Stress Mark and Glass Surfing

[JLollino]

so I've had Khaleesi now for over a week and the past two days she's been showing heavy stress marks and has been acting very different when I try to handle her. She runs in the tank and doesn't like being handled it seems, she's not been like this since I've gotten her. She's also been very infatuated with what appears to be her reflection and will go against the glass and try and it appears like trying to get out. But if I approach her she just stops and looks at me like I'm crazy. She's did an arm wave at the glass today and I saw her from about 20 feet away on my couch so I doubt it had anything to do with me. I'm not sure if this is normal or whether this is something I caused. I don't want to have her stressed like this. Here's a picture of her like 5 minutes ago and she's been like this since she woke up at 8 and basically all day yesterday.

 

[JayceeBuddy67]

Hi. Can you run through your setup? How old is she? Are you sure she's a she? What lighting do you use? What are the temps?

 

[JLollino]

Hi. Can you run through your setup? How old is she? Are you sure she's a she? What lighting do you use? What are the temps?

Hello ya of course, I got her a little over a week ago from a local petsmart and from what I now know she looked to be relatively healthy and taken care of at petsmart and was supposedly at the store for only 2 weeks and based on her size being a little over 6 inches and 10 grams I put her about 2 months but really have no way of knowing for sure. Honestly I have no idea whether she's a girl based on her just being so young and not having "her" checked out yet. I have her in a 40 gal tank from national geographic with a reptile carpet substrate. This is her setup

She has a reptisun 10.0 tube that I installed in her tank. Her temps in her basking area vary on her preference from 100 to 110 based on how high she climbs on her log. She tends to stay in the spot of about 100 degrees tho but moves closer at times. Her cooler area is between 78 and 83 degrees.
I started off by feeding her crickets and she was inconsistent with how many she ate but she has greens in her tank every day. I received Dubia roaches just 2 days ago and she has been eating nearly 40 a day very eagerly. Her poop is great, actually took a very large one today but I think that's from the du bias. I give her flukers calcium with d3 dusted on her first meal everyday and give her rep-cal herpavite every Wednesday and Saturday.

 

[JayceeBuddy67]

OK, I thought if she was older, she may have eggs to lay. Now that you cleared it up, I think she is just stressed about a new bigger home. (I'm about to get one from petsmart, tiny cages!!) Also, what do you feed her? You sure seem like a prepared owner! Good setup!

 

[JLollino]

OK, I thought if she was older, she may have eggs to lay. Now that you cleared it up, I think she is just stressed about a new bigger home. (I'm about to get one from petsmart, tiny cages!!) Also, what do you feed her? You sure seem like a prepared owner! Good setup!

Haha o no I'm not ready for baby beardies!!!! And ya I try and make sure she's as happy as possible and to be honest I just found out that they're stress marks I kind of just thought that they were her patterns. I'm not 100% sure but I feel like she always has them. For instance today she's been normal and eating great and everything and just hanging out basking in her log, even climbed on my hand and hung out for a couple minutes (didn't want to do anything much more to not increase her stress) but she has had those dark marks on her underside all day and she has not seemed stressed at all just very alert. Is it possible that these are just normal and not an indicator that she is stressed?

 

[JayceeBuddy67]

Yes, CooperDragon answered my thread about stress marks. He said that when they bask, they turn a bit darker, that's why she is darker. If she were really stressed, she would have a black beard.

 

[CooperDragon]

I agree, if she is acting normally, is alert and energetic and has a good appetite, she's probably fine. Younger dragons especially tend to have dark patterns on their bellies. Watch out for defensive behavior (mouth opening as if to bite, skittish tendency etc) or a jet black beard which would indicate something is bothering her. The "stress marks" on the belly aren't anything to worry about on their own in my opinion.