Questions about size

[ErikArenia]

Around two months ago, at the end of February, I purchased a "fancy" bearded dragon from Petsmart. She moved from their 5~ gallon tank to a spacious 50 gallon tank. She has a mercury vapor bulb, a basking rock that doubles as a hideaway, a hammock, an electric heater rock that gets turned on at night, and shes almost fully hand trained. Yet she has only grown about an inch from the 4~ inches I got her as. Everything online says a two month old should be around 7 inches, and considering even Petsmart shouldn't be stupid enough to sell them at birth, she should be older than that. She eats only about 8 crickets a day, even though the internet and other owners I've spoken with talk about 15 a day for similarly aged dragons. I'm hoping shes just a late bloomer, but her lack of appetite worries me more than her size. Does anyone have any clue as to whats wrong with her, if anything?

 

[GoneForLunch]

Heated rocks are not the best for bearded dragons since they have a hard time knowing how hot things are that are underneath them. As long as you're basking spot is 100-110*F and you give her crickets 2-3x a day for 10-15 minutes (allowing her to eat all she wants), she could just be a late bloomer. I'm not familiar with mercury vapor bulbs, but it needs to be a bright white bulb that puts out good heat to get the basking area to the right temps. And UVB? Do you have a UVB bulb? I would recommend getting a Reptisun 10.0 T8, it's the best for your tank. Usually a 24" fixture with a 18" bulb (that goes into the fixture) will run you around $100 at petsmart, though you be able to find cheaper online. But don't skimp out on the UVB too much, because it's essential. Make sure to get the Reptisun 10.0 T8 and an appropriate fixture for it. The fixture just needs to house the 18" tube style bulb and I also believe it should have a reflector to make sure the UVB is going out at the basking spot.

 

[ErikArenia]

Heated rocks are not the best for bearded dragons since they have a hard time knowing how hot things are that are underneath them. As long as you're basking spot is 100-110*F and you give her crickets 2-3x a day for 10-15 minutes (allowing her to eat all she wants), she could just be a late bloomer. I'm not familiar with mercury vapor bulbs, but it needs to be a bright white bulb that puts out good heat to get the basking area to the right temps. And UVB? Do you have a UVB bulb? I would recommend getting a Reptisun 10.0 T8, it's the best for your tank. Usually a 24" fixture with a 18" bulb (that goes into the fixture) will run you around $100 at petsmart, though you be able to find cheaper online. But don't skimp out on the UVB too much, because it's essential. Make sure to get the Reptisun 10.0 T8 and an appropriate fixture for it. The fixture just needs to house the 18" tube style bulb and I also believe it should have a reflector to make sure the UVB is going out at the basking spot.

Mercury Vapor bulbs are kinda the all in one package for UVA, UVB, and heating. And most people tell me the electric rock is a bad idea, but it gets cold at night, and she never sleeps on it, just next to it, I figured it'd be worse to freeze her than to make her too warm

 

[CooperDragon]

Is she active and eating well? If she's acting normally I wouldn't worry about her size on it's own. What kind of MVB are you using? How far is it above the basking area? It's best to set them at an appropriate height for UVB output and then add a second light or heat emitter to get the correct temps if needed. Different brands and wattages have different outputs and beam shapes and not all of them are equally good.

What are the temperatures in the tank overnight? If the temps stay above about 65 or so she'll be fine. It's natural for them to have a bit of a cool down period overnight. If the temps go below 65 I would switch to a ceramic heat emitter or heat projector mounted overhead because the overhead light source will be easier for her to sense and regulate.

 

[ErikArenia]

Is she active and eating well? If she's acting normally I wouldn't worry about her size on it's own. What kind of MVB are you using? How far is it above the basking area? It's best to set them at an appropriate height for UVB output and then add a second light or heat emitter to get the correct temps if needed. Different brands and wattages have different outputs and beam shapes and not all of them are equally good.

What are the temperatures in the tank overnight? If the temps stay above about 65 or so she'll be fine. It's natural for them to have a bit of a cool down period overnight. If the temps go below 65 I would switch to a ceramic heat emitter or heat projector mounted overhead because the overhead light source will be easier for her to sense and regulate.

I'm using a National Geographic™ Solarheat Mercury Reptile Bulb. It works fine for our larger beardie, and its set up a little more than a foot from her basking rock. It floats between 95-110. The house usually doesn't get too cold, but her tank is right under the register(due to space rather than choice), and with her being so small, id rather have an overnight heat source. I nabbed big beardie's old ceramic heater. He hates it anyway.

 

[CooperDragon]

I've tested those Nat Geo bulbs and found them to be pretty lacking with a weak UVB output at proper distances. As far as the MVBs available in most stores, I'd go with a ZooMed PowerSun. The 100w should be mounted about 12'' above the basking area and the 160w should be mounted about 15'' up.

 

[kingofnobbys]

Heated rocks are not the best for bearded dragons since they have a hard time knowing how hot things are that are underneath them. As long as you're basking spot is 100-110*F and you give her crickets 2-3x a day for 10-15 minutes (allowing her to eat all she wants), she could just be a late bloomer. I'm not familiar with mercury vapor bulbs, but it needs to be a bright white bulb that puts out good heat to get the basking area to the right temps. And UVB? Do you have a UVB bulb? I would recommend getting a Reptisun 10.0 T8, it's the best for your tank. Usually a 24" fixture with a 18" bulb (that goes into the fixture) will run you around $100 at petsmart, though you be able to find cheaper online. But don't skimp out on the UVB too much, because it's essential. Make sure to get the Reptisun 10.0 T8 and an appropriate fixture for it. The fixture just needs to house the 18" tube style bulb and I also believe it should have a reflector to make sure the UVB is going out at the basking spot.

Commercially made heat rocks have a very bad reputation for overheating and burning the reptiles who have them in their enclosures, the issue is they have no good thermostatic control built in and if the temperature limiting circuit fails they simply get hotter and hotter and there in lies the problem

I have a solution that I have developed (being a retired principle thermal process engineer and somewhat of a boffin (trained in chemistry, physics, chemical engineering and advanced computer control systems)), I thought about the issue and came up with an elegant (simple) and effective and SAFE solution to the issue.
All the best solutions to problems are SIMPLE and ELEGANT.

My solution is I create a ceramic tile sandwich (tiles rough side facing out) and slip a simple 5 or 7 W film style heatpad inbetween the two layers of tiles, cloth tape the edges to keep it all together and keep poo and bugs out of the small gap between the two layers of tiles) and I complete the circuit by plugging the heatpad into a simple digital thermostat who's remote probe is attached to the middle of the top layer of tiles , I set the thermostat to 37oC and run 24/7 , and my beardies' hides are ontop the "heatslab" which are directly under the basking light and close to the UVB200s .
The builty of this arrangement is the thermostat limits the temperature the heatslab can go to, it wont go over this, if the thermostat fails no power goes to the heatslab and it simply cools down, and the temperature is controlled using a closed loop. Also the tiles hold the warmth and spread it out very evenly and the beardies never make direct contact with the heatpad.

All my beardies LOVE their nice cozy warm hides and mostly choose to sleep on their heatslabs of a night.