Not eating, twitchy legs

[MrPete]

My beardie was active and eating a lot, and things seemed really great. When he reached 14 inches I gave him some super worms, and he ate them up like he really enjoyed them. The next day he acted very lazy around the tank, just basking mostly and not eating much. I figured he was either really full still from the day before, or the worms upset his stomach some (I assumed maybe the fat content he wasnt used to). The next day had passed a stool, and was acting normal again (active, eating lots of crickets). I gave him 2 superworms, and he started to act funny again. Since then Ive completely cut the superworms from his diet.

Its been at least a week since I stopped feeding him superworms. He acts lazy all day, doesnt pace the tank or really explore anymore, just sits basking all day. When I put crickets in he just looks at them and doesnt seem to really be eating. He occasionally poops. Just recently Ive noticed that his back legs go into spasm sessions, where theyll twitch/spasm all the way through to the toes for periods of time.

I took him to the vet today, and the vet thinks that maybe the superworms upset his phosphorous / calcium balance, and that the twitching is being caused by a lack of available calcium in his body. Hes starting on a liquid calcium suppliment today.

Has anyone experienced anything like this before, or have any advice for whats going on? Id obviously like to do everything I can to ensure my beardies health. Thanks in advance.


Background:
-Beardie is 5-6 months old, Ive had him for ~3 months. He was purchased from a home breeder.

-He lives with his brother in a 40gal terrarium. Substrate is a very fine sand. They have both UVA and UVB (UVB is two 9-Watt Desert 50 UVB bulbs from Zilla). They have several basking spots, including plastic-rock croppings and ground level riverbed stones.

-Their diet consists of crickets and some freezedried meal worms. A salad of some mixture of wetted kale, chard, chollard, spinach is always available. Crickets are gut-loaded with the same salad mixture, with Fluker's yellow cube for hydration and calcium loading. Crickets are dusted with a combo of Fluker's calcium powder and Fluker's vitamin about 3/4 of the feedings.

-They get bathed regularly, and when theyre not bathed I try to water them by hand.

 

[LJean]

It could be the beginnings of metabolic bone disease. The coil and compact bulbs have been known to be weak in UVB and casue medical problems with beardies.

My suggestion to you would be to turn those off and get either a ReptiSUN 10 tube or a mercury vapor bulb.

Sure hope he is on the mend!

 

[MrPete]

Yea, I started wondering that also. Ive already ordered a Megaray, so hopefully that will arrive soon.

 

[melissawf]

Unfortunately, Flukers is crap...anything they sell. I would switch to Rep-cal calcium with D3 and Herptivite (also made by Repcal). Get rid of the mealworms too. Make sure prey is appropriately sized (no longer than the space between the eyes). The twitching makes me think MBD though. A MVB will certainly help. Another brand to avoid, BTW, is ESU. They make bulbs but they are also junk. Spinach is ok as an "additional" food but it shouldn't be a staple. You will want to ditch the fine "reptile" sand and either go to a non-particulate substrate like rubber shelf-liner(my pref) or a play sand like you would buy for a child's sand box, sifted. The fine sand ends up being eaten and will lead to trouble. Calcium sand is even worse than the reptile sand btw. It clumps up in their intestine. Also, beardies should have their own enclosure. I know it's expensive but they don't live "cozily" in nature and your guys will probably end up fighting eventually, especially being both males and your enclosure being on the smallish side for one let alone two (mine is 40g too but I only have one in there). The only beardies that get along are OCCASIONALLY sisters who have always been together and who have a really big cage.

Hope that helps.

 

[MrPete]

Oh? Thanks for the advice. These 2 are clutch brothers, and I was told that if you raise them together that there wouldnt be any problems, and that they would enjoy the company. If thats not the case then Ill look into getting a second setup and split them up. I was planning on getting a larger enclosure when they were closer to fully grown, this 40gal was more to raise them. Thanks for the tip about Fluker's also, Ill stop buying their stuff.