Going to need some help/ideas

[Dubah]

Well, for starters my beardie died yesterday, I got her as a BDay gift from my wife, who got her from petsmart.

Now one of the things I was curious about is petsmart sells 2 kinds of bearded dragons, 1 is called a fancy bearded dragon and the other is called just a bearded dragon. So is there a difference between the 2? The fancies are like $10-20 more expensive.

So the second thing was beardie died inexplicably, i took her to the vet, he examined her, and did some bloodwork, he couldn't find any reason for her death. Which leads me to the next question which is about UVB/UVA. So at petsmart when upgrading my beardies cage i saw 2 different types of these bulbs, 1 was a 5.0 which is the one i got her, and the other was a 10.0, which i didn't get. The reason I chose the 5.0 is because the box specifically stated that the bulb was for beardies and the 10.0 was for things like turtles. Now I've read all over the forums about people not getting the 5.0 and instead getting the 10.0, is that because the 5.0 isn't enough UVB/UVA or is that just because people are making sure they have enough UVB/UVA?

Third was cage size, so I was told multiple different things, I have a 20 gallon and a 40 gallon terrarium. Someone said you should move a beardie up to the 40 until it hits a certain age. However, when purchasing from petsmart there really isn't any way for me to tell the age of the beardie, so should I just go by size instead?

Now I have another strange cage type of question. Her housing/hiding areas. I bought my last beardie a few things to put in her cage, one was mainly to bask on, which she did exactly that, but everyone said they like to hide so give her some hiding spots, which I did, but she never used them. Is that necessary? Is there something I can do to make a beardie more comfortable to use them or is that just not necessarily important?

So this question is about water, how do you guys get your beardie's to drink? I had a small bowl for her set up, but she rarely used it, i always sprayed her veggies with water, and her sometimes just not in the cage. Other than that, she always drank while she was bathing. Now, I've heard some people talking about using a dropper, can someone show me what they mean by a dropper? I've looked and can't seem to find anything.

And last but not least is substrate, I've heard some aren't safe for them at specific ages, and some are. So I wanted to buy some repti carpet, but is that safe for a baby, or even an adult? For now I've been using paper towels, but it makes me feel like I'm just going cheap on her, that and the crickets hide under the paper towels and I always got to shoo them out so she could eat them.

Thanks in advance, I know this post is long, but hopefully I can get some of these things clarified before my next beardie adventure, and hopefully I can make a good home for the next one.

 

[Vh621]

First, I just want to say I'm sorry about your beardie, these little guys really do grow on you and i imagine it's a huge shock when they go☹
In pet shops fancies are just a way of saying this ones more colorful or its a particular morph like leatherback basically it's not a normal which resemble the wild type beardies. If you are considering getting another I would highly recommend you stay away from petshops, their beardies tend to be sick and a lot of them carry the deadly disease known as ADV or atadenovirus which is highly contagious and if you plan on using the same setup you need to really disinfect. I would recommend eitger adoption, a good small scale breeder ir going to a reptile expo.

The 5.0 uvb are more for tropical reptiles like turtles 10.0 are for desert species like beardies. So yes the 5's don't produce enough uvb for a beardie. I recommend a reptisun 10 or arcadia 12 d3 the t5 versions are the strongest.

As for cage size 20g is okay for a baby but keep in mind beardies grow really fast and would outgrow a tank like that very quickly. MINIMUM recommended for an adult is 40gb breeder but I've heard of people recommending larger as a minimum, a 4x2x2 size enclosure is ideal. I have my girl in a 40g breeder but I am building her a larger enclosure soon. I think she could stay in it but I just don't like tanks for reptiles. Tanks were made for aquatic animals not land dwelling species like beardies and keeping temps is a hassle as well as entering from above is annoying. Just my opinion on tanks. It's best and most cost effective to just get the larger enclosure from the beginning this way you can save yourself the trouble of swapping tanks and possibly stressing your beardie.

Beardies are aggressive baskers they seldom hide. Providing a hide is okay but not necessary, as long as you have a nice thermal gradient a warm side and cool side where your beardie could get a break from the lights your pretty much set. Providing things like branches and decorations can also provide some shade for them as well.

Beardies rarely drink standing water. In the wild they get water from either their food or lick water drops from leaves and things like that. The bugs they eat have moisture as well as their veggies however if you are concerned about them not getting enough water you can use a syringe the thing used to give babies liquid medicine. Just drop some on their nose and see if they lick it up. Baths are a good way to get them to drink as well. Some beardies rarley drink mine is like that. I have only seen her drink a handful of times but I know she gets a lot of water from her veggies as she eats a lot of them.

Good substrates are tile(ceramic, slate) non adhesive shelf liner, paper towels, reptile carpet, as long as it isn't loose substrate like sand your fine for the most part.

Please if you have any more questions ask away there's no such thing as to much or stupid or whatever. Lol.
Again sorry for your loss and I hope this helps with your future beardie.

 

[Dubah]

Thanks for the reply, love the info just reassures that I am at least on the right path, i will upgrade that UVB before getting another one.

On the substrate you said non stick shelf liner, why non stick? I have these peel and stick tiles I was wanting to put in there, just not actually peel them, basically not exposing the glue so they don't stick. Would that be a bad idea?

 

[Vh621]

Not a good idea, trust me. I ignored and put the sticky version, I didn't stick it either, she pooed and it seeped through and I tried to clean it but I couldn't thourghly clean because of the sticky part then it started to smell it was a nightmare, I could imagine all the bacteria build up under there. I had to get rid of it and now I have non adhesive shelf liner and I don't regret it. Now I don't know if that's the reason every recommends non-stick but that's my reason to stay away.