New to site

[Nonsequitur]

Hi! So I just found this website, and it seemed like there were a lot of really helpful and informative people here. Let me start with introducing my (probably) girl, Smaug.

She's essentially a rescue. Her first owner had two dragons, her and a much older one. Instead of training Smaug to be handled, her first owner would just handle the bigger and trained one, leaving Smaug in the tank all the time for her early life. Then, her owner went to college, and her mom was taking care of the dragons. Unfortunately her mom was terrified of both bugs and reptiles, and fed them a diet of only crickets with no greens or handling. My mom bought Smaug off of them for cheap. She was supposedly a year old, but was REALLY small, only a few inches long.

While my mom tried to get her acclimated to being held, it was only I who would handle her much. Everyone was afraid of dropping her when she was small and afraid of getting bitten when she got bigger, especially since she quickly got the attitude of "Only Nonsequitur can hold me because I don't Like anyone else." My mom gave her to me when I moved out since Smaug clearly loved me and would watch me walk by and only relax with me holding her versus other people.

Fast forward, and we've had her for about 5-6 years in our family. She has an attitude a lot of times and has only now adjusted to my husband holding her, and she gets some time to run around our apartment now. She has a beardie hammock that she LOVES and she definitely prefers red foods to any other colors -- she will take strawberry or raspberry pieces over a blueberry any time, and if I have the dry food supplied to her, she picks the red ones out to eat first.

My worries, though, are that she may be underweight, since she doesn't look as chunky as other beardies that I see a lot. She doesn't really eat greens unless they're _mustard_ greens, usually just eating a piece or two of salad and then ignoring it and opting for crunchies. Her tail also worries me -- when my mom had her, a little less than a centimeter actually fell off of her tail, and it looks kind of crusty at the end and I'm worried that she might have problems with it? I'm not sure if I should be worried or not, even though the vet before said she looked fine. I'll attach some pictures of her next.

 

[Nonsequitur]

Pardon her mess, this was right before the carpet was switched. She likes throwing food literally everywhere and then eating it off the floor.

I can get closer pictures of her and her tail if needed, please let me know.

 

[Nonsequitur]

I don't remember what she weighed at the vet last year and I'm not sure I have a thing that she can be weighed on around the apartment. I dust crickets with calcium and the herpevite vitamins sometimes, but roaches are a lot bigger, right? I have some of the smaller spotted roaches that our pet store has, but I'm not sure if I've seen dubia there. Are dubia better for her?

I think it was previously tail rot so I've been keeping a close eye on it... it doesn't seem to be worsening at least and she lets me handle it so it doesn't seem to be causing pain at least. The tip is darker, almost a dusky gray, and the scales kind of stick out weirdly? I probably should just grab a better close up picture of it.

Her enclosure is not as big as I would like, I think it's a 70 gallon. It's big enough that I can't lift it but maybe I'm just weak haha. It's about one of her lengths wide and two long. Her substrate is currently a green reptile carpet, with a sandmat from I think exo-terra over part of it to help with her claws. As for her lighting, the UVB is Reptisun and her basking light is ZooMed 100w. I'm not sure if the basking light may be too strong, but she seems to be not just laying underneath it all the time like she did with the previous bulb (I accidentally got a step higher this time but I think it's made her more active so it's probably a good thing).

 

[Nonsequitur]

Here's a picture I just took, she paused from cricket stalking to pose for you guys. Her chest does look kind of sunken in a lot, even though her tummy fills out a lot more.

It looks like this. She stood there and let me take the picture. It's looked like this for awhile and doesn't seem to have a particular problem when she sheds. It doesn't look like there's any retained shed, it looks like the problem is like... Under the scales, if that makes sense? IDK. I'm just a worried mom.

 

[Nonsequitur]

It's on top of her tank. I've read that tubes affixed inside the tank are better I think? The bulb I wouldn't quite call a coil I don't think -- it's one of these.

 

[Nonsequitur]

It hasn't moved up that I've been able to tell. Her poops are every couple of days, there doesn't seem to be any pain or anything and the urate is usually pretty easily separated from the brown part -- not sure if that's good or bad.

I keep a dish of water in her tank and mist a few places in the morning just to keep it from getting too dry. I've never seen her drink out of her dish at all, but she drank a lot in her last bath.

For the light fixtures, do they attach to the wall or the lid?

 

[Nonsequitur]

Thank you so much for your help! I'll get that adjusted for her, hopefully that'll help.

 

[JumpinJellyfish]

Do replace the compact UVB bulb with a recommended tube, but I think she looks to be a healthy weight. You want to focus on proper nutrition more than on weight gain (but a gram scale is still a must, so you can keep track of her weight). For the tail tip, you can put neosporin/triple antibiotic ointment on it, and keep an eye on it.
She should be eating mostly (dark) greens and veggies, with about 20% of her diet being live bugs. Maybe try different textures with the veggies, like cut up in smsllchunks, thin slices, shredded/grated, and maybe you'll hit on a combination she likes. There's a great food chart/list on beautifuldragons.com/nutrition
:0)

 

[Nonsequitur]

Thank you guys! I think her diet does need more balance to it, so I'll work on that for her. The petstore near me carries the ReptiSun tubes too - I know I've seen them before! So that won't be hard to find.

No colored bulbs in her tank, either. We had a red one for a little while (her first winter further north) but I was concerned that it was keeping her up, so I stopped using it .

 

[Selena Walters]

Smaug looks fine but I do agree you should probably change the lighting. Typically a 50-60 watt will work fine and a ceramic heat emitter will help too. I have the duo combo basking and uvb lights along with the ceramic heat emitter and it keeps my two bearded dragons cages up to temp. My daughter dragon Lucy had what we thought was tail rot but the tip fell off during a bath and it healed itself just fine. Dubia roaches are quite expensive but do provide a good nutritional value and they don’t have a high die off rate as crickets. Keeping two thermometers and a hydrometer in the cage will Monitor the temps and humidity in his cage. My daughter would keep her dragon cooped up in its cage (she’s 14 and not that responsible) so Lucy was skittish and antisocial until I put him in my room and put him on a daily routine. It took a few days but he’s warming up to me and my fiancé and doing much better. I turn on the lights in Lucy and my dragon Bee lights on in the morning then feed them their greens in the morning mixed with waxworms and they go to town. I think Smaug looks great and you seem to be doing a great job in taking care of him.

 

[Sabrina Champion]

It's on top of her tank. I've read that tubes affixed inside the tank are better I think? The bulb I wouldn't quite call a coil I don't think -- it's one of these.

I would definitely try a strip light! My daughters first beardie was really sick and unfortunately we had to have her put down last week she was 8months old but only measured 9 inches we found out she had multiple things wrong. Anyway what I’m saying is a strip light covers a lot of their tank (if you get one big enough) it gives them all the UVB we use 10.0 UVB REPTISUN and our strip light is by ZOOMED. We did get another beardie!

 

[Nonsequitur]

Thanks y'all! My local store has some tube lights and fixtures that would cover about 2/3 to 1/2 of the enclosure, so I'll pick up one of those! It should be focused over her basking area and not the cooldown area, right? Just wanting to make sure before I attach it.