mrspoodie
Member
This might be a really dumb question .. but I'm a noob, so bear with me.
We adopted a 3 year old beardie named Beans back in September. He's quite small for his age (15" long) but the vet we took him to declared him as healthy as can be otherwise (good weight for his size, etc). The people we got him from were completely ignorant about beardie care (he was on sand, ate lettuce, coil UVB bulb, dial thermometer, nothing to bask on, pooped (diarrhea) about 1x/week if that, never bathed, never handled/snuggled/let out to play .. etc) so after adopting him I spent hours on this site learning about everything possible. He is now on tile, eating proper greens and squash, Reptisun 10.0 tube, probe thermometer, getting his supplements and regular soaks (therefore regular, solid poops!), constantly snuggled and let out to play, etc. He is thriving with us and I have loved watching him become such a happy, healthy boy.
So my newest perplexing problem is: he's been in a 55 gallon (48 wide, 24 tall, 12 deep) tank his whole life. I got him some new stuff (hammock, large log for climbing and basking, etc) when we adopted him, to better utilize all the seemingly wasted vertical space. But I know the 12" depth is not good for an adult beardie, and it got me to wondering, could that be why he's so small? Would it be a good idea to move him to a 40 gallon so he's got more floor space? Would he grow bigger if I did this? He started brumating this week, so I thought now would be the right time to find a new enclosure and have it all set up and ready for when he wakes up. Ideally I'd like to build him the most rockin' viv ever but in the meantime am wondering if a change in size would be a good idea. Thanks in advance for any advice!
We adopted a 3 year old beardie named Beans back in September. He's quite small for his age (15" long) but the vet we took him to declared him as healthy as can be otherwise (good weight for his size, etc). The people we got him from were completely ignorant about beardie care (he was on sand, ate lettuce, coil UVB bulb, dial thermometer, nothing to bask on, pooped (diarrhea) about 1x/week if that, never bathed, never handled/snuggled/let out to play .. etc) so after adopting him I spent hours on this site learning about everything possible. He is now on tile, eating proper greens and squash, Reptisun 10.0 tube, probe thermometer, getting his supplements and regular soaks (therefore regular, solid poops!), constantly snuggled and let out to play, etc. He is thriving with us and I have loved watching him become such a happy, healthy boy.
So my newest perplexing problem is: he's been in a 55 gallon (48 wide, 24 tall, 12 deep) tank his whole life. I got him some new stuff (hammock, large log for climbing and basking, etc) when we adopted him, to better utilize all the seemingly wasted vertical space. But I know the 12" depth is not good for an adult beardie, and it got me to wondering, could that be why he's so small? Would it be a good idea to move him to a 40 gallon so he's got more floor space? Would he grow bigger if I did this? He started brumating this week, so I thought now would be the right time to find a new enclosure and have it all set up and ready for when he wakes up. Ideally I'd like to build him the most rockin' viv ever but in the meantime am wondering if a change in size would be a good idea. Thanks in advance for any advice!