Misses sand from old tank?

[TipsyTraveler]

So my sister has a male bearded dragon of around 1-1/2 years old. I noticed she had a 20gallon long, which i thought was too small for him, being 12" and all. so i gave her my 50gallon tank, she had sand in there (not calcium sand, just sand) and he has never been impacted, or eaten any his whole life so far. so we moved him and his lights (of course a hotter basking bulb) into the new 50gallon, but not the sand. we put him on news paper and he was always really agitated. we put him on paper towels and he was always agitated, but when we put him on his old sand he was a sweety pie. We decided to keep him on it. Just wondering what you guys thought about this/any other experiences you have had similar to this.

 

[Derobmi]

Well, you could make a dig box for him. Maybe that would alleviate his desire to dig. I use whole flax seed in my dig box - it is supposed to be safe and I've had no problems. I'm glad you got him out of that 20 gallon.

 

[lizzieish]

I think my dragon might be doing the same thing! She's gone nuts at the moment (I made another thread about it) but researching online suggests her crazy behaviour (running back and forth, glass dancing, trying to climb the walls) suggested she might not like something in her tank.

The viv is 4x2 ft so she has lots of room. For the first year and a half of having her I kept her on sand or wood chips, she never ate it and was always fine. I then changed her onto plain paper (I'm waiting to buy some reptile carpet) and she's crazy now! I'm wondering if the change is substrate is causing this at all? Also, her old tank was a little too cool (around 30c) and this tank is now the correct, higher temp with the hot end being around 37c so also thinking if there is such a thing as a dragon being too hot?!

Have you put your dragon back on sand and if so, have you seen any changes in behaviour?

 

[TipsyTraveler]

After putting him back on his sand in the large tank he went back to normal.