Housing 2 beardies

[ksl0588]

Hi I'm just wondering how I can house two beardies so that they could share one enclosure and save on electric bills. The enclosure, a 50-gallon tank currently has a 9-month old male beardie, and Im planning on putting a divider in the middle of the enclosure so that I can buy a new baby beardie and place him/her there. Problem is, I don't know how to make this "divider" and how to place the basking lamp, the UVB light is not a problem because it is quite long. I think placing two basking lamps on a 50-gal enclosure is not good because at the moment, Im using an extension so that the UVB socket, and the basking bulb socket can both be plugged. Before, one of my basking bulbs smoked literally because I think the extension can't hold the amount of electricity it produces (is this right?). Any suggestions from owners here who place two beardies on the same enclosure?


Here are pictures of the enclosure:

 

[BadCon]

Owning reptiles and saving money are mutually exclusive. Dividing that tank in half will make it virtually impossible to achieve a proper temperature gradient. Additionally that tank isn't large enough for two adult dragons, even without the divider. My suggestion is a simple one...hold off on getting another dragon until you can afford a second enclosure.

 

[BeardieGrandma]

I'd check out the numerous threads on the board of beardies fighting, biting off each others' tails, toes, feet, etc being housed together, regardless of size of tank...beardies are solitary creatures and are not ideally housed together. there are a few 'success' stories as well, but those are far and few between...i'd agree with badcon, reptiles are expensive to keep and maintain properly - it may be better to have sufficient money for vet, husbandry, housing and food for one, than to skimp with two...

 

[Denduran87]

what these two said. Wait til you can afford them better to have one happy dragon than 2 sad ones.

 

[ziggy23]

The way you describe won't save you anything on your electricity bill. It's the basking light that would raise the electric bill, not the uv light. Florescent tubes are the original energy saving bulbs, your tube is probably only like 25 watts or something.

I have a very large tank with a divider for my 2 adults currently, so I have some experience with this. I do not believe that that tank or the uv light is long enough. You have to have the cool side in the middle for both halves. You place a basking light on the other side, you raise the overall ambient temps of the tank, including the cool side. Too small a tank, or too close to the middle and your cool side gets too hot. With the basking lights having to be on the outside edge, then your uv light wouldn't be able to reach both basking spots.

Having done this, it is not something I would recommend except for emergencies. It was difficult to get the temps especially for the cool side just right. Even still my cool side gets a little too warm sometimes. It's so borderline, I have no choice but to use ac in the summer to keep it in check.

I probably didn't look as hard as I could have, but I had no luck finding a permanent divider. I investigated aquarium silicone, and that needed like a week before you could put animals in it. We had some difficulties crop up, so that project was put on hold and eventually forgotten. So my divider is a thick piece of cardboard tightly wedged in there and held up by large rocks. It does get knocked over from time to time.

Another consideration with using a divider is cleaning. You have to remove both animals when you clean it because of the fumes. It's a lot harder to keep track of 2 dragons. It wasn't such a big deal when they were smaller, because I could put them in a small tote or box or something. But now that they are full grown adults, it takes a much larger tote to keep them contained.

 

[thegreybush]

While the above posted advice is the best advice I'm going to share with you my experience. My disclaimer is this: If you cannot identify the warning signs and be able to make the necessary changes (i.e. If you are not going to be able to house them separately if it doesn't work out) do not even try it. It's not worth the risk. If you ARE able to identify the warning signs and can make the adjustments then this is what I want to share:

If they are started together as babies, you have a better shot. You will need a larger tank than what is pictured. Two females will be easier usually than two males. Don't pair a male with a female except to breed. The male will repeatedly breed her and dominate her until she just quits. I have two tanks with paired beardies in my collection. A pair of females (sisters) and a pair of males (brothers). They have been together since they were babies. The females have been together for 3 years and are both healthy. The brothers are 9 months and are at this point still very agreeable with each other. It's well known that they can turn on each other for no apparent reason, though. There is always somebody home at my house in the event of a problem. Provide two basking spots and two hides. If you can't provide a big enough enclosure to allow for two basks and one cooler area don't house them together. If you set it up where they are going to be in competition for the best/only basking site you are setting yourself up for a problem down the road. Maybe not right away, but its going to be a looming threat. If you have a long enough UVB tube you can centralize it to the two basking areas. My cool spot is beneath the granite shelves and a high spot in the middle. I use tight beam bask lights. There will be an established pecking order and they'll figure it out but I repeat if you don't know how to determine if its a dangerous situation don't take the chance. This doesn't mean that they'll fight for sure. It may just be head bobbing and submission. There can be a common feed bowl as long as they're both getting their fill. Mine eat together with no competitiveness between them.

It really is a roll of the dice. I have a 3rd male who canNOT be in the same area as the other two. He is the smallest one of the 3 but the biggest bully. He will pounce them, bite them and just doesn't have the "people skills" that the others do as I like to say. He was raised alone. On the flip side of that all 3 of my females are naturally submissive and can be together without any issues. The only time there was dominance shown was the first time the two sisters were allowed to run free in the house for the first time. It was a quick nip on the neck and that was it. Never again.

I hope you make the decision that is right for you and your dragons. We here at bd.org are enthusiasts of the hobby. We want the healthiest, safest, setups for our dragons and we want to point everybody who is new to it in the right direction. So we give you the easiest answer. When somebody says, "I want to save money. Can I (jeopardize the health of my dragon)," you may not get the most diversity in your responses. The best setup is to keep them alone. But if you insist on trying it, I'm going to give you what advice I can to minimize the risk. You didn't just sign up here today so you must have known in some part what responses were coming? Best of luck.

 

[ksl0588]

Hmm.. I guess its not a good idea then to house two beardies. I was planning to buy a new baby beardie from a breeder, but I also have an adult beardie around 9 months. Putting them in one 50 gal enclo is gona be really bad so I guess I have to stick with just one

 

[TheWolfmanTom]

A larger dragon will see a smaller dragon as food.