Rehomed

[Mikara18]

I recently adopted a four-year-old bearded dragon the family that had previously said they had to get rid of it because the cat kept messing with him. I’ve had him for about four days today is the first time I actually picked him up and gave him a bath and cleaned his tank. He’s been having obvious signs that he is stressed and I am just wondering how long I should wait to completely change his tank right now he has sand and I would like to change it to carpet and right now his food bowl is way too small and I would also like to change that but I also don’t want to stress him out too much any helpful tips I am a New bearded dragon owner and I just wanna make sure he is Okay

 

[VenusAndSaturn]

It probably wont stress him out much, just keep the stuff hes used to in the tank, not the substrate or food bowl but the items like the basking log/rocks and things like that.

Its very important that you get him off the sand and i'd look into taking him to a reptile specialist vet to see if he could be impacted. Sand is not a natural thing for them, most particle substrates arent. You could use carpet however they can snag their nails sometimes so i'd use non adhesive shelf liner, paper towels or rough tile.

Can you go over the lighting please? Like is the uvb bulb a tube light, what brand is it, is it a coil or compact one (goes in a single dome), is it a MVB, how old is the uvb bulb. Along with if you can tell me what heat sources you are currently using and what your feeding him.

 

[Mikara18]

They gave me a long 120v 60hz light and a double Dome light not sure how old the bulbs are but his basking side is at about 100 degrees and his cool side is at a 75 they also gave me a omnivore mix i can post pictures if wanted of him and his tank

 

[VenusAndSaturn]

Pictures would be very very helpful, not entirely sure about the long light your talking about but if you turn it off and take it out of the hood you should be able to see some printing on at least one of the sides about the brand and everything.

Is it zoomeds omnivore mix that comes in a can? If so i know thats a somewhat favorite with my reptiles, my beardies love it as the occasional treat here and there and my tegu used to eat it all the time but seemed to have gotten bored of the taste so she doesnt eat it like she used to. Though if your talking about the repashy omnivore mix thats somewhat good but seems to be least favorited by beardies and tegus at least. Most likely because of how the two are different, one smells nicer and the other doesnt i guess and they all have different tastes of course so one animal may like the repashy more than the zoomed canned mixes.
Just offer it as a treat, probably once a week or twice a week.

 

[Mikara18]

I’m sorry I’m trying to figure out how to post pictures lol and the food they gave me is like a dry food and i have to spray it i wanna switch him to a real food diet so I’ll prep him meals i really appreciate your help I’m very new at all of this lol

 

[VenusAndSaturn]

Oh okay, yeah definitely get him on a proper diet. For salads you can offer collard greens, mustard greens and turnip greens daily and then offer fruits like blueberries, red raspberries, black berries, bananas once or twice a week.
And then for the insect portion you really only need to feed him every other day once a day with 10-20 bugs each feeding. Or 2-4 times a week. For insects things like crickets, roaches (dubias or turkish roaches), calciworms (black soldier larvae), and silkworms can be fed daily. And then for treats mealworms, superworms, waxworms, and hornworms are okay. You can probably offer 5-10 mealworms as treats but for the other ones i would only offer 2-4 max. Especially hornworms or its just not gonna be fun cleaning up the mess afterwards because of how high their water content is.
And then at his age and if you go with every other day feedings usually you want to dust calcium without d3 3 times a week on the insects and then multivitamins once a week on insects.
Usually i feed my adults on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Week days being calcium days and weekends being multivitamins.

To post pictures go here https://www.beardeddragon.org/useruploads/
and then hit XIMG to select the image after you upload it.

 

[Mikara18]

I got them posted the previous owners said they would give him crickets every two weeeks which didn’t seem very often i also think his tank is to small.

 

[VenusAndSaturn]

I cant see the pictures but yeah crickets every two weeks is not good at all, they can survive from that somewhat but they wont thrive and live healthily. What gallon tank is he in? And can you try re-posting the pictures? Make sure after you upload them come back and when you go to reply there should be a tab tabled XIMG where you can select it.

 

[Mikara18]

Here are some

 

[Mikara18]

 

[VenusAndSaturn]

Okay for the uvb that should be fine if the uvb bulb itself is a t5 HO 10.0, which i'd think it is if its in that type of hood, make sure you replace that every 6 months and if you can ask them how old it is.
The tank does look a tad small, but i wouldnt know unless i knew the measurements. Also you'll want to get a new temperature gauge as the stick on ones dont work well, you can either go with a temperature gauge with a probe thats usually around 5 dollars on amazon or if you want to immediately get the temp go with a temp gun. The temp gun of course is going to be a bit more expensive, usually 19-30 dollars on amazon i believe.

As for the omnivore mix i have never seen that one before, and if you want you could keep it around whenever you run out of fresh food probably.

And for the basking lights, the one that isnt colored is fine, however the red bulb i would turn off as it can cause eye problems sometimes and beardies can see all the color we can, so definitely dont have that on during the day or at night,
https://www.beardeddragon.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1832931 Heres a post about the red light as well, or at least about someone else asking about it. I can look up more posts about them if you want.

 

[Mikara18]

Do you recommend me putting another build in it to replace the Red Bulb and the tank is about 36 long and 18 wide. So should i have no light on during the night i wake up around 9 to 10 that’s when i normally turn his light on

 

[VenusAndSaturn]

You could replace the red bulb with a CHE (heat emitter), however unless the temps get below 65 or so you should be good with no heat at night. 36 inches long and 18 wide sounds about the recommended 40 gallon size, especially if the height is 18 inches tall. However thats just the bare minimum, they do like a lot of space to explore.

And yes no lights at night at all, and thats around the same time i turn the lights on as well, though usually at 8 AM instead. And then i turn it off at 10 PM so they're on a 14 hour schedule similar to their summer time lighting in Australia.

 

[Mikara18]

Okay perfect i plan on changing a lot of things once he gets more use to me and being handled by me right now she is still very skittish around me