Depressed Beardie?

[Sangheili]

So, ever since I moved my adult female beardie off sand, she has been sort of depressed. On sand, she was everywhere, excited for her breakfast every morning and moving around and generally doing things a healthy beardie would be doing.

Now she is off sand and has been for about a year and a half/2 years. She has seemed very depressed and lethargic since then. She no longer is excited for her food, barely moves, and does not like to explore the room anymore. The ONLY thing that has changed about her care is a new, bigger cage and she is on tile. The new cage is only a recent thing, within the past 2 months really.
I'm really tempted to do the tank with half sand to see if it brightens up her personality a little more.

I'm feeding her based off the Beautiful Dragons nutrition guide and I vary her diet every few days. She gets a few blueberries or blackberries once a week along with some bell peppers. Her main diet consists of mustard, collard, and turnip greens with summer or spaghetti squash and maybe some apples now and then. [like, once every other week]
She gets a bath 3x a week
She gets dubia, superworms, and crickets on an every other day/every two days basis and they are dusted with calcium powder.
Her poop is very loose and messy and her urates are very hard, she doesn't poop often either.
I took a fresh sample and got it to the vet and they said they found no parasites, though I am going to conduct my own test to double check.
I'm going to get her to the vet soonish, need to get the money together first. But I'm not really sure what they could tell me other than doing another fecal test.

Just wondering what I should do?
I've been thinking about giving her to a new home but it's really hard for me to trust people will give her a good home. My dad paid for the cage and won't let me sell or give it away if I decide to rehome her. But I do have an extra 40-gallon enclosure.

Here is her setup:
Reptisun 10.0 changed every 6 months
Tile
3 hides [the platform, the tile holding up the blanket, and her wooden hide]

 

[destiny1998]

Hi. The set up looks good. Does she have a basking light? Do you know what her temps are?

 

[Tonja]

How about a small kitty litter pan filled with alfalfa pellets for a dig box so she can dig in it and not run the risk of a sand impaction?

 

[Sangheili]

Hi. The set up looks good. Does she have a basking light? Do you know what her temps are?

I use a Ceramic Heat Emitter. Basking spot runs around 88-90F because she'll keep away from it or constantly gape if it's higher than that. Cool side is around 78-80F.

I'm thinking about doing a dig box but the last time I did it she never wanted to leave the stupid thing.

 

[destiny1998]

She needs a bright white basking light. The che is more for night time. The flouresnt light by its self bothers their eyes. That might be why she is acting like that. There was another poster on here you had the same problem with her beardie and same set up. Turned out replacing the che with the bright white bulb made a huge difference in her.

 

[Sangheili]

She needs a bright white basking light. The che is more for night time. The flouresnt light by its self bothers their eyes. That might be why she is acting like that. There was another poster on here you had the same problem with her beardie and same set up. Turned out replacing the che with the bright white bulb made a huge difference in her.

She has always been on a CHE. The only thing that I can tell that changed how she was acting was the sand being removed. Before it was removed, she was active.
Why would she need a white basking light if she already has her UVB that gives off a white light? That makes pretty much zero sense? [to me at least] Unless someone can explain to me why this would change the behavior, I'm probably not going to shell out a bunch of cash for a basking light and fixture when the CHE has done the job.

 

[CooperDragon]

I think the substrate change may be a red herring. I agree that the CHE is for nighttime heat as it emits infrared light that is invisible to them and doesn't provide the proper spectrum to imitate sunlight. A UVB light emits short wavelength light and UVA (produced by a flood light or basking lamp) produces a longer wavelength light. UVA can penetrate skin further than UVB wavelength light. The combination is needed to replicate sunlight which is needed to keep dragons happy and healthy. The rest of the setup sounds pretty good, and your feeding schedule and variation is also sound from what I can tell. My best recommendation is to add a basking light that will produce UVA and heat to work in conjunction with your ReptiSun.

 

[destiny1998]

You don't have to shell out a bunch of money for a white basking light. I use a 75 watt flood halogen bulb I bought for 3$ @ Target. Also I for got to mention her basking spot needs to be 100 for her to be able to digest her food properly. The white bulb should be able to bring the basking temp up better than a che.

 

[jarich]

Fluorescents are actually pretty bad at creating UVA and lumens generally, which could quite possibly be the issue here. These are sun loving lizards, they are active in the day and bask in full sunlight. If the only light you have in such a big enclosure is a little T8 bulb, its not getting much recreation of sunlight. To give you an idea, if you measure UVA outside, you get readings up around 15,000 um. My high output T5s give off about 200 um, and those are the best in the business regarding fluorescents. They also dont provide much in way of lumens (brightness). Have you ever heard of people getting depressed in the winter? I have a feeling its much the same with these lizards. They are often kept in dark cages with poor spectrums, and I can only imagine the impact it has on them behaviourally.

Can I ask when you last replaced your fluorescent light? They normally last 6 months, but sometimes can go earlier. Also, as mentioned above, there is no need to buy reptile branded basking lights. They are no different to the halogens you get at the hardware store, with the exception of the pretty packaging. Just pick yourself up some PAR 38 halogen outdoor flood lights and that will help boost the lumens and some UVA too. It should hopefully fix your low basking temperature too. If you really want to see a difference, look into metal halide lighting. They are more expensive, but I would never say that improving the life of your lizard is a waste of money.

 

[diamc]

I agree with the others that she needs a bright white basking bulb and that should make a big difference in her behavior.

Basking spot runs around 88-90F because she'll keep away from it or constantly gape if it's higher than that. Cool side is around 78-80F.

What type of thermometer have you been using?