Introducing Beebz

[xp29]

I built my first beardie a massive enclosure, it was 6 foot by 3 foot by 3 foot. The little ingrate only use about a third of it lol . The funny thing was i lived in an apartment and built it inside, when i moved it just BARELY fit through the door lol.
I don't remember off top my head for sure, but a rankins may be ok in that smaller tank (if your looking to stay with the beardie theme)

 

[Axil]

I built my first beardie a massive enclosure, it was 6 foot by 3 foot by 3 foot. The little ingrate only use about a third of it lol . The funny thing was i lived in an apartment and built it inside, when i moved it just BARELY fit through the door lol.
I don't remember off top my head for sure, but a rankins may be ok in that smaller tank (if your looking to stay with the beardie theme)

Ha! I'm surprised you got that behemoth out. I was originally thinking of going 30" across but after measuring my daughter's bedroom door nixed that idea real quick. I went 25" just in case the enclosure was a little wider than 24". Just finished putting it together and it's 24 and 1/16. Which *might* mean I have room to shove my lamp holders behind it which would be nice.

What's less nice is the enclosure has two support bars spaced out 12" from either side. This means I can't mount my uvb light directly to the hood as intended, and I can't use the support bars as that would center my 34" light and not give Beebz much in the way of shade.

So it looks like I'm gonna be using wire after all. Which means the light will be lower than I anticipated.... which means I probably didn't need to buy the arcadia 12% after all . If they had given me one more support bar in the middle it would've solved all this, but alas, there is not one.

That aside I like the enclosure from dubiaroaches.com. I was a little nervous as there are no screws, it all just mallets together. After building it through I can say it's very solid, and was very easy to build.

Beebz perked up a bit after lunch:

But is currently looking a bit ornery:

And... as I write this she's attacking her tempature probe... wierdo

*edit* oh, and I don't necessarily want to stick to the beardy family, I do want to stick with the same climate though. Definitely not looking for anything that requires really hunid conditions. Was thinking perhaps a leopard gecko. I thought Rankins still needed more room but I'll check that out too.

 

[xp29]

You might ask Claudiusx about the uromastyx, they may not need as much room (and they don't need insects). They look friggen cool to, like little dinosaurs . Their skin looks rough but it feels like soft leather when you handle them.

 

[Axil]

So Beebz stand and enclosure are done. That's the good news.

Unfortunately the two 75w halogens I got don't even begin to provide enough heat. And the stain that seemed completely dry and odor free in my cold garage definitely has some smell to it my house. So it will be another couple days until Beebz is ready to move in

However since the smell was minimal I let her take a quick tour:

She does not approve of the smooth walls:

Apparently Dragons are capable of supporting thier entire bodyweight with the base of thier tail. Pretty impressive.

Beebz hasn't eaten much (by her standards) today. Only 10ish roaches for breakfast and lunch. She had two hornworms (her first time trying them) and 2 roaches for dinner. I was hoping she would work up an appetite on her field trip to the new enclosure but apparently not.

Hoping her appetite will pick back up tomorrow.

 

[xp29]

You could use the seagrass hammocks to give the walls texture for her to climb. The larger one are like 5 or 6 inches wide and like 24 inches long.
I use them in all but one of my habitats. Don't try to trim them though (i made that mistake) they unravel. Well i guess if your artsy you might could weave the ends back together. (I'm not and i couldn't rofl )
Your habitat looks sweet.

 

[Axil]

You could use the seagrass hammocks to give the walls texture for her to climb. The larger one are like 5 or 6 inches wide and like 24 inches long.
I use them in all but one of my habitats. Don't try to trim them though (i made that mistake) they unravel. Well i guess if your artsy you might could weave the ends back together. (I'm not and i couldn't rofl )
Your habitat looks sweet.

I'm glad you mentioned that. Because I Have one! I Bought it years ago for Rex, our first Beardie.

In my travels I ran across an article talking about how hammocks are super horrible, and can collapse,strangle them, pull off nails, not natural, just terrible, etc. So I was like "well crap".

Beebz does have a smaller corner one in her little enclosure, she uses it (less now) and I didn't take it out. I guess just about anything  could be dangerous, but it's really frustrating seeing enthusiasts and even experts with relevant degrees giving totally contradictory information.
I guess it shouldn't surprise me, info on dogs and even human children is similar. But I grew up with dogs, and felt somewhat qualified to sort the wheat from the chaff there.

The thing that makes me most nervous about the hammock I think is how much I can trust the suction cups. I did have the one in Beebz tank randomly let go when I brushed against it once. This despite the fact she climbed on it all the time and it held firm. I don't really want to make any permanent alterations to the enclosure like drilling in eyehooks or anything. How do you attach yours?

Also, any idea how much of an issue a lingering smell from a low voc wood stain is? It's not much. I feel totally comfortable having my daughter (the Hooman one, not the new scaly one) sleep in the room. But i dunno how much of an issue having Beebz live in an enclosure directly on top of it is.

I'm having to balance that risk against her remaining in her 18" wide enclosure that is just way way too small now. It currently has a fan blowing across it and all the heat lamps I bought pouring heat onto it to dry to fix it.

*edit* found and linked the article

 

[xp29]

In Zens i have wooden dowels on the screen with have twine holding it up on one end, on the other i drilled that back hide and used the leather bindings that came with the hammock to tie it off. The one that is suspended is tied to the one acting as a ramp and has the suction cups on the lower end. They do come loose ALL THE TIME thats why its tied tonthe other on. The ones in my other habitas are all tied into place. But those are a wire cage i converted.
With heat and fans the smell should be gone in a few days i would think. I don't think stain has near as much smell as paint. Polyurethane should cure pretty fast as well.
The pic is before i added the hammocks, i don't have one after the fact, but i suspended them under the ledge. Sinatra uses his, Sweet Pea could care less lol.

 

[Axil]

In Zens i have wooden dowels on the screen with have twine holding it up on one end, on the other i drilled that back hide and used the leather bindings that came with the hammock to tie it off. The one that is suspended is tied to the one acting as a ramp and has the suction cups on the lower end. They do come loose ALL THE TIME thats why its tied tonthe other on. The ones in my other habitas are all tied into place. But those are a wire cage i converted.
With heat and fans the smell should be gone in a few days i would think. I don't think stain has near as much smell as paint. Polyurethane should cure pretty fast as well.
The pic is before i added the hammocks, i don't have one after the fact, but i suspended them under the ledge. Sinatra uses his, Sweet Pea could care less lol.

I'm thinking maybe I tie one end to the support bar and shove the bottom under a paver or something heavy. She may will jump off though.

She leaped from the top of that basking platform I made in the new tank and belly flopped right onto the paver ~10im below. Totally on purpose, she didn't fall. So I'm a little leary of giving her the ability to climb all the way to the top of her 2ft enclosure.

Maybe I'll use twine to suspend it lower. Or maybe she is tougher than I think she is.

So do you think I should leave her in her small enclosure until the fumes are totally gone, or is it better to give her the space if it gets to the point I have to get my nose near the stand to smell it?

 

[Axil]

So many fans:

For some reason my wife and daughter don't find my running around yelling: "I need mor power, captain!" as hilarious as I do.

 

[xp29]

I think if you can't smell it just standing there it's probably ok.
Beardies are semiaboreal so her jumping is probably not super dangerous but i might would put a folded towel beside the higher part for a day or two till i was sure how she will behave.
I would leave her in the smaller one until i didn't need fans to not smell the new one.

 

[Axil]

I think if you can't smell it just standing there it's probably ok.
Beardies are semiaboreal so her jumping is probably not super dangerous but i might would put a folded towel beside the higher part for a day or two till i was sure how she will behave.
I would leave her in the smaller one until i didn't need fans to not smell the new one.

Sounds good. Fingers crossed it doesn't take more than a day or two. She has been grumpy and lethargic the past couple days, and her tail is about to shed again.

She also has decided she only wants to be hand fed. My daughter wants to make her choose to eat from her bowl or skip the meal. She has also made the point that as she is 12in long now she is probably no longer a "baby" and only needs 2 feedings a day anyway.

I have convinced her that Beebz doesn't need any more stress since she is dealing with the fact her enclosure is in a new room, and she will be moving again soon,  and she is about to shed again.

i guess this is good practice for spoiling grandkids some day.

 

[xp29]

I think you might be right

 

[Axil]

So for anyone following the Beebz saga there has been a development. Turns out Beebz is a boy. His nightly bed time story (no, seriously, he actually gets a bed time story. Stop looking at me that way) will feature less "beautiful Dragon Princesses" and more "Gallant Dragon Princes"

Thank you to those that helped correctly identify his sex. Hopefully his Majesty will someday forgive me for failing to identify, what is obviously a paragon of male Dragon physique.

 

[Axil]

Beebz was moved into his new enclosure earlier this week.

The stand *finally* finished curing completely so there was no smell. Amusingly this happened within hours of me lugging the thing out of the room and preparing a temporary replacement.

Lack of smell was verified by the vigorous sniffing of multiple family members, who have assured me: "no it doesn't smell, and you're a nut case". Despite this I still run an air purifier with an activated carbon filter sitting inside the bottom of the stand. I'm fairly certain the air Beebz breathes is cleaner than that of the rest of my family at this point. Dunno why the think I'm nuts *cough*.

Beebz seems to be adjusting well to his new environment. He did go through a phase during the first day where he would  bite the corners of the concrete pavers. Thankfully he seems to have decided that isn't a good idea and hopefully the little dingdong didn't damage any of his teeth learning that lesson.

His decor is pretty sparse right now. The suction cups for the hammocks don't stick to the pvc walls. I purchased a pair of wooden bookends off and am going to try to suspend the hammock between them underneath his uvb strip.

The biggest struggle has been getting enough heat into the enclosure.

That's 275w worth of zoomed basking bulbs sitting over his basking area and it's only just hitting 105f. I'm limited to 100w per bulb in these fixtures and the old flukers fixture I have that has a 250w socket isn't deep enough to accommodate normal a22 type bulbs.

I'm hoping through some expementation with different bulb types I can manage to use less wattage to get the tempature I need. I'd like to reclaim the single fixture for use over the center of the enclosure to set up an alternative basking site and distribute light more evenly.

Beebz has been on a diet of crickets the last couple days as despite how much he eats I always manage to underestimate how soon I have to restock roaches, and my BFSL died after about 1.5 weeks. He didn't seem to mind much, he likes crickets and thinks I'm mean for limiting him to 25-30 at a time.

His new bug order arrived today so now he'll have roaches and bsfl again. He also has some superworms and hornworms to mix in. I ordered medium hornworms this time, because the sma ones didn't grow much in 2 weeks and were tiny. Hopefully these don't grow super fast as they are about the right size now.

I'm also wondering when it's time to reduce his feedings to twice a day. We measured him yesterday and he's about 12in. Maybe 13 if he'd cooperate and actually stretch out all the way. We were told he was 6-8 weeks old when we purchased him in early February so if that was accurate he is still only 4 months old at the most.

Beebz has been enjoying the occasional outing with my daughter in her room. Yesterday they watched Jurassic Park together. And the day before somthing else. Beebz seems to prefer pooping on the floor of her room to the floor of his room, and after an incident they no longer sit on her bedspread.

 

[xp29]

Man he looks happy!!!
If you want hornworms to grow faster keep them kind of close to your basking lights, if you need them to not grow as fast keep them cooler (70ish i think)