Hello all! I am new here and new to herp's in general. I got a water dragon a week ago and no matter what I do he is just not thriving. He has a decent enclosure, plenty of water, is offered food (crickets, mealworms, apples, strawberries, spinach) but nothing. He does not eat. The temperature in his cage...now I am having a heck of a time regulating that. I honestly need someone to tell me EXACTLY what bulbs work and which don't. I am on my fourth pair of bulbs. I have the basking side up to 90 but the water side just refuses to go above 80 no matter what bulb I put in there. LeeZard is not going in his water on his own at all and I don't blame him - the temp of the water is cold even when I put the heat lamp directly over it. After an emergency vet visit to revive him from the brink of death on Friday he is now having 3 "sauna baths" a day and being syringe fed babyfood. After his baths he looks good, good colour, eyes open, nice and spunky. Give him 3 or 4 hours and he is back to sleeping and looking pale.
Please help!!

thanks
Deb

Hello,

In order to help, we need to know just about everything about the Dragon and his housing.

How big is the enclosure? What are you using to monitor the temps? What is the humidity in the enclosure? What type of UV lighting are you using? When you went to the vet, did they check for parasites?

__________________
.:: Rich ::.

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I have 3 Chinese Water Dragons....I have the same questions Rich has, In order for us to help you we need this info

ok I am going to run upstairs and take a picture of the enclosure and get all that info! I will be right back. As for parasites - I am to take in a stool sample on Monday for the vet to check.
Brazilian Rainbow Boa!

ok here we are...lets see if this works. He has 2 lights in there - both are infrared one is 75watts, the other is 60. The 60 is over the water. they are exo-terra lights, same as the thermometers. In the picture both lights are not shown because I have the bigger one over the water to try and warm it up - LeeZard is in his sauna. The first pic is just to show the size of LeeZard while he is in his sauna.
Humidity - I don't know - I just found out about needing a meter for that so I need to go pick one up. I have been misting his cage 3 to 4 times a day.

lemme try the pics...

ohk, first of all you need a UV source..you should get a mercury vapor bulb and a regular basking bulb...the MVB will provide both UVA?UVB which the dragon needs becuase it had the vitamin D3 in it, which is needed to absorb calcuim. The temps should be 84-88, 84 being the cool side 88 the warm..humidity needs to be70-80%. Once you get the 2 bulbs you will have no problem keepoing your temps up. You should also get an under tank heater and place the water bowl over it so keep the water warm...water temps shoulf not fall below 80 deg. As for his diet cut out the fruits, or cut them down to once a week. A water dragons diet should be in ratios as follows: Insects 40% whole prey 50% fruis and veggies 10% and if your dragon wont accept fruits and veggies increase the % of insects...at your dragons age Im going to say that his diet should be 90% insects and 10% fruits and veggies because hes prob too small to eat pinks..but you could always try tem as they are very healthy for the dragon to eat. Do you use vit/calcuim supplements? If not you need to. You should dust with calcium(without D3 and phosporus, as they can only absorb D3 from UVB and he will get more then enough phosporus form the insects) I use Jurassical for my dragons. I cant tell what type of substrate your dragon is on..as long as its not coconut fiber its ohk...that tends to give them eye infections...In case thier is anyhtign I may have missed check out our WD caresheet...http://www.herpcenter.com/showthread.php?t=6973 good luck and let us know if you have any other questions!

oh my! ok. well the three petstore people I spoke to did warn me that getting the enclosure set up properly is the hardest part. they weren't kidding! Thanks for chatting with me MsH! Hope I didn't drive you nuts with me 100,000 questions!

I'll post back here when I get his set up ..set up!

Deb

Editing to add: At the moment he doesn't feed himself AT ALL. makes zero attempt to eat yet loves the baby food when I feed him.

Hello,

The lack of UV lighting is certainly affecting his eating behaviors. Check out http://www.reptileuv.com for your lighting. The SB series also produces heat, so that will help you get the gradient you want.

The UV light is something needed now. The longer the WD goes without it, the worse off he will be.

__________________
.:: Rich ::.

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youre more then welcome! Im just glad we were here to help you...and ease your mind a little bit Water Dragons really arnt beginner reptiles, as petstores like to make them out to be...but all your time and effort will be more then worth it! they are very friendly and loving once they get setteled in..and they are easy to spoil

alrighty so below is what I have now - he has his basking light and his uva/uvb light thingie. a heating pad under his water (I think the one I got is too small though). With the basking light on his warm side is about 88 - the cool side I am still arguing with - its only about 75. Now given he has been so out of commission for so long should I go ahead leave those lights on for a few days?

Also - he's trying to eat!!! YAY!!! He has had no luck in catching a cricket but he has managed to eat some moss