New Bearded Dragon parents

[easturbunny]

Hi all!

We have a new juvenile Beardie.

Her name is Sophie. We are in love with her!

She was sort of dropped off with us. However, it is wonderful this happened because I've always wanted a Bearded Dragon. And she is precious! Plus, we don't just take care of our animals, we spoil them. So, I think I've read a million things about Beardies.

Anyhow, we have questions.

For the basking area, there are so many different people who give different temperature ranges. Is 95 to 105 good? Or 100 - ?? or ??

As you can see, she has a small tank. It's the tank we were given. We have her out of the tank all of the time though. We got a giant Sophie-proof playpen for her. We also put her in the window to look outside and we love giving her her baths.

In her cage, we put up construction paper for now. When we move her, we already have a nice background picked out to be custom-made.

We have a friend with an older unused aquarium. We think it is 75 gallons (we will be getting her a giant cage eventually. We can't afford the 120 gallon right now.).

How would we disinfect it to make it completely clean? We assume bleach of course. However, could there be little microbes, parasites, etc. like along the bottom? Or in the corners and going up the sides where the glass meets? We are nervous that we wouldn't be able to get it clean enough in order to make it pristine and safe.

We don't even let her in our bath because we are too paranoid that she could come in contact with chemicals. She has her own little bath. We're getting a bigger one soon. She loves the one we do have right now.

We only feed her live Dubia roaches, super worms, and fresh veggies & fruit, All of it with calcium powder and of of all protein is gut loaded. We hope this is good. Someone told me crickets can have parasites and can bite a Beardie if we miss them in her tank.

Also, we are getting a humidity gauge. We live in the DC area so it is going to get very, very humid. Right now we are staying at a friend's house that gets a little humid in the house in the summer. Trying to look it up how to keep the humidity down for her.

We're also looking into keeping our own Dubia and super worm colonies.

We have even more questions of course.

Anyhoo...any help would be greatly appreciated. And any suggestions? We'll take all of it. We love our Sophie!

 

[Sadie]

Hi all!

We have a new juvenile Beardie.

Her name is Sophie. We are in love with her!

She was sort of dropped off with us. However, it is wonderful this happened because I've always wanted a Bearded Dragon. And she is precious! Plus, we don't just take care of our animals, we spoil them. So, I think I've read a million things about Beardies.

Anyhow, we have questions.

For the basking area, there are so many different people who give different temperature ranges. Is 95 to 105 good? Or 100 - ?? or ??

As you can see, she has a small tank. It's the tank we were given. We have her out of the tank all of the time though. We got a giant Sophie-proof playpen for her. We also put her in the window to look outside and we love giving her her baths.

In her cage, we put up construction paper for now. When we move her, we already have a nice background picked out to be custom-made.

We have a friend with an older unused aquarium. We think it is 75 gallons (we will be getting her a giant cage eventually. We can't afford the 120 gallon right now.).

How would we disinfect it to make it completely clean? We assume bleach of course. However, could there be little microbes, parasites, etc. like along the bottom? Or in the corners and going up the sides where the glass meets? We are nervous that we wouldn't be able to get it clean enough in order to make it pristine and safe.

We don't even let her in our bath because we are too paranoid that she could come in contact with chemicals. She has her own little bath. We're getting a bigger one soon. She loves the one we do have right now.

We only feed her live Dubia roaches, super worms, and fresh veggies & fruit, All of it with calcium powder and of of all protein is gut loaded. We hope this is good. Someone told me crickets can have parasites and can bite a Beardie if we miss them in her tank.

Also, we are getting a humidity gauge. We live in the DC area so it is going to get very, very humid. Right now we are staying at a friend's house that gets a little humid in the house in the summer. Trying to look it up how to keep the humidity down for her.

We're also looking into keeping our own Dubia and super worm colonies.

We have even more questions of course.

Anyhoo...any help would be greatly appreciated. And any suggestions? We'll take all of it. We love our Sophie!


View attachment 26864



View attachment 26863


View attachment 26861View attachment 26862

Welcome to the forum the tank looks beautiful but I would take out some of the decor -- dragons like floor space and at this point she doesnt have any-- basking temps need to be takin w/ a digital probe thermometer and should be 95-100 for a juvenile dragon -- place the probe the on spot she sits leave 10 minutes and then get the temp and it looks pretty close to where its at now --- I would get some Zoo Meds Wipe Out or some Rescue or F 10 if you can find it --- those will work for disinfecting -- crickets do bite so if you ever feed them do not leave them in the tank -- and w/ all the decor you have going on they will find places to hide same w/ the roaches but they dont bite but still try not to leave any in the tank --- you have a good diet going -- calcium D3 should be dusted on the insects and for a juvenile she should be getting them 5 x per week ONCE per feeding - vitamins w/ beta carotene 2 x per week ONCE per feeding - salads every day -- http://www.beautifuldragons.com/Nutrition.html ignore the kale thing its a good staple feeder
Humidity can be as high as 70% and as low as 20% --- optimal is 30-50% and I would get a digital probe hygrometer place it on the back center wall of the tank -- if you need to dehumidify get a dehumidifier and place next to the tank and take the water dishes out of the tank ---
The dubia colony will take you about a year to establish --- not sure about super worms-- you can set up a 10 gallon tank for dubias and feed dubia food w/ water crystals or dubia dew for hydration -- you can feed them squash and carrots and fruit - just remember what ever you feed them your feeding the dragon --
Now for the MOST IMPORTANT thing in the tank ------ your UVB NO coils and basking temps --- your UVB should be a long fixture and for a 75 gallon tank I recommend a Zoo Med 24" fixture --- w/a Reptisun 10.0 T 5 bulb -- they are one of the best on the market right now---
If you have any more questions please ask --

 

[Skybug]

Welcome to the forum, beautiful beardie, i can tell shes gonne be very spoiled, i think sadie got most of the do’s and do nots, for cleaning the enclosure bleach is perfectly fine (id fill up the whole tank with semi warm water and add a couple cups of bleach(if anything remains get a brand new razor blade and scrape the fish grime off) if you opt for bleach make shure it gets rinsed out real good and let it set for a day to let any remaining bleachy smell evaporate) I personally dont feed crickets (cause like you ive heard they’re nasty and carry parasites) lots of crickets die in transit and you can imagine a bunch of bugs with no food, they’re gonna eat their droppings and each other, super worms and roaches can still cannibalize each other but that usually only happens when they’re not getting proper nutrition where as crickets will eat each other just because, if you intended to raise supers and roaches i think thats great, you’ll save alot of mula ,roaches are gonna be the most costly thing , id get started on them now if possible (they take months to get established) (supers are easy to breed, i bred them for about a year,but stopped feeding them cause I didn’t like how my beardies stool was looking , and she only wanted supers lol)
If i may advise on the enclosure as well, the basking looks as if its all the way in the corner, can it be brought a couple inches forward? (i say this because if she was really cold shed have to be crammed in the corner to get her full adult body in the heat fulcrum) i dont see any rocks or bricks? These are kinda important to wear down nails and rubbing surfaces for shedding, you really want as many different textures as possible, i do love the soft bed she has good job on that, and the feeding dishes dont need to be left in there (unless you want empty bowls as part of your decor lol) if you guys are battling humidity the water dish may need to go aswell (if she doesn’t interact with it id ditch it) most beardies dont drink standing water (but some are weirdos and even soak and poo in their water(which is why i dont offer a dish) i spray my beardies lips every morning till she opens then i spray inside her mouth till she turns her head, if you have any questions please do ask we’ll do our best to answer.

 

[easturbunny]

Thank you all sooooo much! I really really appreciate the time you took to let me know about all of this.