beardedclam
New member
HELP PLEASE..
Hi, my name is Jason and I am new to the forum. I have a 6mo old beardie that I got from a girl who couldn't take care of him anymore. Approx 2 weeks ago he shed for the first time since I have had him which is around 3 months, and now his tail has remained whitish gray and gives the appearence that he needs to shed it, but has not. It almost looks as if it's starting to swell at the base of the tail around and behind the cloacal opening.
I really knew nothing about the creatures prior to getting him other than that I knew as an animal lover, I would do the best I could to provide it with whatever it needs to keep it happy and healthy. Almost everything I have learned has been through personal research via the internet and great sources of info such as this forum. While I am sure you will all have questions as to his terrarium setup, feeding, care, and so forth.. I will do the best to describe this here.
He is a 6 mo old bearded dragon and is approx 14 inches from head to tail.
He is in a 40 gal reptile terr and I am currently using All Living Things calcium sand as substrate ( but plan to use tile in the near future ).
The light setup consists of a 100 wt. reptile halogen made by flukers (basking spot), a zilla desert 50 coil (which I intend to replace with a repti-sun 5.0 36" tube as soon as i get a fixture, already have the bulb), and a 100 wt red night heat lamp.
The basking sopt is roughly 105 -111 degrees measure with a crappy zilla multi guage ( yes I will get a probe asap.)
The cool side runs about 83 degress with the use of the heat lamp as well running 24/7 with a few half hour breaks to cool the lamp.
i run the UVB and basking light 12 hrs on 12 hrs off.
His humidity levels run at around 30% across the board with no water dish and about 40% with it.(he never uses it but i keep it there in hopes he will.)
I feed him approx 40 - 50 crickets / wk dusted once daily with Repashy bearded dragon calcium plus w/ d3, and once a day a salad consisting of mustard greens and green beens chopped up. occasionally a small bit of carrot.I gutload the crickets with critter culture bearded dragon food.
The past week I have been misting him and yesterday he got his first bath.. ( I never knew you had to bathe em, just found that out).
All water is treated with repti-safe.
Here are his habits.
All in all hes fairly friendly,
I handle him once daily and spend a lot of time around him as he is in my home office I work in at night,
He basks frequently and gapes like I'm told he is supposed to,
he cools on a log in the center of the terr about 6-8 in. under the uvb bulb.
He will eat his veggies but it sometimes takes some coaxing,
He is very aggressive while hunting crix. lately he has been sleeping under a rock hide which he had never done before.
This is my last shot before I take him to the vet.
Hope I answered any potential questions to help aid in the diagnosing of the issue I am having.
I will try and upload a pic if I can so you can see what I mean, workin on that now ( New to photobucket and noob forum poster ).
Thank you so much for any helpful advice that can be given.
Jason.
Hi, my name is Jason and I am new to the forum. I have a 6mo old beardie that I got from a girl who couldn't take care of him anymore. Approx 2 weeks ago he shed for the first time since I have had him which is around 3 months, and now his tail has remained whitish gray and gives the appearence that he needs to shed it, but has not. It almost looks as if it's starting to swell at the base of the tail around and behind the cloacal opening.
I really knew nothing about the creatures prior to getting him other than that I knew as an animal lover, I would do the best I could to provide it with whatever it needs to keep it happy and healthy. Almost everything I have learned has been through personal research via the internet and great sources of info such as this forum. While I am sure you will all have questions as to his terrarium setup, feeding, care, and so forth.. I will do the best to describe this here.
He is a 6 mo old bearded dragon and is approx 14 inches from head to tail.
He is in a 40 gal reptile terr and I am currently using All Living Things calcium sand as substrate ( but plan to use tile in the near future ).
The light setup consists of a 100 wt. reptile halogen made by flukers (basking spot), a zilla desert 50 coil (which I intend to replace with a repti-sun 5.0 36" tube as soon as i get a fixture, already have the bulb), and a 100 wt red night heat lamp.
The basking sopt is roughly 105 -111 degrees measure with a crappy zilla multi guage ( yes I will get a probe asap.)
The cool side runs about 83 degress with the use of the heat lamp as well running 24/7 with a few half hour breaks to cool the lamp.
i run the UVB and basking light 12 hrs on 12 hrs off.
His humidity levels run at around 30% across the board with no water dish and about 40% with it.(he never uses it but i keep it there in hopes he will.)
I feed him approx 40 - 50 crickets / wk dusted once daily with Repashy bearded dragon calcium plus w/ d3, and once a day a salad consisting of mustard greens and green beens chopped up. occasionally a small bit of carrot.I gutload the crickets with critter culture bearded dragon food.
The past week I have been misting him and yesterday he got his first bath.. ( I never knew you had to bathe em, just found that out).
All water is treated with repti-safe.
Here are his habits.
All in all hes fairly friendly,
I handle him once daily and spend a lot of time around him as he is in my home office I work in at night,
He basks frequently and gapes like I'm told he is supposed to,
he cools on a log in the center of the terr about 6-8 in. under the uvb bulb.
He will eat his veggies but it sometimes takes some coaxing,
He is very aggressive while hunting crix. lately he has been sleeping under a rock hide which he had never done before.
This is my last shot before I take him to the vet.
Hope I answered any potential questions to help aid in the diagnosing of the issue I am having.
I will try and upload a pic if I can so you can see what I mean, workin on that now ( New to photobucket and noob forum poster ).
Thank you so much for any helpful advice that can be given.
Jason.