Stress marks, sluggish today

[catsclawfurniture]

Hello!

My surprise baby bearded dragon has been acting a little off. I received him and his brother on Tuesday. His brother is doing fine, white belly and all, but he's been dark. The day I received them, he started rubbing his face on the basking rock making me think perhaps he was shedding? At first I thought maybe the lattice pattern on his belly was just.. a pattern but I see now they're stress marks. He's been eating and been friendly, but today he's been insisting on being on the cool side and under the rock.

My set up is:
40 gallon breeder
18 inch 10.0 ReptiSun UVB
48 watt halogen, ~110 basking w/ probe and infrared temp gun

I feed them dubia roaches twice a day, and I dust them with calcium. I give them daily baths but I didn't give them a bath last night. I'm wondering if he's dehydrated? His little baby fat pads look not full, or plump. I'm wondering if he is overheated because generally to find a perfect medium, I elevate the lamp a bit since it gets about 116-117, so that it goes down to 110. However, we had a cold snap (come on, Texas... It's April!!) so I had to let the lamp be flush to the screen to get it to 110. Things got a little shuffled around and so observing him today, I moved the rock and probe back to where they were (they weren't in a different spot per say they were just pushed back a little) and in the afternoon it is 110. I have a feeling it was probably higher in the middle of the day.

I don't keep a dish of water in there in fear of respiratory problems, but since he's stressed out I put a dish of warm water in there. I really wanted him to go in it so I picked him up and he fought a bit, but i got him in there and now he's opening and closing his mouth. It's very startling

 

[Lenewen]

Tooooo hot. Can you hang the halogen bulb higher above the tank so it's farther away? 110 should be the max that basking spot ever reaches. I keep mine around 100 for my adults and 105 for my babies and sub adults.

3 signs it's too hot:
Bearded dragon hangs out on the cool side
Opening and closing of the mouth
Stress marks

Also, do you have the two of them caged together? If so, that can cause competition issues which cause one to retreat to the far side of the tank or show darkened color and stress marks.

 

[catsclawfurniture]

Yeah, I usually only keep it at 110 max but like I said we had a cold snap and I didn't realize the ambient temperature in the house has been warming up today.

For now I do have them housed together. I don't have the means to house them separately right now, but I will be in around a month. I monitor them closely, and they don't have problems right now. They bask together and look at each other when someone new tries to talk to them haha. Generally they're good about eating at the same time but since I am familiar with food aggression in other animals (i have a severely food aggressive dog), I do try to feed them separately.