Well first of all, welcome to HC Network. You have come to the right place for information. I looked at your pictures. Your little guy is awfully cute. The first thing I would do is to get rid of the bark stuff. I personally use newspaper (cheap and easy to clean) but floor tiles, pieces of slate, or cage carpet also work. They can ingest the bark and become impacted. Second and more importantly, you need the UVB lamp. Sunglo is nothing more than a glorified regular bulb. Household lightbulbs do the same job and are much cheaper. REptisun 5.0 or 10.0 are flourescent bulbs you can use or you can use the megarays which you can find here www.reptileuv.com . Someone has already offered our caresheet. Check out the food list to make sure all is ok. Thanks for joining and let us know if you have any other questions.

Lyn

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Warmest Regards from Lyn

Hi,

Well you definitely need to ditch the substrate. Substrates to use are indoor/outdoor or reptile carpet (seamed & no loose threads), tile, linoleum, puppy training pads, newspaper, butcher paper, paper towels or combination of these.

Neither of the lights provide UVB. If you don't get UVB on your ig, he will sooner or later get Metabolic Bone Disease or die. Please check out the link I provided for that. It tells you what UVB is and how to set up UVB lighting. I have an iguana who had Metabolic Bone Disease before I got her. She was deformed from it and has had health issues directly and indirectly related to the Metabolic Bone Disease.

Also please go to the care articles on this site.

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Jan. 25, 1963 - Sept. 10, 2006 (R.I.P)

Looks like you listened to the guy at the pet store. Yup, most of us got taken on that costly ride but you have done well to look for more info. I commend you for that.

The two previous posts are correct get rid of that bark. A few months ago there was a user of another iguana message board who's iguana injested a wood chip just like the ones you have. Well after about $2000 of surgery and vet care the iguana did die.

UVB is important and the bulbs you have don't produce it.

That cage is too small for an iguana even as small as yours. Temps are important and you need to provide a range from about room temperature to the mid 90s F which is called a thermal gradient. The 10 gallon fish tank is too small to provide this. For the next few months, say about 18 of them, something in the range of 2'x4'x3' could work after that a much larger cage is needed. I build and sell cages as a hobby and of all the cages I have built for adult iguanas -- anything over about 2 years -- 6' wide, 3' deep, and 6' tall is my favorite size. This 6x3x6 is not large enough to house an adult in full time but is adiquate when exercise time is allowed and fits well into a room.

Right now, within about 10 days, you need to think about UVB lighting and a larger cage.

Another $10 to $30 well spent would be on one of these two books on iguana care (used coppies are not that hard to find online):
Green Iguana: The Ultimate Owners Manual by James Hatfield
Iguanas for Dummies by Melissa Kaplin

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~ Mark

wow guys Thanks sooo much for your help but I have one more question is it possible for me to get a uvb bulb or do I have to buy a pakage of some sort?

mar is there any possilbe way u can provide me with some blue prints for a simple build for a new cage...i mean I have a 55 gallon tank I was thinking of putting him there

With Fluorescents you need to get a two tube ballast.fiixture at a home improvement store. With self ballasted mercury vapor you can get an ordinary ceramic dome fixture at a home improvement store. With external ballasted mercury vapor the first time you buy, you will need to get the kit that includes the ballast--after that you will only need to buy replacement bulbs. You will need a dome fixture too for the external.

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Jan. 25, 1963 - Sept. 10, 2006 (R.I.P)

I have a small cage for sale in the supplies classifieds -- 2'x4'x2.75' or roughly 150 gallons. I sell my cages so I don't provide plans even if I did have plans written up / drawn out then there is the fact that no two of my cages are the same and each is a custom build.

Here is a link with some pics of my larger ig cages (click)

If you have the 55 clean it and set it up tonight. The next step, well that I would take, will be to a full adult size cage. There is nothing wrong with going to a full adult size cage now but you don't happen to have it on hand. I see it as a waste to buy a mid sized cage as you will just have to spend more money and replace it later.

There is also a sister site to this one -- www.herphabitats.com -- which is dedicated to cages and the like but HCN gets more traffic so you can just keep asking questions on in the housing pages here. HH does have some good pages to surf through and get ideas from though.

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~ Mark

The fluorescent UVB bulbs (You need 2) will go in a standard two tube 48 inch shoplight type fixture. The drawbacks to fluorescent is that the animal must be no farther than 12 inches away for the bulb to do any good.
If you are looking at a mercury vapor you will need a metal dome and a porcelain socket. These bulbs will melt a standard plastic socket but put out a lot more useable UVB at a greater distance.
If you have to buy the whole deal I would recomend the Mercury vapor Check out reptileuv.com

And 55 gallon tank is only going to work for a couple of months. The growth rate on young iguanas is incredible.

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Merlin,
What's Life Without A Little Magic!

wow this is soo much I still dont understand why iggy hasnt pooped yet ?

The stress of a new situation. Is he eating? If I change my female's routine by being gone for a few days she holds it until I get home.
Its so nice to be loved!

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Merlin,
What's Life Without A Little Magic!