i just got 2 juvenile waterdragons on tuesday and have them both living in a 75 gallon tank. Some people have said that to be EXTREME for juveniles, others have said it is way too small!!?? i have partitioned about a quarter of it off to be dry land and the remaining 3 quarters to be water.

For lighting I have been told about 30 different stories about what is good and what is not. I got a 36" reptiglo 5.0 for their daytime light and a 150w basking lamp for basking!!??? and depending on how the water temp is I might put a undertank heater below the water !!??


I also purchased a FLUVAL plus 2 water filtration system to help clean and circulate the water, as well as changing the water weekly I have been told!!??

ANY AND ALL ADVICE IS APPRECIATED

First off. Welcome to the HCN. Have you read this caresheet yet? It might answer some of your questions.
http://reptileguides.herpcenter.com/...-t25.html?t=25

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Mike
"Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time, and always start with the person nearest you." - Mother Teresa

The 75 gallon will work for a short while but you will definately need to upgrade. For two adults (cannot both be male) a 6' X 6' X 3' would be your goal eventually. Slightly smaller is okay if it must be. I wouldn't go more than half of the cage as water though. They love the water but they will still run around alot an must have the surface area to do it. You will need alot of branches positioned everyway possible (vertical, horizontal, angled ect.).

They must have UVB lighting so the 5.0 is sufficient but emits very low amounts of UVB. Make sure there is nothing between the UVB light and the dragons. Even door and window screen will filter out roughly 40% of the beneficial rays. Also you will probably need to change the bulb every 6 months.

Use a couple of thermometers and try to get the basking spot around 93 degrees; the warm end of the cage around 88; and the cool end of the cage around 84. You can adjust the wattage of the bulb accordingly.

They don't need heaters in the water but it will really help with the humidity requirements. Try to get a hygrometer to measure the humidity. It should be kept around 80. Misting the cage will help as well.

The filter helps but not a whole lot. Try to do water changes every two or three days even with the filter. As these guys spend a lot of time in the water it must be quite clean.

Check out Tricias Water Dragon page for a very comprehensive guide to keeping these lovely lizards.

Your on the right track, keep it up.

G

i have roughly 10" of land and 38" of water 6"deep......i have partitioned it with 3mm glass and 2 triangular braces to take any weight .

as for the lighting I cant seem to make up my mind on what kind of setup will work best????!!!!!??????
i have been to numerous reptile shops and EVERY one has a DIFFERENT setup!!!

i was also wondering if waterdragons would prefer sand or bark substrate!!!!!

Welcome to Herpcenter, though I am not experienced in Dragon care,,,that setup to me seems to be a bit overkill on the water. Shouldn't land make up the bulk of the viv ??

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Ken
"Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference in the world. But, the Marines don't have that problem." -- Ronald Reagan

I'm just going to add a few things. I'm assuming your 75g tank is long, not tall. As your dragons get bigger, you will want to find or build something that is about twice as tall as it is long. Water dragons are tropical creatures. They like to climb, and they like to swim, so you will need ample space for them to do both.

UVB is very important. A basking bulb is needed, and you may need under tank heaters to keep the temps and humidity up. They will need natural sunlight as well.

Other than that, just keep a very close eye on them. Housing two WDs together is always a bit of a risky venture. They may get along and live long happy lives, but there's a good chance there will be dominance issues. If one of your dragons seems to be getting nervous, and difficult, and isn't eating as well as the other dragon is, you will have to separate them. You may want to prepare for that eventuality now.

I hope we're not scaring you with the care requirements, because in exchange for all the expense and effort to get it all together, you will likely end up with two of the sweetest and prettiest reptiles there are.

Welcome, by the way.

Oh, and for substrate no bark OR sand! Both are very bad in a high moisture environment, and if swallowed (which it will be) can cause impaction. It's better to use newspaper, paper towels or tile. They will usually use the bathroom in their water source so concentrate on being able to clean that out easily. The substrate should be simple and clean.

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"Let's eat, Grandpa!"
"Let's eat Grandpa!"

Punctuation. It saves lives.

yes it is longer than it is high....48"x18"x20"


we cannot do a newspaper or tile setup because as I said we partioned it off with glass, creating a 5" deep space to fill

I'd recommend building that part of the cage up with something solid, instead of sand or bark. Fill it with something then top it off with tile.

If you have to, try soil. Maybe someone else here can let you know if that's a better or worse option than the sand or bark. Neither one of those, by the way, do WD live around in the wild.

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"Let's eat, Grandpa!"
"Let's eat Grandpa!"

Punctuation. It saves lives.

There are some good soil mixtures on the web which will have very good drainage and pack down nicely and greatly reduce the chance of ingestion. But as Typhanie mentioned anything loosely siiting on the surface where the dragons (or any other lizards) are going to eat has a high chance of being ingested when they feed. I use a mixture of sterile soil, ground coconut husk, sand, and coconut bark chip.

thanks guys!!! i think I have come to a solution. i am going to put a mixture of sand and soil and then put a nice layer of stones and pebbles on the top, because I am already starting to see alot of the bark chips in the water and it is going to be tough to clean!!!!! and I have seen a few chips being eaten at feeding time.

this might be a kinda stupid question but I have noticed one or two of them sitting with their mouth open for quite a while, i was wondering if that is because they have twigs in their mouth, or maybe they are just simply smiling???!!!!?????