• Hello!

    Either you have not registered on this site yet, or you are registered but have not logged in. In either case, you will not be able to use the full functionality of this site until you have registered, and then logged in after your registration has been approved.

    Registration is FREE, so please register so you can participate instead of remaining a lurker....

    Please be certain that the location field is correctly filled out when you register. All registrations that appear to be bogus will be rejected. Which means that if your location field does NOT match the actual location of your registration IP address, then your registration will be rejected.

    Sorry about the strictness of this requirement, but it is necessary to block spammers and scammers at the door as much as possible.

Beardie owners, I need your help

Oooh, look, that's when Mr. Toad was cohabitating with her (for a couple days- that was his old viv, actually the tortoises old viv, but they moved out and Mr. Toad, who had cohabitated with them too, was left alone. Now he has his own cool house. He was so funny, though, he used to bury himself almost completely in the sand, and eat crickets, back in the first few days when I still fed Isabel crickets!
 
Thanks for that Nanci, that looks a lot bigger than you made it seem. Did you glue down that plank of wood seperating the sand and the tiles?

Argh I'm so confused about this. Right, so I have a UVB tube and a basking lamp and one end of the tank, and a ceramic heater at the other. I set the the ceramic heater at a constant 85F (using a HabiStat temp thermostat), and the basking lamp at 105F (using a HabiStat dimming thermostat). Aww man, this means I have to buy two new thermostats... Wait, do I have to buy a timing mechanism too, so he gets 12 hours of basking and 12 hours of no basking? I suppose I could do it manually but my sleeping patterns are too erratic for me to be consistent with that, and I won't get up at 6 every day, if I can get a machine to do it for me lol.
 
Can you find the Coral Life Power Center over there? It's a power strip that has day plug ins, and night plug ins, so that takes care of the timing for you. (And some that stay on all the time, if you want).

I have the basking and UVB on 12 on, 12 off in the winter, 14 on 10 off in the summer.

The ceramic heater is on all the time in the winter. I haven't had it in the summer yet.

So the hot end has an ambient temp in the 90's, with a basking spot of 105F. The cool end, in the hide, is room temp, which is 70 during the day and 65F at night right now. I think you need a cooler cool end than 85F- what's your room temp?

I don't have anything on a thermostat for her, though.

The UVB fluorescent light is relatively cool, so that can go on the cool end, or in the middle, or if you have a big fixture, over the whole viv, lengthwise. I just place mine diagonally over her basking branch.
 
The 2x4 is glued down with aquarium silicone, which doesn't hold very well, but it's good enough. The branch kind of makes it stay there.

Her diet sucks, because she won't eat greens. Buy an adult, I thought, skip the voracious insect eating phase! Well, it turned out that she barely picks at greens. I've seen her eat greens three times. I trick her into eating them by putting supers or silkies in there. I've also, off and on, made her pureed mango or swuash and stuck silkies in it. She gets silkies, as many as she can eat, in the afternoon. Greens, (collard, mustard, turnip) in the morning, finely ground, usually with a few superworms in it. I don't give her crickets, because I believe they may carry round worms. I've had her dewormed (she had three kinds of worms) and treated her for coccidiosis (they pretty much all have it- you just keep the levels down to a manageable number) and right now she has a sample sent off to an electron microscope to look for adenovirus, which is present in bearded dragons world-wide, and causes deaths in babies, and can be passed from mom to eggs. I just want to know if she carries it- not that she's been sick ever. I give her calcium on her silkies twice a week, and vitamins on her silkies once a week.
 
Well during the day here at the moment, natural temperature is about 46F, and it can drop to about 24F at night. We usually have the central heating on, so it's usually around 70F, but we can't sleep with the central heating on, so it drops to around 60F. This is why in my Corn's viv, he has a UTH and a red heat lamp. The UTH is his warm side at 82.5, and the lamp is his cool side at around 72F. So at night the lamp will come on to get it up to around 72.

How did you manage to get it to the right temps without a thermostat? Just adjusting the distance of the lamp to the tank? Only mine would be a wood and glass viv, so all the fixings would be permanent and drilled in, so I'd have to get it right first time. And I couldn't really afford the luxury of leaving the viv open at any time, I have three cats lol. :)
 
If you can't adjust the temp, you can adjust the wattage of the bulbs/ceramic heater, and you can adjust the height of your basking brick/branch. That's what I did. (Adjusted the wattage).
 
i have my beardies in the front room and dining room and i only have ceramics they keep the heat up fine i have used the red bulbs but i much prefer the creamics,
i got my viv from chatham, where abouts in the uk do you live?
 
Not sure if anyone has posted this yet. But I have saved a few beardies from inexperienced owners due to this.

When they are young, please please please, feed them a variety diet or pellets with crickets/meal/superworms as treats.

A solid diet of just crickets can be bad for them. Young dragons can develop paralysis from eating crickets that are too large. Always offer dragon safe vegatables as well as many plants contain vitamins and nutrients that are beneficial in many ways.

As for tank size. a young to juvenile dragon can be kept in a 10 gallon tank, but after a year should def be moved to a larger home. Also, dragons find comfort in having their home stay setup the same way each day, but I don't know many people who rearrange their vivs that often. As for an adult a 30 gallon long is acceptable but a 40 plus would be better.

on a side note my current dragon has been in her hibernation phase and sleeping in her hide. I feed a pellet nd veggy diet mostly with a 1-2 dozen cricket treat once a week and will give her meal worms on occasion when she comes out to run around. Well she was snoozing away in her warm hide and i threw in about 2 dozen tiny crickets (not pin-heads, but not mediums either) and she came out like a dart. Needless to say those crickets didn't last long, and her fat belly remained this AM!

She is 8 months and in a 10 gallon. She is about 13 inches from tip to tip and gets her 20 gallon this month. and her 40 gal this summer.

Personally I don't mind buying the extra tanks. I always find something to put in them!
 
Honestly...as long as the temperature doesn't drop below 60°F during the night, you wouldn't have to worry about supplemental heat at night. The biggest advantage to keeping them warm during the night is that they wake up quicker in the morning, making morning handling sessions easier because you don't have a cold, grumpy dragon.

If you've got a melamine enclosure coming, you'll be similar to the enclosure I have. Mine's a 2x2x4, though...so mine's a little larger. I run a 100W MVB in there and I'm able to keep the basking temp around 104° all day long. It's positioned at 14" away from her basking spot. If you get a Juvenile, it 'might' like a slightly higher temperature to bask in. 110°F being the HIGHEST you want to go for a Juvie, but in my experience most of them like it best at 106-108. Scooter gets upset if her's goes above 105 but she's an adult and 103-105 is what they tend to like best.

As for food, there's a million things that you can feed them. My ultimate FAVORITE feeding is Blaptica Dubia roaches. I'm not sure if you can get Roaches in the UK (it's been too long since I last looked) but you might look into it.

The start-up cost is slightly higher and you can't feed from the colony right away, but once the colony is established, you can feed your Bearded Dragon for next-to-nothing.

If you have any interest in that at all, shoot me a PM and I'll get you started (or anyone who might be interested in Roaches as feeders). The great thing is, all of my Insectivorous/Omnivorous reptiles eat and love them.
 
i also started with a smaller tank but knows hes in a 4x2x2 as hes 18inches, mine love butternut squash fruit on occassion, i dont feed carrot as i read that too much can be a calcium binder, 2 of mine wont eat pellets but one will so she gets that veg and mini meal worms and wax worms
 
I was so happy when mine first ate pellets, but i recently bought a diff brand and she starting eating more veggies and less pellets. These smell more like crickets and less like banana's too. hmmm
 
Thanks for the advice everyone.

To Jcapicy: I won't need to worry about a diet for a baby because if I do get one, I'll get a sub-adult.

Okay, finally, how do I adjust the wattage of a bulb?

Thanks once again

David
 
My guys will occasionally eat pellets and soft Dragon food. They just love their greens, though. I also don't use a thermostat on my dragons. They have MVB in their basking area. Which is good for me because I don't need a uvb/uva tube light. Their basking lights are on a timer, so they come on and go off at certain times that I program. I do use a small tube like light just for light during the day. All lights are off at night. I am one of those people that don't use a water dish. (Some don't agree with this idea) But it works for me and my dragons are healthy and happy. I do soak 1-2 times a week for 20-30 min. in a warm bath.:spinner:
 
I don't use a water dish either. I soak Isabel every day. She almost always poops in the bath tub.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top