substrate qeustion

[greenklan]

Junebug is four months old and close to eight inches long. Is this big enough for sand yet? I hear the talk about juvenile and adult, but not much about where that line is. Any help on this is much appreciated! :study:

 

[Ethelia]

Nope he's not big enough.
He will reach adulthood at about 16months. 4 months is no where near big enough.
For now Id go with papertowels or tile.

Holly

 

[greenklan]

thanks Holly!
Is there anything wrong with just the glass bottom of the tank?

 

[Ethelia]

Hi, yes there is.
Substrate like tile or paper towel help trap the heat.
Dragons also have no grip on glass so its likely to stress them out.

Holly

 

[HUMBOLDTGUY]

ours is about 5 and a half months and the guy at the shop said the calcium sand was good to use while he is young.....is he wrong about that??

 

[Ethelia]

Calcium sand can be fatal to bearded dragons.
Fatal.
Nothing upsets us more than store workers ignorantly selling this stuff.
It encorages the dragons to lick the sand, now with normal sand that would be bad because they would become impacted, but calci-sand solidifies when its wet, so it makes rocks in their insides.

If you have calci-sand please remove it immediately.
We have seen too many dragons pass because of it.

Holly

 

[HUMBOLDTGUY]

i am so pissed at the shop right now....we got the lil guy because he was the one and only present our son wanted for christmas....and it seems like they sold us a bunch of stuff we didnt need that added up to hundreds of extra dollars.....so being that we have only had him in the sand for 3 weeks im hopeing we caught this early enough....im wondering if this is also why his ka ka is all blocked up and he passes a fricken rock everytime he poops (which is only in the bath this week)

 

[HUMBOLDTGUY]

so we are gonna get him tile for his new house .....is there a kind that is bad....im assuming we just wanna get the kind that is kinda rough rather than the real smooth....almost like ciramic??

 

[Judah'sHuman]

sure you can use ceramic or slate, sandstone etc. I have a mix of a few differant tiles in my viv. I wouldnt reccomend laminate some of those have fermaldihid or a smell that coudl be toxic, so just use a naturl product.

 

[HUMBOLDTGUY]

well we got his new house....its a 75 gallon so it seems like we need to do some work to fill it out.....we are gonna get him some tile in the morning and for now have him on paper....which has us amused as all hell cause now hunting his crix has become more of a challenge....his nails are super loud on the paper and the crix are not as dumb as one would think so they hear him comin....hes runnin all over trying to catch em.

the one thing sucky about not useing the sand id it seems less comfy for him....he used to dig out a pit to lay in and it seemed really comfy....but if its bad for him id rather have him healthy....

on a side not we used the sand to fill a ziplock baggy , and put the ziplock in one of those purple felt crown royal bags to make him a bean bag....and he loves it....hes sitting on his crown royal bean bag watching spongebob as i type.....funny stuff he is....never expected him to be so funny. ive had snakes all my life and love them...but osker is like a lil dog

 

[Judah'sHuman]

AWWAH thats so cute! I was going to say you can use a little wash cloth and wrap him up in it when is going to sleep. I bought a set of very soft plush type wash cloths for him to snuggle up in he loves his snuggies! He perfers now being wraped up in that rather than sleeping a diging in the sand.( I have one side of the tank in play sand, the ret tiles and sand between the tiles as filler for the gaps. You can eventually use a bit of washed play sand when your guy gets to be about 6-7 months.)
The "bean bag" was such a great idea! There is a gal on here that actually makes beardie sleeping bages for them to crawl into! I know isnt funny how they like to cuddle up and be comfy, you wouldn't think that a lil lizzard would have so many lil corkey personalites. They are quite entertaining, induvidual and personable. Just as a funny il story, I took Judah out and layed him on his "snuggies" on th table to have some mango. He watched me cut it up and I put a piece near him to eat it and he kept shaking his frount paw at me waving at the mango, like NO NO I DONT WANT IT, GET IT AWAY! I pulled it away he would stop, he did this three times! :laughhard: He finally ate it not sure what his deal was, he loves mango. I wiah someone else was around to see it, he does the funniest things only when im there and no one else is around. That is whay we fall in love with these guys so much! They have the funniest lil personalites!