New Owner - Typical new owner stress

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yonose12

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Hi! I posted on here about a week ago when I was considering adopting a beardie. Anyway, I went through with it yesterday and am now the proud and slightly nervous owner of this lovely creature:

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This is a few hours after I got her and rearranged her sticks a bit. She seemed to like this as a basking spot. Temperatures are 100-105 on her basking rock (using a zoomed thermometer with the probe placed directly on the rock). She was definitely a little nervous yesterday but ate some collard greens and then chilled out hard on the branch for the rest of the evening.

Couple of questions: First, am I doing everything right with my temperature measurements? I have an infrared heat gun and it reads anywhere from 5-10 degrees cooler than the thermometer probe when I point it at the same spot. With the gun I generally get readings of 98-101 on the basking rock and a few degrees cooler on the wood. The thermometer probe also seems to fluctuate a lot when I make small adjustments to the basking light. Should the probe be resting directly on the rock? Or should it be up in the air a bit? She sat on the probe for a while yesterday, which also seemed to affect the readings a bit. When in doubt I'm inclined to trust the temperature gun, which would mean the basking spot is maybe a little on the cool side?

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Second, I inherited her tank and lighting setup from her previous owner and I'm in the process of making upgrades. I have a reptisun t5 tube uvb light arriving tomorrow and a carolina custom cages fixture for it. I'm also getting a fluker's repta-clamp fixture to replace her current cheap metal one. She currently has a coil uvb fixture (I know) so I've placed it as close as possible to her basking light in the hopes that this will give her enough uvb until I can install the new fixture and bulb.

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That's pretty much it for now. I'm super excited to have her but I want to make sure she has everything she needs to be happy. Any suggestions or tips would be appreciated. I'll probably make another introduction post soon once I figure out her name and get some better photos!
 

KarrieRee

BD.org Sicko
Beardie name(s)
Hiccup he is 6 and Blaze is 4
It's good your replacing the coil-- the T 5 can sit on the screen w/ basking decor directly underneath approx 8-10 inches - the basking temps are w/ in specs- the probe should sit on the basking decor-- the material maybe throwing the temp gun off - go w/ your probe temp--- test the gun and probe on a different piece of decor and see what it does temp wise-- your dragon does not have a name? How old is she? She will like her new tank--- she may go thru relocation stress- so her eating may be off for awhile
Karrie
 

yonose12

Member
Original Poster
Thanks for the reply (and for replying to my last post)! The only reason she doesn't have an official name is because I'm indecisive. I also tend to nickname my pets some version of the type of animal they are so for the moment she's Lizzie :lol: . I have to say she seems to be doing pretty well from what I can tell. She almost finished the bowl of greens I left out for her this morning, took a big healthy looking poop, and was back on her basking spot when I got home.
 

KarrieRee

BD.org Sicko
Beardie name(s)
Hiccup he is 6 and Blaze is 4
Love the name ❤️-- she is settling in good then-- she will be happier w/ her new UVB as well-- if you want take her outside and have her sit on you for some good UVB- sit out there as long as you can stand the heat-- it will do her good too
Karrie
 
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