Hi, all! We acquired a Chinese Water Dragon on Saturday afternoon--a spur of the moment thing, and I am now playing catch-up. He is about 1-1/2 years old, and my boys & I decided to name him Jackie (they are big Jackie Chan fans--LOL). Looks really healthy--maybe some past snout damage, but not currently a problem. Actually ate a couple of mealworms from hand yesterday.

I've been researching and have a questions about substrates. I would like to use live plants--by the way, is a schefflera okay? My big question is this, where can you find sterilized peatmoss/soil to use? Our local PetSmart only had various bark chips, including Repti-chips which we are currently using. A local pet store across town (which I thought was known as the reptile expert in our area) actually suggested coconut fiber--the block kind! Since everything I've read warns about impaction from ingesting this especially, I don't plan to use it.

Next question would be this--how concerned should I be about seeing "poop"? We fed him about 4 crickets on Saturday night after we got him. Yesterday and today he got 4-5 large mealworms--still no poo that I can tell. Of course, I'm not positive what I'm looking for. Could he already be impacted? Other than the obvious lack of poop, what other symptoms should I look for?

Thanks so much!

Welcome!

I you haven't already you should check out our care sheet Chinese Water Dragon Caresheet (Physignathus cocincinus) - Reptile Information - Caresheets Database

As for substrates- If you get a bag of organic soil with no additives that should work for you, if you are still wary of it you can bake it in the oven at 350 for 10-15 minutes. When needing a humid setup I have the best luck with using a 50/50 mixture of the Miracle-Gro Organic potting soil and one of the compressed soils that you soak in water (ie Eco-Earth or Bed-A-Beast). This mixture seems to work perfectly with helping to keep humidity up without becoming moldy.

If you are concerned about impaction then the 2 best ways to prevent it are to either feed outside of the viv in a feeding box that has no loose substrate, or use a different substrate in the viv with the dragon. You can use repti-carpet, tile, wood, slate pieces, anything that wouldn't be small enough to be swallowed.

Give the dragon a few day to settle in before you expect to see him with a regular routine. Try to limit your contact and interaction with him until he gets settled in.

Also to give you better information about what would be best for the dragon tell us more about your setup. What do you have? Is he in an aquarium? what size? what else is in there with him? what are your temps? what is the humidity? do you have a uvb light? Is it a new bulb? how far away from the uvb is his basking area? is there anything between the uvb and the dragon (ie a screen lid)?

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Welcome to HC. What Shell said. The more information you can give, the better. Chinese Water Dragon are pretty high maintenance...but worth it. When your dragon goes to the bathroom, it will normally be in his water. What kind of a water area do you have for him to soak in? Post pic's when you can as well. We love pic's.

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"Dare to Dream! Without dreams, there is no Hope."
***Tami***

Hi and welcome to Herpcenter. Looks you like you've gotten great advise so far. Feel free to ask away if you have more questions. The caresheet will answer alot of them.

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MARSHA

:D I'm smiling because I have no idea whats going on!

Yes, look into the water.

Also you could try filling up your bathtub a little way with warm water (do the same kind of test you would before putting a baby in the water: IE putting it on your wrists, to make sure it's not too hot). You'll want the water at it's deepest to be about shoulder height on the dragon, and put it in there. There's a good chance he'll poo in the nice warm water. Then when he's done playing around in there, transfer him back to his cage, and really clean your tub.

I usually use generic bleach cleaner, like CVS brand, or Wal*Marts in house brand, that compares to clorox bleach cleaner. Spray it all over, scrub it with a sponge, and rinse well to sanitize after your dragon poo's been in there.

In addition a great way to help with impaction is to get a feeding dish, they are sold in all sorts of sizes, I prefer deeper ones for my Chinese Water Dragon, I he's moved on from crickets and won't really eat them anymore, so as far as insects go I give him a myriad of worms to eat, while they can get out of the dished, they struggle to do so. So he can chomp them down, and when he's lost interest they are real easy to round up again. Can't say the same for crickets though :\