Hi all! Long time lurker, first time poster. Thanks to everyone for all of the amazing information found throughout these forums. I've learned a great deal by lurking these last few months. This is a long post, but please bear with me as I try to go over everything.
Meet Dax.
We got Dax from Petco ( :roll: ) back in September. At that time, he was about 5.5-6 inches, so I'm assuming he was no more than 2 months old. He was missing one of his long toes due to an aggressive tankmate. Dax is now about 8 months old, about 18" long, and 413 grams.
We've always had him in a 36x18x18 tank sporting a 72 watt halogen flood bulb on a dimmer, a 22" Reptisun T5 10.0 in the Reptisun low profile fixture. It used to be about 14 inches away when he was younger and is now about 12 inches away from the basking spot. I also added in a 4500k LED lamp that was recommended on a beardie guide somewhere (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00VCWWLUM/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1). His lights are on just over 12 hrs each day (7:30 AM - 8 PM). As the months roll on, I'll start programming it to go up to about 14 hrs aday.
Basking spot is now around 100-105 and the hot end of the tank is upper 80s with the cool side usually 81-83. Nighttime temps are mid 70's. Humidity is usually around 30%. All readings taken with digital probe thermometers, 1 with a plastic black probe, the other with a metal probe. When side by side, the probes agree with each other.
Old Tank Setup:
New Tank Setup (as of 3 weeks ago):
Lighting:
I dust his food with Calcium w/ D3 5x a week and multivitamins 2x a week. He USED to be a champ at eating his bugs, downing 40-60 a day until early December. His staple was Dubia roaches with some mealworms, crickets, and superworms mixed in from time to time. He eats Kale and Collards without issue, though he isn't much of a fan of vegetable variety.
Mid-December he started eating less, which I chalked up to seasonal variation. As time went on, he slowly stopped eating entirely, spent his time in his hide, and looked miserable (at this time he was also trying to dig into our tile floor). I took him to a vet on 1/27 where he weighed 372 grams and was diagnosed with a high pinworm load (Vet said 3+ out of 4?). He finished his 3 rounds of Panacur and he now has a MUCH less stinky poo (forgot the dosage, but looked it up and seemed correct for an aggressive treatment for his weight). Vet seemed to know what he was doing and asked all the right questions. Although his eating drastically reduced over the past 3 months, his weight has generally trended up, peaking at 420 last week, but down to 413 today (already pood, hasn't eaten). I only started weighing him after the panacur treatment, so I don't have a full history of his weight.
He's rather active, hates being in his tank, and LOVES being mayor of NYC from his perch:
.
Even with all of this, he seems to have lost almost all interest in bugs. Aside from the week before I took him to the vet, throughout these last 3 months, he'd at least take 1 or 2 superworms a day along with his greens, but now he's not really eating his bugs at all. I tried adding more variety, having bought hornworms, mealworms, waxworms, and BSFL, but he just stares past them when I offer them to him. Since he hasn't eaten his bugs, I've resorted to dusting his greens instead. I currently keep an inventory of superworms and have a young dubia colony going ready for when his appetite returns.
He's always been a great dookie master, pretty much going every day. Most he's ever held out is 3 days. Even now, when he's not eating much, he still drops a nice, well-formed deuce each morning that has a soft urate and is well-formed. It's MUCH smaller than when he was doing his prime-time eating, but there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with it (not watery, not smelly like it used to be).
As I said, though, he's still very active. He roams the apartment, knows how to get to his window perch (we built a ramp out of a small piece of wood, cheap fleece, and silicone foot so it doesn't slide). When he's up there, I move his UVB there and it's about 12" away from where he sits. I took him on a walk in the hallway today and walked the entire length (about 80 yards) without issue, but he's currently taking a nap BEHIND his tank.
I changed up his tank a few weeks ago as I think that the rocks I used to use as his basking spot were too hot for him. Now I am positive his basking spot is 100-105 as the probe just sits there in the halogen's target.
I found this link https://www.beardeddragon.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=257966 that seems to show similar instances of what Dax is doing, but I did want to check in to see if I might be missing anything else. Yes, he glass surfs, but it usually means he wants out of the tank. I think part of his surfing habit is due to reflections from our windows.
So, is this hormonal? Is it just normal behavior that I should let run it's course until his weight drops or his behavior significantly changes? Or should I go back to the vet and ask for another fecal (not really concerned about this) and blood work to rule out any other issues?
So thanks in advance for any advice, and for reading all the way to this point.
Best to you all.
Meet Dax.
We got Dax from Petco ( :roll: ) back in September. At that time, he was about 5.5-6 inches, so I'm assuming he was no more than 2 months old. He was missing one of his long toes due to an aggressive tankmate. Dax is now about 8 months old, about 18" long, and 413 grams.
We've always had him in a 36x18x18 tank sporting a 72 watt halogen flood bulb on a dimmer, a 22" Reptisun T5 10.0 in the Reptisun low profile fixture. It used to be about 14 inches away when he was younger and is now about 12 inches away from the basking spot. I also added in a 4500k LED lamp that was recommended on a beardie guide somewhere (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00VCWWLUM/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1). His lights are on just over 12 hrs each day (7:30 AM - 8 PM). As the months roll on, I'll start programming it to go up to about 14 hrs aday.
Basking spot is now around 100-105 and the hot end of the tank is upper 80s with the cool side usually 81-83. Nighttime temps are mid 70's. Humidity is usually around 30%. All readings taken with digital probe thermometers, 1 with a plastic black probe, the other with a metal probe. When side by side, the probes agree with each other.
Old Tank Setup:
New Tank Setup (as of 3 weeks ago):
Lighting:
I dust his food with Calcium w/ D3 5x a week and multivitamins 2x a week. He USED to be a champ at eating his bugs, downing 40-60 a day until early December. His staple was Dubia roaches with some mealworms, crickets, and superworms mixed in from time to time. He eats Kale and Collards without issue, though he isn't much of a fan of vegetable variety.
Mid-December he started eating less, which I chalked up to seasonal variation. As time went on, he slowly stopped eating entirely, spent his time in his hide, and looked miserable (at this time he was also trying to dig into our tile floor). I took him to a vet on 1/27 where he weighed 372 grams and was diagnosed with a high pinworm load (Vet said 3+ out of 4?). He finished his 3 rounds of Panacur and he now has a MUCH less stinky poo (forgot the dosage, but looked it up and seemed correct for an aggressive treatment for his weight). Vet seemed to know what he was doing and asked all the right questions. Although his eating drastically reduced over the past 3 months, his weight has generally trended up, peaking at 420 last week, but down to 413 today (already pood, hasn't eaten). I only started weighing him after the panacur treatment, so I don't have a full history of his weight.
He's rather active, hates being in his tank, and LOVES being mayor of NYC from his perch:
Even with all of this, he seems to have lost almost all interest in bugs. Aside from the week before I took him to the vet, throughout these last 3 months, he'd at least take 1 or 2 superworms a day along with his greens, but now he's not really eating his bugs at all. I tried adding more variety, having bought hornworms, mealworms, waxworms, and BSFL, but he just stares past them when I offer them to him. Since he hasn't eaten his bugs, I've resorted to dusting his greens instead. I currently keep an inventory of superworms and have a young dubia colony going ready for when his appetite returns.
He's always been a great dookie master, pretty much going every day. Most he's ever held out is 3 days. Even now, when he's not eating much, he still drops a nice, well-formed deuce each morning that has a soft urate and is well-formed. It's MUCH smaller than when he was doing his prime-time eating, but there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with it (not watery, not smelly like it used to be).
As I said, though, he's still very active. He roams the apartment, knows how to get to his window perch (we built a ramp out of a small piece of wood, cheap fleece, and silicone foot so it doesn't slide). When he's up there, I move his UVB there and it's about 12" away from where he sits. I took him on a walk in the hallway today and walked the entire length (about 80 yards) without issue, but he's currently taking a nap BEHIND his tank.
I changed up his tank a few weeks ago as I think that the rocks I used to use as his basking spot were too hot for him. Now I am positive his basking spot is 100-105 as the probe just sits there in the halogen's target.
I found this link https://www.beardeddragon.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=257966 that seems to show similar instances of what Dax is doing, but I did want to check in to see if I might be missing anything else. Yes, he glass surfs, but it usually means he wants out of the tank. I think part of his surfing habit is due to reflections from our windows.
So, is this hormonal? Is it just normal behavior that I should let run it's course until his weight drops or his behavior significantly changes? Or should I go back to the vet and ask for another fecal (not really concerned about this) and blood work to rule out any other issues?
So thanks in advance for any advice, and for reading all the way to this point.
Best to you all.
