New owners with some questions

[Topper]

My girlfriend and I just got a bearded dragon, as she's wanted one for years and was finally in a situation to get one. So far, everything has seemed fine. We're the types to meticulously research on the internet before commiting, but we have a few specific questions now that we're set up.

1) Right now all our light/heat is from a 100W Powersun lamp from Zoo Med. I know they need heat, light, and UVB, and it claims to provide them all. The heat is fine so far, between 105-111 at the hottest basking spot depending on the temperature. We may get an under-tank heater or a ceramic during the winter when it gets colder at night. Anyway, my question is, is it giving enough UVB? It doesn't have any info on exactly how much it's emitting. If it's inadequate we do have Reptisuns available at a local shop, I know those are the best.

2) Any tips for some kind of stand to hold the lamp that isn't gonna be 30 bucks? Right now we have it resting on the screen top of his tank which is fine until we need to move it to get in there.

3) We've quickly decided that feeding him crickets in his tank isn't very ideal. We got a fairly large 40 gallon because we didn't want to upgrade a few months down the road, and there's lots of places for crickets to hide. Once they're out of his immediate line of sight he tends to ignore them and they can be really hard to catch. We tried feeding him in a small cooler so he had easier access and we had an easier cleanup for the ones he didn't want, but he wasn't hungry about 7 hours after his last meal. Any tips for this process, and do you think he'll be fine eating in the smaller area once he's hungry?

4) Still hasn't touched his greens. In the shop they had some random lettuce in the cage with the younger ones. We've tried to go with healthier foods and offered him kale and carrots yesterday and squash and collard greens today. He also has some peppers, banana, and maybe strawberry coming up in an attempt to find greens he likes. I know it's normal for younger ones to not be very interested, when should I start being concerned? Also, is it okay to feed him the shell of the squash (crookneck at the moment) and stems of collard greens?

5) Any advice on his setup?

His food/green bowl is in the left, his hiding spot is in the back left (never been in it), water is in front of those (hasn't drank from it, been spraying him), subtrate is repti carpet (any tips for getting it to lay flat?).

6) As far as he/she goes, seems pretty healthy, he tends to sit still in his cage and not move much, but explore/possibly flee in terror at times while outside, although 80% of the time he just sits in hands chilling. Eight and a half inches long, not sure how old.

 

[Toyguy]

Congrats on the new dragon!

About the only comment I would make is that, at the current time, none of the mercury vapor bulbs are recommended for UVB. The only recommended bulb right now it the ReptiSUN 10.0 fluorescent tube, not the compact type.

Like you, I had a hide cave for mine but took it out cause he never used it and crickets would hide in it or he'd poop on it. My guys viv is spartan - maybe I need to get him a hammock or something All he has is a climbing branch and 2 bowls.

 

[Frito]

powersun's have been problematic in the past but in my experience owning a recently made 100w powersun they seem to be working fine.

signs to watch for is if your beardie hides from the light a lot or more importantly closes his/her eyes when under it for long periods of time. that indicates too much UV output and possibly excessive bad UVC output.

if he/she acts normally under it and stays under it a good amount of time during the day you have nothing to worry about. the tests i've seen done on the more recently made powersuns indicate that if anything they output more UVB than they used to and are still useful but require being mounted further away to compensate for it along with an additional controllable heat source to keep the basking temp high enough.

the beardie i have under my powersun also has access to a reptisun 10.0, she will sit under both but perfers the power sun more often than not during the day. my power sun is 14-16" from her basking spot and i need a 75w flood halogen on a dimmer set to 75% approx to get temps to 105F, using my bulb any closer than this range makes her want to stay away from it but not close her eyes indicating too high of UVB output at less than this distance. your mileage may vary however because unless you have a UVB meter (i don't either) there is no way besides observing them to know how its working for them.

 

[Topper]

powersun's have been problematic in the past but in my experience owning a recently made 100w powersun they seem to be working fine.

signs to watch for is if your beardie hides from the light a lot or more importantly closes his/her eyes when under it for long periods of time. that indicates too much UV output and possibly excessive bad UVC output.

if he/she acts normally under it and stays under it a good amount of time during the day you have nothing to worry about. the tests i've seen done on the more recently made powersuns indicate that if anything they output more UVB than they used to and are still useful but require being mounted further away to compensate for it along with an additional controllable heat source to keep the basking temp high enough.

the beardie i have under my powersun also has access to a reptisun 10.0, she will sit under both but perfers the power sun more often than not during the day. my power sun is 14-16" from her basking spot and i need a 75w flood halogen on a dimmer set to 75% approx to get temps to 105F, using my bulb any closer than this range makes her want to stay away from it but not close her eyes indicating too high of UVB output at less than this distance. your mileage may vary however because unless you have a UVB meter (i don't either) there is no way besides observing them to know how its working for them.

Hmm that makes sense, he doesn't get as close to it as he could but I had just assumed he didn't want it that hot and was thermoregulating. I'd say he's consistently about 12 inches from the actual bulb.

 

[Frito]

thats good, as long as hes not closing his eyes i would not be concerned, you might want to try rasing it if he keeps doing it and never stays directly under the bulb but chances are because its brand new it needs to be broken in and is outputting more UVB than it will after 100 hours of use so leave it be and see how he does in a few weeks is what i would suggest.

 

[Topper]

He just had eight crickets for dinner, didn't want lunch, around 10-15 for breakfast. According to the reptile shop we got him from he was eating about 15 a day. This seems a little lower to me than what I've been reading, like 60-100 crickets a feeding from some sources, but I'm assuming that's bigger dragons or smaller crickets? We're feeding about 3/8ths to 5/8ths of an inch crickets. It seems physically impossible for him to eat that many.

Anyway at first he's interested and snaps up ones he sees moving, then he starts ignoring them all and trying to scrabble up the edges of the cooler, we're taking this to mean he's pretty much done eating after a few additional tries. Is that about right?

Edit: Also, tonight s/he woke up in the middle of the night and was scrabbling at the corners of the tank. Normal or strange?

 

[Topper]

Well, today resulted in a new camera and a new substrate. Getting the tile was quite an adventure.

We went out to check the local tile stores yesterday, and they were closed, so we had it planned for today. Local hardware store didn't do tile, and the owner of the actual tile shop seemed pretty clueless when we explained what we wanted, and told us to call him tomorrow. We decided to drive to the bigger town nearby to go to home depot. They had tile, but couldn't cut it, luckily my cousin has a diamond tipped saw and we hacked it down to size. Doubt he appreciates all the work we put in for him.

We think he may shed soon, his tail and a few patches are starting to look 'faded'.

Also, new day, new question. We kind of want to get a plant for his tank, since he's not quite big enough to get up and dig in a pot anyway. Are succulents generally okay? I'm gonna go over the safe plant lists I can find. Is there any concern regarding bringing a plant home from a nursery or some such and putting it in with him, bugs/bacteria/pesticide-wise? Any precautions further than rinsing the plant and putting it in some potting soil with no fertilizer/pesticide?

 

[Topper]

I think he might be starting to shed. He was genuinely hand shy for the first time ever today when I got him out for his bath, although he settled down once I was holding him.

 

[ClydesGirl]

Just a couple of comments on your older posts, since I just found this thread. First, you mentioned maybe getting an under tank heater for the winter, I would say you would be better off getting a ceramic heat emitter if you night temps are too low. Beardies don't feel heat from below as well and if it were to malfunction, he wouldn't know to get off that area and might get burned.

Also, you mentioned you tried feeding him in a separate container at one point. How has that been going for you? Have you tried again? I've actually had no trouble getting Clyde to eat his crickets in a separate container.

Finally, even if he's not using his hide, I would recommend keeping it in the tank. Clyde didn't use his for at least the first month I had him, then suddenly decided that he wanted to sleep in there every night, so I'm glad I left it in there for him.

 

[Topper]

Just a couple of comments on your older posts, since I just found this thread. First, you mentioned maybe getting an under tank heater for the winter, I would say you would be better off getting a ceramic heat emitter if you night temps are too low. Beardies don't feel heat from below as well and if it were to malfunction, he wouldn't know to get off that area and might get burned.

Also, you mentioned you tried feeding him in a separate container at one point. How has that been going for you? Have you tried again? I've actually had no trouble getting Clyde to eat his crickets in a separate container.

Finally, even if he's not using his hide, I would recommend keeping it in the tank. Clyde didn't use his for at least the first month I had him, then suddenly decided that he wanted to sleep in there every night, so I'm glad I left it in there for him.

Yeah, I'm not super worried considering there would be a glass pane, repticarpet, and tile between him and the heater, but we'll be considering both if we do wind up needing to up his temp during winter.

The separate container worked out fine once we caught him when he was hungry. Hopefully it'll help him start identifying hands coming to get him with fun things like food, and it's definitely easier him to hunt and for us to clean up.

And yeah, we'll definitely be keeping the hide, we paid for it and it looks fine in there, so he can use it if he ever wants to.

My main concern at the moment is he's been utterly disinterested in greens.

Here's an example of his salad today. A big collard green leaf, some kale, red pepper, yellow squash, and strawberry chopped up in various sizes. All washed and misted. I know juveniles eat a lot more live prey, but he has never touched greens that I've seen.

 

[hcozart]

My adult dragon still will not eat greens per say. he will only eat pureed (sp) squash that has been heated up so it smells good and some random carrots. He apparently has a thing for orange LOL. The baby who is 3 months old will eat alot of greens.

Try herbs like basil, mint, and cilantro, she really has a hay day with those, think because they smell good.

 

[ziggy23]

Just a couple of comments on your older posts, since I just found this thread. First, you mentioned maybe getting an under tank heater for the winter, I would say you would be better off getting a ceramic heat emitter if you night temps are too low. Beardies don't feel heat from below as well and if it were to malfunction, he wouldn't know to get off that area and might get burned.

Also, you mentioned you tried feeding him in a separate container at one point. How has that been going for you? Have you tried again? I've actually had no trouble getting Clyde to eat his crickets in a separate container.

Finally, even if he's not using his hide, I would recommend keeping it in the tank. Clyde didn't use his for at least the first month I had him, then suddenly decided that he wanted to sleep in there every night, so I'm glad I left it in there for him.

Yeah, I'm not super worried considering there would be a glass pane, repticarpet, and tile between him and the heater, but we'll be considering both if we do wind up needing to up his temp during winter.

The separate container worked out fine once we caught him when he was hungry. Hopefully it'll help him start identifying hands coming to get him with fun things like food, and it's definitely easier him to hunt and for us to clean up.

And yeah, we'll definitely be keeping the hide, we paid for it and it looks fine in there, so he can use it if he ever wants to.

My main concern at the moment is he's been utterly disinterested in greens.

Here's an example of his salad today. A big collard green leaf, some kale, red pepper, yellow squash, and strawberry chopped up in various sizes. All washed and misted. I know juveniles eat a lot more live prey, but he has never touched greens that I've seen.

I would cut up the pieces much smaller for a little one. they're not that great at tearing food up when they're young. Try cutting it up in little bite sized pieces.

 

[Topper]

I would cut up the pieces much smaller for a little one. they're not that great at tearing food up when they're young. Try cutting it up in little bite sized pieces.

Hmm yeah, I had tried to vary the sizes because I read something about them sometimes liking bigger pieces they can take chunks off of, but in retrospect the thicker ones should definitely be in small pieces for him.

There he is completely ignoring his greens after cutting them down to size. He also only ate two crickets today though, think he's losing some appetite due to starting a shed.

Side question: We got a crasula pagoda for his cage, at least until he gets big enough to dig in the dirt or mess the plant up. What kind of soil do I want it in? I'm pretty sure fertilizer/any kind of pesticide is bad, what else do I need to do before that and where can I buy the stuff I need?

 

[Trogdorpheus]

Here we go, and there's a list of safe plants at the bottom too.
http://www.beautifuldragons.503xtreme.com/Nutrition.html

I would avoid leaving stems from the collards in there, they're tough to chew up especially for young dragons. Try not feeding too much tomato, its a rare occasion type thing. But that's all shown on the list of foods. They're color coordinated for how frequently they should be given.

Under tank heaters are a no-no, ceramic heat emitters all the way, and even then really only necessary if your viv drops below 60-65 at night.

 

[Topper]

Good news today, he didn't have much at all yesterday or this morning, but seemed hungry tonight and took some bites of collard greens in his bowl. He also licked some strawberry and took a chomp out of it in my hand, then ate his usual meal of crickets.