Hey all,
My water dragon is acting a little strange:
His skin is really dark when he wakes up
He sleeps all the time, sometimes I have to wake him up
When he is awake, he just hangs in one spot for the most part and he keeps only one eye open
Any ideas? I'm really worried.

How big/old is your wd? What are the temps in the viv? Is he eating, drinking, pooping? Give us as much info as you can so we can try to help. It sounds like a vet visit may be in order.

Hope your little guy/gal is ok.

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Char

1.0.0 Chinese Water Dragon - Zilla
0.2.0 Leopard Geckos - Geckie & Raven
1.1.0 Parrotlets - Tac & Fauna
3.0.0 Cats - Psycho, Fibber, Angel
2.1.0 Ferrets - Sunshine, Spaz, & Quazie
0.0.1 Bala Shark - Sharkie

It doesn't sound good, but we need as much info on his surroundings as possible. Enclosure size, what type of lid yo have, temperatures, humidity, what kind of lighting is used, diet, supplements, and so on...

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+5 bonus points to whoever finds me a job!

"Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines." - John Benfield

Agreed, Water Dragons do not show any documented signs of being sad. Most dragon emotions are projected by the owner onto the animal. I'm by no means saying dragons do not have there own little dragon feelings I'm just saying that they do not go through fits of depression like some of us humans do (it has not been documented anyway). The symptoms you describe sounds like an overall decline or stress to me. The enviroment needs to be evaluated for possible issues as does the diet then if the solution is not reached the issue may need to have medical treatment considered. As mentioned above particukars about your enviroment can help others point you in the right direction.

As the others said, if we are to give you more advice/help we need to know more about his history and his environment.

However, apart from illness, the first thing that sprung to my mind is brumation - depending on his age it is getting near the time of year when our lizards start to put themselves through brumation, one of our adult female bearded dragons is notorious for it. She sleeps all winter in one spot down the cooler end of the viv, without outside influences affecting her.

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"If you know everything you may as well blow your brains out because the reason for existence is to learn more everyday." - Mark O'Shea, 2004

if he's dark colored a lot that would be a sign of stress or being unhealthy.

Rachel, Chinese water dragons really don't brumate. They do have a slight cooling period in their native climate (not much cooling though) and they will slow down eating during this period, but as far as has been documented their activity levels stay about the same. As the temps warm in their native climates they go into breeding season.

In captivity they don't go through this period, they may sense some climatic change if they are in cooler areas and their appetite might decrease slightly .. but overall they don't need to have a cooling period prior to a breeding period. So I don't think this is this dragons problem.

This dragon sounds sick, and without more info about how it's set up we can't really help much except to say that it needs to see a reptile vet ASAP. Like many other reptiles, water dragons don't act sick until they are very sick. They hid their illness as long as they can (in the wild showing weakness will get them killed). Since this dragon is lethargic I'd say it's pretty sick, and it needs medical care.

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Tricia