Hello from Pretoria, South Africa

[Markus77]

Hi peeps, my name is Markus and I am from South Africa.
I rescued a pair of beardies from a colleague of mine about a month ago and started the google hunt for information about the wonderful animals and found this great forum

A humble thank you very much for all the info you guys share on this forum! With out the help i found here these two dragons might have met the doom being slowly forgotten since the kids went of to study at varsity and no one took care of them
I constructed my Vivarium and got the medical info required to revive these two beardies from this great forum, special thank to Tracy for the emergency info!

Now i am the proud father of two beautiful beardies living in a DIY cage wich is OK for now i guess, Planning on changing to a fish tank type setup with a screen lid and adjustable airflow and automatic temperature control using a small air conditioning thermostat to control the heater pads and ceramic heat emitter as well as on the basking lamp i want to use a "dimmer" switch to fine tune the basking spot temperature. A lot of other ideas i have to fix mistakes and upgrade to best possible will be done as i go along in the near future.

Here is a few pics of my cage i built from melamine cabinet wood with a DIY reflector for my 2 x Zoo Med ReptiSun 5.0 42-inch tubes (the best i could find in a hurry for now, have ordered the 10.0 HO's on the internet but shipping takes for ever) :study:

I also have a 120w halogen basking spot bulb keeping it around 106 Fahrenheit / 41 Celsius on the basking spot and three 20w large underfloor heaters and a 150w CHE keeps the warm side at around 91 Fahrenheit / 32 Celsius in winter now and at cool side i have two normal household 14w CFL cool daylight bulbs for visible light and temp is around 75 Fahrenheit , had in two Zoo Med incandescent 25w daylight blue bulbs but did not give much visible light and i did not really need them so i replaced them with CFL's

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Well there they are, My two dragons
I think just getting the right lighting for starters as well as calcium powder and vitamins and plenty of real sunlight, lots of worms and crickets, plenty of greens and loving care made the difference. Both have supper appetites and eats three to four times a day. Now i must get the breeding box ready as my female is carrying eggs and will lay soon
I still need to do some research on what that kind of setup should be like but totaly keen to try my hand at the breeding part of these exotic pets.

Kind regards,

Markus.
Please let me know what you guys think of my setup and what else i can do to better their world!

 

[Phoenix76]

Wow! That is an awesome setup. I don't think it needs any upgrades. Just make sure the basking temperature is correct.

 

[plantkisser]

I agree, it is great!!! However, sand should go bye-bye pronto.

 

[Markus77]

Hello there!

Thank you Plantkisser, Phoenix76.
Sand has been replaced with tiles for now but going to build a new setup to separate my male and female.
My idea is to go as lightweight as possible to be able to move the cage so the maid can clean underneath.

I was out today to buy the materials for a carbon copy of this twin cage setup

[URL=http://s1377.photobucket.com/u...53/markusfreysen/212_1__zps456bf391.jpg[/img][/url]

Should take a couple ofdays or so to build, will update as i go along.

keep well guys&gals!

Markus77

 

[sammmycakes]

awesome looking setup!

Bearded dragons generally don't do well with undertank heaters as they don't seem to know enough not to let it burn them!
Your cool side sounds a little bit too warm, it should be 80-85 during the day for them to be able to go there and cool down if they need to.
The tank can also drop down to as low as 65 at night time and they will be fine, if it goes lower you should get a heat emitter instead of a "night bulb". Beardies need complete darkness to sleep and all of the bulbs tend to give off a little bit of lighting.

Glad to hear you switched over to tiles instead of sand!

Can't wait to see when you build their new house!

 

[jenn4turtles]

Hello & welcome!

Glad you replaced the sand. They will thank you for it!

If you can build it, that would be great. I priced those twin tanks online .... :shock:

So excited about the eggs! I have never done that, so I can't offer much advice, but there's a lot of info on this site (as you already know ).

 

[Taterbug]

Nice setup! There are some very nice controller units out there aimed at reptile keepers, some models are even remote controllable. Not sure what's your budget is, but it's one of my bits of dream equipment. It would give your more/better control of your environmental equipment than a dimmer would and I believe some of the high end models will control multiple devices/types of device.

Will your new setup have front opening doors? I couldn't dream of going from that to top open D:

Good luck on your build!