Hello everyone! I have been scouring the forums trying to find some answers to this particular problem, but haven't quite been able to. My bearded dragon is about 10 months old now, and I got her last October. Up until a few weeks ago, she was incredibly active and a voracious eater. She would chow down on all of the dubia roaches that I would offer her and generally eat about 1/3-1/2 of the salad that I provided her daily. However, within the last few weeks, she has begun to sleep a lot more with her nose tucked into the corner of the tank stretched straight out. She stays on the cooler portion of her tank most of the day, and she is rarely eating the roaches that I offer to her, generally about 10 every few days.
I take her out every day or every other day, and she gets fairly active when out and runs around for a while scoping everything out. Has anyone ever experienced something like this like with their beardies? I've wondered if she was going into brumation, but I am thrown off because it is summer here. I would appreciate any advice that you all may have
Hey! Thank you for responding! I'll post a picture of the tank setup tomorrow, but for her backing spot, I have a 100w heat lamp. For the uvb, I am currently using the reptisun 10.0 T5 tube lights. I had read and heard from numerous people that this was a pretty solid uvb bulb for what she would need.
If you know someone in your local herp club or maybe a pet shop who has either a Solarmeter Model 6.5 or Model 6.2 , ask them measure either the UV-Index or the UVB flux in microW / sq.cm at 30cm from the tube.
You might not be able to find someone who has a Solarmeter Model 4.2. though , so if UVA is the issue you will have to infer this from either the UV-Index or UVB flux.
This will tell if the UV tube producing sufficient levels of UV irradiation , there has been an use with Zoo Med T5HO 10% tubes (with gold end caps which had substandard phosphors that decayed much faster than they should ==> a very fast decay in UV output over a period of only a few months).
I am not sure if this issue has been resolved and Zoo Med T5HO tubes are back to spec.
The symptoms described indicates UVA flux is not adequate as a likely cause.