the bulb and basking site which would intercept UVB. If you do decide to take in another dragon down the road I will be glad to review your setup and offer suggestions for improvements so everything is just right.

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Before getting the uvb light I did research on it, and the internet said it was fine (everything is true on the internet, right? LOL) and would work through screening. Before getting it, he had symptoms of MBD, but they cleared up after getting the light. Though, for all I know, it could have made it worse... His basking spot is about 10" from the top of the tank, and I kept it above the basking area, but the mesh probably didn't help any...
Thank you for the information!

Mesh will intercept some of the UVB not not all of it. A T8 bulb won't really be powerful enough to be effective beyond about 6'' through mesh. It's OK in something small like a 20g tank and certainly better than no UVB light at all, but there are stronger, better options available out there.