Is my beardie stressed? Sick? Please help

Ok so I got Charlotte for around two months. My guess is she’s about 3-4 months old up until recently she’s seemed happy and healthy. Occasionally tank surfed but once I took her out to play she was fine. She ate and pooped normal tho she’s never been a fan of baths or me spraying her. But recently she’s been acting strange when I turn on the light in the morning (12 on 12 off) she still just stays in the shawdows she’s put her head up and look around but not move (I’ve been moving her under the lamp every day tomorrow I’m not going to touch her all day and see what happens. She also used to jump on crickets the second u put them in now she could care less and maybe eats a few during thru the day and I take the rest alive out at night. She’s also had stress marks that come and go.

I am a first time beardie owner and a college student so her set up definitely isn’t ideal. She’s in a 90L plastic tote (29 x 18 x 13 in) I’ve put chicken wire on the left half and have a 80 wat uvb and uva powersun bulb sitting directly on the chicken wire (bulb not touching) the right hand side is the cool side and just has a plastic garden pot she found and seemed to like, she either sleeps directly in the pot or behind the shawdow of the pot. I normally take the pot out for feeding so she has more room to eat and then put it back when done. I can’t give accurate temps right now but I will be going and getting some good thermostats. Her basking spot is around 90f

Sorry that this is a little sporadic and unorganized um just trying to put as much info as possible. I can give anymore if needed and I also plan on moving her to a larger tank in a while, were building a nice wooden one with sliding front doors.

Thanks for any help in advance!!

I have picture but I can’t seem to figure out how to post them thru a iPhone

The 80w PowerSun may not be providing proper heat or UVB. The 100w should be about 8-12'' above the basking area so the 80w might need to be a bit closer. Although it may not be all that safe to put it closer than 8''. It is important to get accurate temperature readings so picking up a couple of digital thermometers with a probe you can check the basking surface and cool end temps is a good idea. Or you could use a temp gun like this https://www.amazon.com/Etekcity-Lasergrip-774-Non-contact-Thermometer/dp/B00837ZGRY/

90 is too cold for basking surface temps but is OK for the warm areas around the basking site. Best to double check the surface temps before making adjustments though.

On your phone you can upload photos by going to the green menu button at the top of the page and going to user image upload manager. Click the new upload tab and then choose an image and press upload button. Repeat for all of the images you want to upload and then you can post them to your thread using the XIMG button when you reply.

CooperDragon":25d6zji6 said:

The 80w PowerSun may not be providing proper heat or UVB. The 100w should be about 8-12'' above the basking area so the 80w might need to be a bit closer. Although it may not be all that safe to put it closer than 8''. It is important to get accurate temperature readings so picking up a couple of digital thermometers with a probe you can check the basking surface and cool end temps is a good idea. Or you could use a temp gun like this https://www.amazon.com/Etekcity-Lasergrip-774-Non-contact-Thermometer/dp/B00837ZGRY/

90 is too cold for basking surface temps but is OK for the warm areas around the basking site. Best to double check the surface temps before making adjustments though.

On your phone you can upload photos by going to the green menu button at the top of the page and going to user image upload manager. Click the new upload tab and then choose an image and press upload button. Repeat for all of the images you want to upload and then you can post them to your thread using the XIMG button when you reply.

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Thank you for the quick reply here are the pictures of her tank and one next to a lighter just for size comparison

She looks healthy overall based on those photos so that's encouraging. Your MVB might be enough at that distance but it's hard to say without testing it using a Solarmeter. How does she act if you take her out of the bin and interact with her? Is she alert then? I'd definitely work on getting more accurate surface temp readings around the bin and go from there. Perhaps the temps are off and that is causing her to slow down a bit. Even a couple of basic thermometers like this should help - one for the basking platform and one for the cool side https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0017N8W90/

CooperDragon":1k8zbcnl said:

She looks healthy overall based on those photos so that's encouraging. Your MVB might be enough at that distance but it's hard to say without testing it using a Solarmeter. How does she act if you take her out of the bin and interact with her? Is she alert then? I'd definitely work on getting more accurate surface temp readings around the bin and go from there. Perhaps the temps are off and that is causing her to slow down a bit. Even a couple of basic thermometers like this should help - one for the basking platform and one for the cool side https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0017N8W90/

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She’s normally completely fine with coming out, she’ll relax on my arm or leg or a little bit and then start getting curious and wandering, due to having two large dogs and a cat I don’t let her go to far but she seems to enjoy being out of her tub. And the stress marks normally go away after 10-15 minutes out but they come back sometimes (I think that may be when she wasn’t to adventure and I don’t let her) I’ll have a temp gun on Sunday Monday so I’ll take surface temps then. She did get moved around the other day like I moved her tank to a different room so I’ve been thinking maybe she’s still stressing over that

It's good that she is kept supervised and away from the other animals. It's possible the move caused some stress. It could be something coincidental like an oncoming shed too. I'd double check those surface temps first and go from there.

CooperDragon":29onycan said:

It's good that she is kept supervised and away from the other animals. It's possible the move caused some stress. It could be something coincidental like an oncoming shed too. I'd double check those surface temps first and go from there.

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So I went and bought a digital Aquarium terrarium thermo metre and just a cheap sticker temp thing I also bought a 100w red light and placed it in the middle of a new all screen cover I built. I’m waiting on the temp gun still but I’ll post some pictures of where the temps are and the light set up.


So the yellow is the sticker stuck to the plastic tote wall and it’s around 85 and the blue is the digital one sitting directly in the sand it’s around 76 and it’s been slowly climbing since I put the new light in around 5 hours ago

And the lighting set up in the second pic tomorrow I’m gonna put her basking light and rock more to the back left corner and the red light a bit more to the left but in the middle of the tank. I know it might disturb her but she sleeps in a shaded area and it’s better then Being cold at night, but I plan on just leaving the red light on tonight and seeing how it goes, She falls asleep with the basking light on normally anyways so I don’t think it will be a problem.

I advise against using red lights. They will make things look distorted to your dragon and are bound to cause problems. The overall goal is to imitate sunlight as closely as possible. You want strong UVB along with bright white/broad spectrum light and heat (infrared).

I wouldn't trust the stick on thermometer either. Those are better for aquariums and still give just a rough measure of temperature. You want to read the surface temps in the tank which require an IR temp gun or a probe to sit on the surface you want to measure.

Just got the surface temps of her basking spot and it’s anywhere from 92-100, I can rearrange it tomorrow to get a little higher and hopefully a bit hotter and get the new red light more centred also