New beardie issues

[jswjimmy]

My girlfriend just picked up a juvenile leather-back and I had a couple questions/concerns that I feel like I need to ask about...

1: Our apartments temperature is controlled by our landlord and tends to hover around 60F. Just to get the get the basking area up to 90F we needed to upgrade to a 100 watt basking bulb (20g long tank and we are using a reptisun 10.0 CFL; we want to upgrade to a t8 or t5 but wanted to wait till this one needs to be replaced. Cool side is at 79F). Because of the basking light it is a never ending battle to keep the humility up. Is there anything we could do about this?

I have already taped off a large chunk of the mesh top to try to keep water in and have given him a much larger water dish and it still drops like a rock to ~10-20% 45 minutes or so after misting the cage.

2: is 90F enough (measured with a digital probe just above the basking rock)? We had an UTH which helped get it up to 96F but it felt like the floor under his basking rock was way too hot and its where he sleeps so we turned it off out of concern. I would add a heat emitter but it would just make my humidity issues worse.

3: He always hides, never comes out and never eats minus a few nibbles of veggies. The way he acts around crickets make me think he is scared of them. He is starting to loose weight and nothing we do will get him to eat. He doesn't bask and always looks depressed. He always holds his head down when we pick him up to clean the tank or bath him and he normally has a death grip on your hand but will randomly violently try to roll out of your hand. While I would normally think he is just getting used to his new environment the weight loss and behavior really concerns me. This is our second dragon and our last one acted nothing like this.

My girlfriend was concerned that he wasn't getting enough light (we have had him for a week now) so she temporarily removed the hiding spots for today and I know this isn't ideal but its all we could think of.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you!

 

[AHBD]

Hi there....it sounds like there is definitely something wrong. Where did you get him ? Although your uvb light is not ideal, it wouldn't cause these symptoms in a week's time. He almost sounds like he has adenovirus.....they get weak, don't eat and may have seizures or roll/flip on their back. You can try baby food squash/green beans/ chicken as well as taking an insect, smashing it so the guts come out and rub it on his snout. That can sometimes spark their appetite. The water in the bowl should be very shallow, about 1/2 " because a weak/disoriented baby will drown very easily.

Try offering water with a feeding syringe [ sames as the baby food ] in case he's dehydrated. And yhis is a health issue so p.m. one of the mods. to see if they'll move it to health or E.R. You'll get more responses from other posters there. I hope your little one will be O.K !....hopefully it's something that can be corrected more easily like a calcium deficiency rather than adenovirus.

Oh, one more thing....do you have a CHE [ ceramic heat emitter ] to raise the temps. at night ? CHE's give off heat but no light, so the dragon is warm at night without being bothered by light.

 

[diamc]

[Moved here to get the attention it needs]

I agree with AHBD, something is wrong. It's good you are using a probe thermometer but rather than getting a temp ABOVE the basking rock, you should place the probe end so that it is laying right on the basking rock and then wait about 45 minutes for the temp to stop rising. What is the temp on the bottom of the cool side?

I would highly suggest that you get a Repti-Sun 10.0 strip fluorescent as we are still reading negative issues regarding the CFL's including avoiding the basking area, eye issues, lethargy, loss of appetite and even balance issues and some of those symptoms can come on after only being under those bulbs for a short time. Some beardies are more susceptible than others it seems.

Would be a good idea to get some baby food in him, the ones that ABHD recommended. Be sure to add some chicken or turkey baby food to one of those vegetables as he needs some protein asap. You can also add a small amount of calcium to the mixture.

Please keep us updated on him and hope you see some improvements soon.

 

[jswjimmy]

We have been able to hand feed him baby food mixed with calcium and we were able to put his basking rock back in. While he doesn't sit on top of the rock he spent most of the day out. His little rolling seizures seem to have stopped and he is standing now but most (not all of) of the time he seems to be supporting some of his body weight with his head. He is actually looking and walking around a bit now though but he still doesn't eat on his own and has no interest in crickets.

After siting on the rock for a while the probe is reading 102F and we haven't had a chance to do the same on the cool side yet but we will.

He is still acting very strange but its nice to see a little improvement. We got this dragon at Dave's Dragons in New Hampshire; we were trying to avoid the bigger stores. There is no heat emitter but the lowest I have seen it drop was around 68-69F just before the lights turn back on (we are on a timer with 13 hours on).

We will look into the better UVB bulbs; will there be much of an output difference between T8 and T5? I can only find T8 housing and lights locally sadly and I would like to get it ASAP if it might help.

 

[diamc]

Good to hear that he ate a little baby food and that the temps are higher now. You might want to think about getting a low wattage heat emitter soon because keeping the tank temp about 80 overnight would help boost his immune system.

There is quite a bit of difference in the output of those tubes. Since the T5 is a high output bulb, the distance to the basking spot can be 12 to about 16 inches and even on top of a screen, the output is still good. With the T8, the distance should be 6 to 8" to the basking spot & should be mounted in the tank because the screen would lower the absoption of it by close to 1/2. If you can only find a T8 fixture and bulb right now, as long as it is mounted as stated above, it would be healthier for him than the one you have now and would disperse UVB into a larger area.

 

[jswjimmy]

So we noticed crickets in his poop today... he hasn't eaten one in several days. The guy at the pet store recommended medium crickets and we thought they were too big at the time but we figured if he was already eating them that it would be fine... anyway he is still acting strange but is slowly eating and moving around more and more; we will be getting small crickets tonight and probably a heat emitter. After looking at local sources we think it will be worth the wait on a T5 fixture from Amazon.

 

[jswjimmy]

Thanks for the help everyone I will keep you updated on his progress but he already looks a lot better now.

One more question; the plant in this picture... We got it at the pet store to help with the humidity but it didn't list what kind of plant it was. What is the name of it and is it dragon safe?

 

[diamc]

It looks like a jade plant but hard to tell for sure. Here's a list of non-toxic plants for reptiles. http://www.lllreptile.com/articles/2-list-of-nontoxic-plants-for-your-terrarium