JohnVLillywhite":3fg197td said:
As stated above, a 20 Gallon will work....for now.
Very soon, once he/she reaches roughly 10-12 inches in length, you will want to upgrade the enclosure to a 40 Gallon Breeder (36x18x16). Once he/she reaches 15-16 inches, you will want to upgrade to a 120 Gallon (48x24x24). Good rule of thumb is:
Length of Enclosure: 3x or more the length of the dragon
Depth of Enclosure: 1x or more the length of the dragon
Height of Enclosure: Not sure if there is a rule of thumb lol Well, beardies do enjoy some climbing space, and they do still need to have some distance from their lights to prevent overexposure and/or burns, so probably around 16-24 inches in height for a tank would be good.
Very good post might I say, this would be a nice thing to add as a sticky to the enclosures forum and to have on hand when getting a new Beardie or trying to upgrade tanks.
Another good thing to keep in mind is how active is your Beardie normally? My oldest female Beardie Daisy is rather lazy and slowgoing with things, and prefers to just sit around and watch things, she seems perfectly happy in her 50 gallon right now. same thing with Mulder, my disabled Rescue male. And Phoenix is still small enough to be happy in her 40 gallon. Ultimately I'm still working towards finding bigger tanks for them, but in the meantime they're content.
But Loki, my biggest male however is exceedingly hyper and active, and to him, it seems his 120 isn't enough for him. Also the same with Rocket, my smaller and younger dragon, He's shown himself to be too big and hyper for his 40 gallon, and I'm most likely picking up another 120 gallon for him tomorrow night.
So the dragon's personality and activity also plays in hand. But I still would say personally Bigger is better for tanks.