Meet Smaug

[fenoma]

Hello Everybody, We would like to introduce our newest addition to our household Smaug. We hope to have him/her around for a long time and with the help we see here, Smaug may be around for awhile
Smaug is about 7-8 months old, We just adopted him/her 8 days ago.
We house him in a 55 gal tank complete with (1) 10.0 UVB 24" from ZooMed ,(1) 75W Halogen for day time basking ,(1) ceramic heat emitter for night, plus another 24" 20W flouresant from Lowe's on the other side of his 48" long enclosure.
We currently have sand as a substrate, that also is covering up some patio bricks that we have cleaned and use to help elevate fake tree stump
closer to the light/heat and it hits about 98-105 F at the basking site. Elsewhere its about 75-80 F during the day. And a little less than that at night.
We try feeding greens with some RepCal pellets that are soaked in water.
But mostly Smaug prefers crikets that we have dusted with some powder.
The crickets themselves have been gutloaded prior to being fed to Smaug.
Besides what we have described, what might can we do to provide a safe and comfortable place for Smaug.

 

[lat41n]

Welcome to the WONDERFUL world of beardies!! (From a fellow Jersian... Jerseyite... Jersey resident... hmmm, I'll have to work on that.)

My thoughts:

What kind of sand are you using? Play sand is OK as long as you are sifting out the larger pieces.

What greens are you feeding her?

What are the temps in the enclosure and what is the basking temp?

This site is great from learning from all of our mistak... uh, expertise.

Jonathan

 

[Wannabarockstar]

Smaug? isn't that the Dragon from the Hobbit? Just curious... Congrats on the new addition, BD's are fantastic pets.

 

[fenoma]

Thank You from Monmouth County, its a pleasure to be here.

Q: What kind of sand are you using? Play sand is OK as long as you are sifting out the larger pieces.
A: We are currently using the Repti Sand from PetsMart.

Q: What greens are you feeding her?
A: We have been feeding a mix of Kale (mostly), cooked squash, carrots, and some lettuce (little)

Q:What are the temps in the enclosure and what is the basking temp?
A: the temp varies from 75 to 98-100+ under the basking lamp duing the day. At night it is between 70-90

"This site is great from learning from all of our mistak... uh, expertise."
I hope to learn and share in our experience also
Hope Peter Jackson gets the OK to make the "The Hobbit" into a movie, then we'll get to see the REAL Smaug in action ......

 

[NintendoVixen79]

Hope Peter Jackson gets the OK to make the "The Hobbit" into a movie, then we'll get to see the REAL Smaug in action ......

Me too me too! I want to see him do a live-action version of the Hobbit so badly!!!! I love the book, and the cartoon, but to see the whole story as *real* by such an amazing director and including all the scenes the cartoon left out ^_^ *drools*

BTW- fellow New Jersian here too lol!

 

[Catalyst]

Sounds like you're off to a good start, but I just had a few notes on your husbandry so far

At night you don't actually need a heat source unless the tank temps drop below the low sixties, otherwise the nocturnal cooldown is both natural and healthy for them.

For future reference, you don't need a specialty basking/heat bulb - a normal household bulb, or better yet, halogen flood light will do the same job for less money (just a tip to help save some $ ).

The only recommended sand for beardies is sifted children's playsand. The problem with most sands sold by the petstores is that they clump more quickly and become harder, plus they often have calcium or other vitamins added to them which actually makes the beardie more prone to try and eat the sand which he then cannot digest.

As far as diet, the squash and carrot are both good (dont' cook either, just grate them raw, more nutrients that way), but kale should be fed only occassionally and iceburg & romaine lettuce aren't that great because they're mostly water with little nutrients. Check out this site http://www.beautifuldragons.503xtreme.com/Nutrition.html for a very helpful colour coded chart for which veggies are good how often. Some of the ones that are great daily salad staples include collard greens, dandelion greens, endive, and squash (raw).

How close can your dragon get to the UV bulb? With a florescent UV light, they need to have a spot where they can sit about 6" from the bulb in order to get optimum rays.

At 7-8 months his diet is okay to be mostly bugs. At 8 months my Randal was getting 2 feedings of crickets a day (as many as they'll eat in 10-15 minutes) as well as a daily salad that he ate some of. At about 9 months he cut himself down to one feeding of live bugs a day (40-60 crickets depending on his appetite) and is starting to eat more of his salad. I can't wait until his growing is done with so that I can afford to get rid of the crickets and get some feeders that don't jump..ugh, haha.

Something else that's good to do is give regular warm baths. Fill a container (I use my bathroom sink) with warm (not hot) water to their shoulders and put something down on the bottom so the dragon doesn't slip around. Then let the dragon soak in the water for a while (5-20 minutes). The bonus of this is that it keeps your dragon well hydrated (they absorb the water through their skin) and also keeps their tank much cleaner since after about 5 minutes they will usually poo in the bath, then you can just rinse the mess down the drain.

I think that's it for the moment. Congrats on the new dragon, they're awesome little creatures. Welcome to the forum, this is a great place to get the answers to all the questions these little guys put in our heads

-- Catalyst