Baby closing his eyes a bit..

[mark83]

Just got my lil guy and he seems really healthy but he has been closing his eyes a bit lately and it got me a tad worried. He seems healthy otherwise. He occasionally vents during basking, has arm waved a few times and his belly is fairly white and creamy looking. He also has eaten great since day 1 although doesn't want the greens. Also don't know if its pertinent but he jumps up and down against the glass sometimes. Cute as hell to watch his feet kicking trying to get a hold.

Here is the forum recommended info:

How old is your dragon? About 2 months.
How long have you had your dragon? Today is the 3rd day.
How long is your dragon?
What is the sex of your dragon? Unknown.
What size enclosure do you have your dragon in? 40 gallon breeder w/screen top.
What type of substrate do you have on the bottom of your tank? Tile.
Do you use UVB lights? Yes. ReptiSUN 10.0 24" 18 watts.
How old is your UVB bulb? 3 days.
How close can your dragon get to the UVB? 6" maybe 4" if he wanted to stand directly under it but hes typical basking spot puts him around 8".
Do you use a separate basking bulb? What kind and what is the wattage? Yes. Its one of those Reveal house bulbs, 100 watts.
What are the basking temps? Around 103. Slightly higher with a second 75 watt soft white on also.
What is the cool side temp? Low 80's.
Do you take the temps with a stick on thermometer, a digital thermometer with a wire and a probe end or a temp gun? Digital with probe.
Where exactly are you taking your basking temps? Sensor is on his log directly under his basking light.
Do you use a heat rock or heat pad? Neither.
What do you feed your dragon? How often do you feed and what time do you feed (morning, afternoon, night)? Dubia around 9am and again around 4pm. Also a mix of collard and turnip greens offered in the morning before the dubia and again before the dubia in the evening.
Do you gutload (feed) your crickets, worms, etc? Dubias are eating currently eating a mix of the roach guys chow and cat food.
Do you use vitamin or calcium supplements? What brand(s)? How many days a week do you use each of them? I use Repashy superfoods bearded dragon calcium plus (vitamin/mineral supplement) by T-Rex 2x/wk(thats the plan anyway) and Rep-Cal Calcium with no phosp and no D3 5x/wk.
Is your dragon having regular bowel movements (poops)? Yes, everyday so far. Two today but the second was just a small amount of urates.
Do you bath your dragon? How often? Not yet, he isn't settled yet and will jump out of my hand so I don't feel comfortable taking him out of the viv.
Do you mist your dragon or offer water other than in the bath? I have misted him a couple times and also put drops of water on his snout when I first got him.
Does your dragon share an enclosure with another dragon? Nope.
Have you gotten a vet check and fecal done? No, figured after he was well settled in his new home I would get him a check-up just to make sure all is well.

Could it be the Reveal bulb? They are supposed to show color better but maybe its bugging him? Also I know the soft white isn't good so I don't use it unless I need to get his temps up. Plan on buying Zoomed style basking bulbs and I'm getting a fluorescent bulb(one of the 5000k types to simulate daylight) in the near future.

Thanks.

 

[Drache613]

Hello,

Congratulations on a great setup, first of all.
I think that the reason he is closing his eyes off & on will be the Reveal light bulb. Switch that out to either a regular white household light bulb or a bright halogen bulb. I love the halogens, they are so bright & white.
I included this information in my UVB article here on this site. The Reveal bulb, while it looks great to us, is coated with Neodymium. It coats the bulb to screen or filter out the yellow hues of the natural light, which to normal human eyes makes the light spectrum "appear" brighter than it really is. So, it is artificially brightening the area with the coating. Now, for reptiles their eyes can tell the difference. The light appears to "pop" or change & is uneven to them since it filters out the yellow hue that they need to balance out the color spectrum. The coating also alters the CR index so it is not really as bright as it is rated either.
So, it is best to just avoid all lights coated with Neodymium coating.
Otherwise, nothing else in your setup needs to be changed.
Since he is still settling in, you can forego the fecal for now, give him time to get accustomed to his new home right now. It sounds like he is eating well anyway which is great.

Tracie

 

[mark83]

Thanks. Yeah I had a feeling it was the Reveal too. I'll get that switched asap.

On a side note today he was looking around kinda sporadically and jumping on the glass and then crouched down real low and started showing stress marks. Well I ended up finding a gnat flying around in his cage. Amazing that such a little bug could stress him out so much. Worst part is I can't keep tiny gnats out of the cage so it could end up being an on going issue.

Having a baby BD is kinda like having a human baby except that instead of crying his belly turns black

 

[tundradragons]

Having a baby BD is kinda like having a human baby except that instead of crying his belly turns black

so true lol, try having a dozen at once!

just for info mark your baby was housed under a reptisun 10.0 and a zoo med 75 watt basking bulb here.

hope that eye issues goes away with the bulb switch.

Cheers,

Charles

 

[mark83]

just for info mark your baby was housed under a reptisun 10.0 and a zoo med 75 watt basking bulb here.

Well thats good then cause I have the reptisun 10.0 already and I'm switching to the zoo med basking bulbs as soon as I get a chance to hit up the pet store so he will have exactly what he is used to. I switched to a 75 watt halogen for the time being tho, wanted to get that reveal out asap.

So far this morning he is still closing his eyes and showing stress marks again. No clue why this time. All the conditions seem fine so I'm kind of taking it with a grain of salt.

 

[mark83]

well I found another tiny black gnat flying around. I think it was the cause of his stress this morning.

It seems like he is closing his left eye mostly and twice now I've seen him trying to rub the side of his face on his log. I've looked at the eye and can't see anything abnormal. Also he is still eating and alert, right now his tail is curved up in the air which I remember reading was a sign of a healthy dragon.. I'm kinda lost as to whats going on, he is still showing stress marks. :dontknow:

Really frustrating since I've been so careful in making a point to do everything right..

 

[tundradragons]

maybe he's got a bit of skin stuck there from his shed, have you given him a bath yet? If not I suggest you give him a warm soak.

hope he gets better soon, never had eye problems as i use the above mentioned bulbs exclusively.

Charles

 

[mark83]

I don't see anything on the eye and he didn't do it the first day or so. I can only guess he is either getting ready to shed again or he got something in there. I honestly have no clue. I haven't given him a bath yet because he seems skittish still. He will run from my hand sometimes and jump out of it also. I've never really picked him up beyond a couple inches inside the cage unless he is sleeping because then hes too groggy to care much.

Maybe I'll put him in a tub that will fit in the cage that way it wont be as stressful for him.. I don't know I'll figure something out...

BTW going to get as good a picture as I can of his eye tomorrow. I'll post it here just in case someone else sees something I'm not.

 

[tundradragons]

I'll take a look at his eye when you post it,

Charles

 

[mark83]

Okay so here are the pictures. The best I could do with my cell phone. The eyes look fine to me but I'm thinking the back and tail look a little faded? Also I took a picture of his stress marks, these have been constant lately and I don't know why. They aren't really dark so its not like he is totally freaking out but still its disconcerting.

Left Eye:

Right Eye:

Stress Marks:

Back:

 

[mark83]

A little update. I gave him a warm bath earlier but he got pretty scared so I had to cut it short. Now he has been badly stressed all day and is currently laying flat and acting like he has given up. What in the world is going on??

 

[tundradragons]

I used to bath him in in the bathtub at home, run the water then set him in it should be just warm to your hand. (or around 80-85 degrees if you have a thermometer) they will get scared at first, but will settle in a few min usually, what's your light schedule at again, I run a 8:30am-9:30pm schedule here,

do you have cats? maybe they are up on the screen or antagonizing him some how, mine are kept out of the baby room mostly and cannot jump on their screen top.

my female took about 3 weeks to acclimate when I first got her, as long as he eats and moves around I'd say he's OK, cinder wouldn't eat for me for an entire week. scared the crap out of me.

in the pic with the stress marks I do see some shed in there, I'm guessing he is going into or just finishing a shed which can cause some stress. do you have a bowl of water in the cage for him, I had a small bowl in there they could drink from.

the little ones are hard to diagnose mark, honestly if he's eating and pooping, I wouldn't over worry yourself about the stress marks, those are actually not too bad, if he goes really dark that's bad, his father actually has black lines like that all the time, is he moving around again? sometimes they will just flatten out and lay there when they are cold (after bath time). gotta soak up all them warm sun rays!

here's an example of bad stress marks after cats and picture time:

and a pic of papa (he's in shed) so you can see his belly marks

 

[mark83]

My light schedule is 830am-830pm. Its automatic so its the same everyday.

I do have a cat and I've been really on top of keeping him away from the viv but I wouldn't surprised if he sees the cat moving around the room and that scares him a little. I've actually added another piece of poster board inside the viv basically blocking off his basking spot from view. The viewing window is now like 10" by 24".

I do have a large water bowl with a natural ramp.

He has gotten really dark a few times now but I'm honestly starting to think its all about these damn gnats. It seems like every time he is really stressed I find a gnat in the viv. I'm gonna hang a piece of fly paper as close to the viv as I can and hope that takes care of em.

I know what you mean about them flattening out to soak up heat but he doesn't bask like that he lays his back legs out behind him and props up on his front. The times he has flattened out were obviously from stress because he acted stressed right before and showed dark stress marks. Its like the longer a gnat flies around in the cage the more stressed he gets until eventually he just cowers down.

I do feel a lot better with him still eating and being alert. If I could just figure out the stress and eye closing everything would be perfect.

 

[tundradragons]

could very well be the knats, are they coming from outside? there are a number of way to kill them, those strips don't work all that well, lemme know maybe we can get the source of them all together!

 

[mark83]

Not sure exactly where they are coming from. I'm not seeing them very often at all but I'm starting to think it may be the garbage disposal, I read they can come from drains and if you pour bleach down them it kills em off so I'm going to try that.