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Hi guys. I'm not a regular PI poster but on a whim I decided to come see if there's a frogs n' lizards thread and shure nuff. Looking over the OP: I think Oriental firebellied toads (Bombina orientalis) are worth adding to the "easy starter frog" list. They're cheap as hell (usually under $5 each), captive bred, and extremely hardy. I have two that have lived on neglect and crickets for 6+ years now and are still going strong. The one thing I'd caution with them is that they must be kept with either sand (small enough to swallow and pass) or large pebbles (too large to swallow). My local pet store keeps theirs with a gravel-sized substrate that is exactly the wrong size. Firebellied toads Other than that, they're an easy small-tank setup: you need a clear water area (run an aquarium pump with a charcoal filter to keep the water clean) and several areas they can climb entirely out of the water. They only eat live prey, so feeding them smallish dusted crickets (maybe up to 3/4 inch or so) works well. We also have some tiny snails in their water which came in with an aquatic plant ages ago, and those are great because they gobble up any drowned crickets before they get too disgusting, and I suspect the frogs may occasionally eat one although I've never seen them do it. The other thing I'd mention is that a couple years ago, a crested gecko breeder mentioned to me that he likes to feed his geckos yogurt to supplement the repashy diet + crickets. I tried it out and holy poo poo do my cresties love yogurt! I buy lowfat fruit yogurt, usually strawberry banana flavor, Lucerne (Safeway's house brand) which doesn't have too much sugar and is made with real fruit. It's cheap and I think especially helps the geckos with absorbable calcium. I've been feeding it for four years now without any issues, all four of my cresties and my one gargoyle are all healthy and happy as far as I can tell. In addition to the firebellied toads and the geckos, I also keep a few dart frogs - we currently have three D. leucomelas and one P. bicolor. In the past I've also kept vittatus and lamasi. I very briefly had three tincs, but they died within less than a week of coming home from a herp con, and I'm convinced they all had parasites, were badly stressed, and they were my very first dart frogs (along with one of the leucs that I still have) so I probably didn't help things with my inexperience. If any of you guys are in northern california, I occasionally attend the quarterly gatherings of the Northern California Dendrobatid Society, which meets at Chuck's house where we have BBQ and yack about frogs and also lizards, insects, and Chuck's greyhounds. Also also, "Frog Day" is going to be in my neck of the woods this year - it's later this month in Fremont. Any goons planning to attend? Captain Foxy posted:The black mamba is named Ladysmith Haha Ladysmith Black Mambazo reference, I love it. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 02:03 on May 2, 2014 |
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May 2, 2014 01:42
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Knormal posted:... You don't by any chance ever go to the Central Valley Herp Society meetings, do you? Because if so we may have run into each other. If not I bet we at least know some of the same people. No, I haven't met those guys, but we probably do know one or two of the same people.
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May 2, 2014 09:09
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I found that there's an adjustment period for getting a crestie onto the regular 1-part Repashy CGD. The 2-part I used to feed is a little sweeter if you follow the recipe for "only feeding them CGD". Most of my cresties warmed up to the 1-part stuff after a few days, and one of them started eating it after I mixed some in with some strawberry banana yogurt. My gargoyle also mostly ignores the crickets I offer her, but I wasn't really sure if she was just not eating them at all, or only eating them after I turn out the lights. I'll have to investigate more. Crested geckos are native to the island of New Caledonia, which has a temperate climate. As long as your indoor climate is also temperate, they'll be fine without an additional heat source. If you are letting your living space get down to really cold temperatures (like, sub-50 degrees or some insane thing like that) then maybe yeah get a heat bulb near the tank, but that's really way too cold to be putting up with as a human being either, so maybe just get a space heater for your bedroom or wherever you keep the crestie, and then also sleep there and be more cozy too. The more important limitation is upper temperature range. Cresties do not tolerate temperatures above about 80 F very well. An occasional hot day won't kill them, but if you routinely have 90 degree+ days, you may need to look into A/C in the room where they're kept. If they have a cool place to retreat to during a hot day, that might be enough, though.
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May 19, 2014 17:42
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Trilineatus posted:The weather in the San Francisco east bay is perfect for cresteds and needs no adjustments What up east bay crestie buddy! I'm in Concord. I'd be worried about a crestie getting thin. They don't need a ton of food, and like most reptiles they can survive a very long time on no food at all, by reducing their activity. How old are they? Try offering some yogurt. Mine go nuts for the stuff. Safeway's house brand (Lucerne) lowfat strawberry banana is their favorite.
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May 19, 2014 18:22
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My cresties have thrived on yogurt for over five years. I got the idea from a breeder who swears by it. They don't seem to have any digestion issues, and it's an additional source of calcium. That said, I haven't seen it "officially recommended" by an online or printed resource, so YMMV. e. I should add that one of the things the yogurt bacteria do, in the process of turning milk into yogurt, is process the lactose; consequently many lactose-intolerant people can eat yogurt. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 18:56 on May 19, 2014 |
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May 19, 2014 18:53
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Trilineatus posted:Sup Concord goon, I keep seeing you all over these forums while I lament about being friends with 13 inch dick and also house buying circumstances of the bay! Yeah I post way too much  quote:The one that could use a few extra grams is six years old, and I stopped hand feeding him about a year and a half ago, leading to a slightly leaner look. He does eat wax worms occasionally, and I moved him to a bigger enclosure (approx 15 gallons upright) with a live pothos and plenty of grape vine climbs about six months ago. I do feed them yogurt on occasion, but when you're not hand feeding, how the hell do you tell how much these derpy things eat, anyway? Well, I use little plastic bottle caps or (more recently) tiny recyclable plastic cups to feed, so if I was really concerned I'd weigh out the food beforehand and then weigh again when I remove old food. But that won't be super-accurate because some water will evaporate from the food regardless. Still, I can get a sense of how much repashy or yogurt a gecko has eaten by the lick-marks in the food. I don't know anything about most reptiles. I just have my cresties and a gargoyle, and I used to have a veiled chameleon as well, but otherwise I've been a frog guy. And I haven't had to deal with an underweight crestie.
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May 19, 2014 19:39
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Captain Foxy posted:Don't give cresties yogurt. It doesn't break down in their system and can form solid masses, leading to impaction and death. Feeding them yogurt or baby food was recommended probably about ten years ago and we know a lot more now. They can't process the calcium in it, either. I believe you but could you provide a reference for this? I found several online claims for yogurt being therapeutic but no online research or statements in either direction by veterinarians or zoologists.
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May 19, 2014 23:36
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Fluffy Bunnies posted:Yeah and I find a million references to giving dogs garlic every day but then I look at the ASPCA website and it says it's poison. There's still morons out there that feed babyfood and it's still highly recommended online in several places and at a billion petstores including national chains. Wanna see what that does to them? Because I have a shining example hanging out with me. This guy says he knows that yogurt can impact and kill cresties. That is very different from saying "we don't know for sure that yogurt is safe, so you shouldn't feed it" - it's a statement that there is known harm. I've never heard that before and I want to know if there's any truth behind it, because I have been feeding my geckos yogurt for 5+ years. If I might be killing them I want to know that. The fact that reptiles don't naturally eat milk is a specious argument. Cats don't naturally eat cattle, either. In fact, of all mammals only humans consume milk in adulthood, and only humans adapted to pastoralism (or with ancestors that made that adaptation with a particular mutation) can digest lactose. But yogurt has little or no lactose in it. It is high in protein, other sugars, fats (although you can buy nonfat yogurt), and lots of other stuff. I don't care much for vague statements about how yogurt has "stuff" that reptiles can't digest. We feed all manner of pets, and ourselves, things that are not part of their "natural" diet, often to their and our benefit. What matters is what the animal is capable of digesting and deriving nutrition from, without harm; this is bound to be a much longer list than whatever constituted their natural diet before we took them into captivity. Repashy Crested Gecko Diet has "germinated brown rice protein" as its second ingredient; no gecko ever ate rice before we started feeding them this stuff. It also has Flax Seed Meal and Pea Protein Isolate and several dozen other ingredients no reptile ever encountered in the wild. It even has both riboflavin and lecithin, two ingredients found in milk. It also has yeast. It has dried kelp. I am very willing to hear that yogurt is bad for geckos, but I want an actual fact or reference or anything other than "some person on the internet said so." If that doesn't exist, then OK, you don't actually know that yogurt is bad - it's a guess. My anecdote is no more data than your anecdote, all I can say is it appears to be a useful source of nutrition for my geckos. I hope I'm not coming off as overly hostile here. Just consider how you'd react if someone says "hey this thing you've been feeding to your pets for years? Yeah it's poison." Wouldn't you want that backed up by something, anything, rather than just accepting this random person's assertions at face value?
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May 20, 2014 01:15
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Captain Foxy posted:Yeah dude, I don't need to google links for you to tell you that lactobacteria for an animal that literally would never encounter that in the wild is bad. There are virtually no studies on most reptile needs because this is a brand new and entirely underfunded field. You can go ahead and fund some studies of New Caledonian gecko nutrient requirements if you are that serious about it, or you could just check your defensiveness and realize that everything with this hobby is based off info from people who have more experience and been at it longer, and in this case I'm not referring to myself but to sources like AC Reptiles, Pangea, and my boss with his PhD and years of experience. The information that garlic is dangerous for dogs is available on reputable sites like ASPCA and backed up by online and print reports of harm to dogs caused by garlic. Information about reptiles kept in captivity needing calcium supplementation is well established in both printed and online references. The information that New Caledonian Crested Geckos do not regenerate their tails is established by long practice and a total lack of counterexamples ever reported. Random reptile forums and care sheets on websites are obviously not universally reliable, but searches usually return at least a few counterexamples or expert opinions when there's some commonly (or even rarely) held belief that is actually dangerous. Half an hour of searching using terms like "yogurt gecko death" or "gecko impaction yogurt" do not return even a single report of that (but do return many reports of people suggesting or using yogurt as a means to replace gut bacteria, or even as a treatment for impaction). Your statement that yogurt can kill geckos is not reflected in any online resource I can find, reputable or otherwise. So my opinion is that you think lactobacteria are bad, and the information about impaction and death is either hearsay or invention. I apologize for challenging your expertise: I'm a newcomer to Pet Island and you are obviously a reptile expert based on your prior posts in this thread. I'll stop suggesting or recommending yogurt to others in this thread, based entirely on my respect for your knowledge. But I am disappointed that you're willing to make a statement like "this can kill your pet" without being willing to back that up. It's particularly concerning to be because if yogurt really is harmful to geckos, that's information that needs to get out there to counter all the statements to the contrary that I found; you have a golden opportunity here to save maybe hundreds of crested geckos from likely death, and all you have to do is substantiate your statement in some way. I'm not even suggesting a peer-reviewed study: just something like "Dr. So-and-so, PhD with years of experience at XY Reputable Source, states that he or she has seen at least one case where a necropsy of an impacted gecko suggested yogurt had caused the impaction." I'm not demanding to have the last word, but I'm content to leave it at that if you are, and as I said, I'll also shut up about the yogurt if you'd prefer to drop the discussion too.
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May 20, 2014 07:03
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Fluffy Bunnies posted:You're not coming off hostile just stubborn. There's a reason I don't feed CGD and hey you just listed most of them. But I already went over that and I already said my entire colony rejects the poo poo. 2.0 was received "okay" but 3.0 (the ingredient list you're reading off now) was never liked and my geckos lost a bunch of weight before I switched to PFMC- which they gulp down like crazy. OK, Repashy is poo poo. Got it. quote:Gecko can't process dairy. Yogurt is special. It's pre-processed dairy. quote:You aren't going to find a paper on this or whatever. How about you call a reptile vet and ask them? Or better yet, how about you call these nice folks? They come highly recommended and I called and asked if they'd be willing to answer you about yogurt in reptiles and they said they'd be happy to do so. They also said they've never fed milk products to any reptile and have no idea why you would do that. http://www.windwardanimalhospital.org/ Yeah, not gonna pester your local vet. quote:since you believe "the internet" when it disagrees with what you've been doing for the past few years. That's a misrepresentation of what I said. Captain Foxy specifically said that yogurt can cause impaction and death. I'm not stating I would "believe" anyone on the internet if they corrobrated or denied that: I'm saying that it's a remarkable claim, given that - as far as I can tell - absolutely nobody has ever reported such a thing on the Internet. I think if such a thing happened, it'd be likely to be reported somewhere on the net. That's not the same thing as accepting unreliable internet sources as gospel. Captain Foxy posted:Lol I called that vet and they already sounded 100% done with people asking about yogurt. "No don't do that, that's dumb NEXT QUESTION." It's a hell of a lot more than anyone else has come up with so far, so thanks for doing that. Although it's still not "yogurt causes impaction/death" which is what you claimed. That said... quote:Hopefully that's enough for you, otherwise I highly encourage you to post on Pangea with all the top end gecko breeders and ask them what they think of feeding yogurt. I'll be watching the forums to see what's said, but I'm pretty sure you're gonna get a lot more hostility and freak outs from the posters there. Pangea posters "spyral" and "dragoo" think yogurt is OK. No breeders are hostile. Pangea poster MkJurassic suggests a homemade food containing yogurt (and eggs). Breeders fail to freak out. Pangea poster Spyral again suggests yogurt & egg as part of a homemade diet. Nobody comments on the dangers of yogurt. Spyral promotes yogurt here: quote:If you are not adverse to feeding dairy products, yogurt provides protein, calcium, moisture and probiotics. However, not everyone is comfortable doing this. There is no proven benefit or harm in doing so, and many reptile breeders have used it for years. It's another option to consider.[/url] Someone question's Spyral's yogurt suggestion specifically. Her response: quote:As far as I know, no side effects with yogurt have been reported. However, it's definitely not a natural part of their diet so some keepers are philosophically opposed to adding it. Most of the issue with dairy is the lactose. Cultured yogurt is very low in lactose because the active bacteria breaks down the lactose into lactic acid during fermentation. Too much lactic acid can cause side effects such as hypoxia in the cells which leads to lower pH levels in the blood. Usually in reptiles this is caused by bursts of energy that is created within their muscles, but theoretically it could be caused by diet. However, I think that normally fruit-eating reptiles are a little more resistant to this but I'm sure too much sugar (from lactic acid or otherwise) can cause some issues - whether through lactic acidosis or other processes. Nobody challenges her here. here's a whole thread about yogurt. The posters rightly take the OP to task for refusing to feed a powdered diet in favor of her homemade diet, but the yogurt itself doesn't seem to be a big problem. On page three (where that link goes) there's a couple of extensive posts discussing yogurt. "Bliss'n'Erb" promotes it as beneficial and mentiones that she has used it successfully as a therepeutic treatment for struggling animals. On page 4, AltitudeExotics posts: quote:cresties can eat and digest yogurt just fine. Some of the biggest breeders in the world feed yogurt on a regular basis. Weather or not your diet is better than CGD wasn't the question here. To answer the question, yes they can eat and digest it just fine. I could keep going, but I don't need to. It seems clear to me based on a survey of posts from the past year on Pangea that yogurt is not controversial. Most posters recommend a diet of Repashy (or another brand) plus dusted insects, but many accept yogurt as a viable supplement. Not one poster declared yogurt to be dangerous, and there were no reports of negative effects seen from feeding yogurt. Given that last thread, I don't see a value in posting another "is yogurt OK" thread. I'm satisfied the topic has been covered on Pangea. I stand by my statement that you seem to have invented the idea that yogurt causes impaction and death, since you haven't repeated it and won't corroborate it, but that doesn't mean it's not possible... A vet said it's a bad idea. The forums say it's OK. I won't promote it further here, and I will leave it to whoever is still paying attention to this derail to make their own judgements.
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May 20, 2014 17:32
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It doesn't appear to be listed on CITES, but that does not mean the turtle isn't locally threatened. Generally it's a bad idea to try to keep a wild-caught animal when you have no idea about its health, the status of the local population, or the specifics of its needs. A brief googling suggests this is a carniverous turtle, so it would want live prey. Do you have access to an exotic animal veterenarian? Put all that together and I agree with FB. If you want a pet turtle, look into captive-bred species from reputable vendors, and maybe focus on those that can be easily fed fruits and vegetables.
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Jun 26, 2014 08:41
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Crested geckos sleep during the day usually, so if you're checking the gecko out during the day time you would expect him to be basically torpid. As a reptile it's also going to have a body temperature the same as the surrounding temperature, so it will almost always feel cool to the touch. Mine take a while to wake up if I need to disturb one during the day too. One of my cresties likes to "get up early", I usually see her wandering about before it has actually gotten dark, I guess she's just an early riser. Another one is rarely up before about 11pm or so. While they're sleeping, all of my cresties like to bury themselves under the sphagnum moss I use as substrate (I like to put down at least a two-inch-thick layer, which gives them lots of nice bedding, acts as a shock absorber when they launch themselves at the bottom to catch a bug, and sphagnum moss is anti-fungal, anti-biotic, and does a good job re-releasing moisture to prolong humidity after I mist). Sometimes they sleep in the foilage of a plant instead, or just stretch out on the back of the glass, so it seems like they like to pick different spots for snoozing during the day. Clavietika posted:Hey guys, I need some help buying bulbs. I have this light unit from exo terra, in the PT 2239 T8/T10 2x40w model. Can I use these bulbs with it? They're 30 watt, I was wondering if I had to use 40 watt or if I could use UP TO 40 watt. With all light fixtures, the watt rating of the fixture is a maximum. You can always use a lower-wattage bulb. As an aside, that's a listing from Josh's Frogs, which is a reputable online retailer. You can also buy those bulbs directly from his website, for the same price, which is a nice way to avoid the merchant having to pay eBay fees. I know some folks who have bought dart frogs from him with good results. They don't sell geckos, but they've got enough expertise with herps in general that I'd be comfortable buying any reptile stuff from them too.
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Jul 6, 2014 20:45
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It's fine to move him. Pick him up gently, let him walk around on your hands if he wants. They tend to be really jumpy, so hold one hand two or three inches away from where he's looking and that's probably where he'll decide to jump. Don't hold him high over a hard floor, because he might miss and hit the floor hard. When I'm cleaning I usually transfer the gecko to a holding cage - I have a kritter keeper, but any non-airtight container with someplace for him to hide will be fine. You probably only need to clean once every week or two. It's good to handle him regularly if this is a pet you want to handle, it acclimates them to being held. Handling should be for just two or three minutes at first, and then after a week or two, you can go longer, but never for more than maybe 30 minutes. Never grasp or grip the tail, that could trigger the gecko to drop the tail and with cresties the tail does not grow back. When you say he's not moving from his spot, does that include at night? Is he eating the food you're offering?
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Jul 7, 2014 00:48
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Trilineatus posted:Should I not let my crested and gargoyle see each other? My gargoyle has been housed next to a crestie for 4.5 years without any issue. But who knows maybe some of them are temperamental? The gargoyle is female and her neighbor is male, dunno if that means anything.
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Jul 30, 2014 06:28
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Wow Bob is amazing. He looks big enough to eat mice. Where do you live? Also, is Elvis biting the gently caress out of your hand there or what is going on.
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Aug 3, 2014 02:41
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Doesn't that hurt? Should you really be letting him do that? You might get salmonella or maybe snake AIDS or become a weresnake  Also I think Bob is an eastern American Toad (Anaxyrus americanus americanus) although in theory he could be a Woodhouse's Toad (Bufo woodhousii), if you live right on the western edge of Minnesota. Or a hybrid of those two, since apparently they can hybridize.
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Aug 4, 2014 00:03
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Make sure she gets enough calcium, give her a laying box, and she'll be just fine. If you want to, you can check her calcium sacs, but don't stress her out too much doing that. It's best if you can get an experienced person to demonstrate for you. Here's a video but you don't get a very good view of the sacs in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVqPF4V_GuI Like they say in the video don't do it too often. I think actually once every six months is plenty, and once you've had your animal on the same diet for a long time if the calcium sacs are always OK, and there's no sign of MBD, and you're not breeding her, I don't think you need to check them at all any more. If you do decide to do this, you need to also be handling your animal regularly. If you try to grab her and hold her still to do it, and she's not used to being held/contact, she might drop her tail. Which won't kill her but it'd be a shame to lose her tail that way. Make most of your handling sessions positive experiences and she'll be much more likely to hold still and let you stick something in her mouth for a few seconds.
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Aug 4, 2014 20:13
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Yeah my females have all been kept completely isolated from males their whole lives (I am not interested in breeding geckos) and they all lay eggs regularly. All over the place in the tank. They are often wrinkly and raisinlike too.
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Aug 5, 2014 02:04
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Where are you?
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Aug 7, 2014 18:40
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Sheikh Yerbooti posted:Thank you for the links! This will make for some fun during breaks. Frogs being neither of those, of course.
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Aug 9, 2014 06:58
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OneTwentySix posted:You'll also get better deals at an expo, and you'll be able to buy directly from a breeder, supporting them, and you don't have to deal with animals that may or may not have been taken care of properly by the store or along the supply chain. This might be obvious but I just wanna throw in: Expos definitely have breeders there and you can definitely have a better experience directly dealing with the source of an animal. But they also have retailers and there are plenty of them at expos who have poorly handled/treated animals for sale. My experience at expos in California has been a mixed bag for sure. Of particular issue (with dart frogs in my case) is the sale of animals that are too young. The tendency with frogs is to sell them as soon as they've grown their legs and come out of the water, but these adolescents (they are technically "adults" because their metamorphosis is complete) are still very weak and vulnerable to stress. A good, conscientious breeder/retailer does not sell dart frogs until they're at least a few weeks out of the water and clearly eating fruit flies well, have good body mass, and showing no signs of MBD. I've also seen lots of reptiles being kept in too-small cups and tubs, under hot lights, being sifted around and handled by dozens/hundreds of expo-goers, and very obviously getting way too much stress from it. Being transported long distances to/from expos can add on to the stress of being put into whatever new environment the customer is introducing their animal to. So by all means bypass the retailers - especially the big retailers like Pet[smart/co/depot/etc.], but don't assume that everything you see at an expo is a good breeder providing better-kept healthier animals. And conversely, there are reptile-specialty retailers who do an amazing job and are worth supporting. For my own part, I won't buy at expos (or big-box pet stores) any more. I know a few breeders in my area that I've met through local meet-ups and if I want another frog I'll buy one directly from the breeder, go and pick it up at their home, and put it into a well-established vivarium at my home, with ideally no more than an hour or two spent being shaken around in a non-climate-controlled deli cup with a wad of moist sphagnum moss as the only cover. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 22:44 on Aug 25, 2014 |
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Aug 25, 2014 22:40
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OneTwentySix posted:^^^ It's been a few years but I saw this stuff at Sacramento. I guess probably 5+ years ago now, I haven't felt the need to go in recent years. I've not seen one so young that its tail wasn't absorbed, but I've seen plenty of froglets that were in my opinion way too young to be sold. I'm sure the motivation for breeders is to not tie up space and labor any longer than they have to on taking care of morphed-out adult froglets; it's a hell of a lot easier and cheaper to just rear tadpoles en-masse.
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Aug 26, 2014 20:35
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I'll go with Eastern Tiger Salamander, per the Minnesota Herpetology guide. Appears to be common, hardy, large, and voracious. With some luck it might actually survive being owned by kids. It wants to be underground, mostly, so it needs a hide/burrow. I'd offer a variety of insects. Also, keep cool, no warmer than low 70s, keep the substrate moist, and clean regularly. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 01:13 on Sep 12, 2014 |
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Sep 12, 2014 01:07
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I'm quite happy to pay 12 cents each for "large" (actually about 3/4 inch) crickets at PetSmart weekly because it means I don't have to keep a bin full of crickets around all the time and deal with transferring crickets from a shipping box into the bin and cleaning the dead cricket mulch out of the bin and listening to 500 crickets chirping all day and night. I know I'm paying like four times as much as I would buying them 500 at a time online but the extra money is soooo incredibly worth it. I buy about 50 a week and just portion them out between my firebellied toads and my geckos as soon as I get home and they are generally gone in about three days.
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Oct 11, 2014 01:40
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Beardies want big wide flat habitat, rather than narrow tall vertical habitat like a climbing lizard would want. You don't need to have glass all the way around - one side with glass lets you see the lizard, but otherwise being enclosed is OK. The important aspects of the habitat are that it be healthy (no toxic materials or paints, no sharp edges on the inside), escape-proof, clean, easy to maintain, and allows you to maintain a gradient of appropriate temperatures for the animal. Humidity regulation may also be important depending on your ambient humidity. If you have reasonable carpentry skills and tools you could definitely construct your own habitat. I built a 3' by 3' by 4' tall enclosure for my chameleon for around 50 bucks in materials a few years back, and it held up OK although it was not attractive to look at. You'll want a broad, deep, but not necessarily tall box (although vertical space is fine), with vents along the upper sides, but a closed top. You'll need to position a heat lamp and a UV lamp so that they're inside the enclosure or at the very least, not shining through glass (if you must shine your UV light through a transparent pane you will have to locate and purchase special UV-transparent plastic. TAP plastics carries the stuff. It's not cheap and eventually becomes opaque to UV so you have to replace it periodically.) I dunno about that display cabinet. It could be made to work, assuming it's sturdy and you could lay it on its side, and you can cut vents into it, and you can figure out a way to mount lights, but you might be better off starting with a few pieces of lumber and some screws.
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Oct 14, 2014 19:41
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Be sure if you build a wood enclosure that you seal the wood. You can use polyurethane or similar, and make sure it sits for at least a couple days for all the fumes to finish coming out and the stuff to fully cure. That will let you clean the inside with whatever cleansers you use without ruining the wood, and it'll also keep down splinters etc. It's also a good idea to caulk the joints, for the same reason. Let's talk about light. To my mind the lighting in your enclosure has four purposes: 1. Provide sufficient UV exposure for the animal's health 2. Provide sufficient heat for basking 3. Provide a day/night cycle for the animal 4. Allow you and your housemates/guests to enjoy the animal I greatly prefer to separate heat, UVB, and ordinary lighting as much as practicable. This allows you to regulate each independently. You may find yourself needing to switch to a higher or lower output heat bulb depending on how insulating your enclosure winds up being, and that will be much easier to do if you're not also having to swap UV bulbs at the same time. Combining UVB with the ordinary lighting (for day/night) is much more OK with a beardie, since all-day UVB is what they need anyway. See more on this below. You can use ceramic "bulbs" to emit heat for basking too, but I found with my chameleon that without the light source, he did not easily locate or use the hot-spot in the cage for basking - his instincts to bask were triggered by visible light, so I had to switch back to a luminescent heat bulb. For the day/night cycle, you can use a combination of in-tank and room ambient lighting, including possibly a window. This will depend on where you situate the tank in your home, and that room's usage pattern. The key thing is that the lizard should not have to deal with excessive "daylight hours" (e.g., a room that is lit all the time) or "nighttime hours" (a room that is dark all the time). The closer you can get to a reasonable 12/12 split between day/night is better, and some kind of twilight between the two is fine too. A longer day (14 hours) is better than a too-short day. UV: for most lizards, UVB is the critical thing. It is necessary for Vitamin D production which in turn is necessary for calcium absorption. The best way to get UVB is to let your lizard outside in the sun whenever you can. Obviously you need some kind of outdoor enclosure for this: a temporary cage you can set out on a lawn in a protected area is great. You should always give the animal a hide/shade option when doing this, and of course you'll have to use screen of some kind to let the light in (as mentioned, normal glass and most plastics block UVB). I have also seen people who have leash-trained a beardie taking them for a "walk" in the yard... that's a cool thing to do too. During the summer, 30 minutes a day in the sun may provide most of the UVB they need. UVA may or may not be important, but fortunately you will get UVA from most bright white lights, without having to buy a special bulb for it. Assuming you're providing ambient lighting OR using an incandescent bulb to provide spot heating, then you are already providing plenty of UVA. Bearded Dragons are desert animals accustomed to basking in the bright sunlight, so they respond best to a bright white basking light. A halogen floodlamp will work well too. You'll want to set up your heat lamp/daylamp and check temperatures carefully before introducing the animal. ~105 degrees F at the hot point of the basking spot, with a temperature gradient available in the rest of the enclosure - the coolest spot must not be warmer than 85, and something more like 75 or 80 is best. If you can, using a thermostat to switch your heat source on and off will let you hit the right temperature regardless of changes in the temp of the room in which you keep the enclosure. You can also set up a timed outlet for your daytime/nighttime cycle, which would control ambient lighting, the heat lamp, and the UV light. For UVB: A mercury vapor UVB bulb produces both heat and UVB, and they output a lot (which is good, for beardies). You can use it as your primary heat & UVB source. This does mean though that it needs to be on all day, e.g., not on a thermostat switching it off when it gets too hot, which in turn means you need to match the specific heat output of the bulb to exactly where you're mounting & aiming it. If your enclosure is too small you'll overheat the basking spot, too big and you'll underheat it. This type of bulb has to be changed annually even if it hasn't burned out, but my experience has been that they burn out way more often than once a year. Flourescent bulbs are then my preference for providing UVB. As mentioned by others, avoid the curly type compact flourescent. I suspect that the warnings about them are outdated but I have yet to see someone do comprehensive testing of the CFLs available today to prove that they're safe, so in the meantime, avoid them. This leaves you with the long-tube type flourescent UVB bulbs. This is my recommendation because you can mount one in the top of your enclosure, have it on all day without adding significantly to heat, and moderate your heat bulb with a thermostat. These bulbs also output UVA, but as mentioned assuming you use a heat lamp and some ambient lighting, the animal will get plenty of UVA. The exact amount of UVB put out is a function of the % output listed times the total luminscence of the bulb, so (for example) a ten watt bulb that claims 15% UVB would output less total UVB than a 20 watt bulb claiming 10% UVB (and wattage is not a perfect indicator for luminescence). For this reason I recommend a bulb of the largest size Reptisun 10.0 that will conveniently fit in the hood or lid of your enclosure. Anything 12" or over will probably be fine, but by going the full length of the hood/lid, you ensure good exposure everywhere in the tank. These bulbs also provide a pretty good amount of ambient light, so an 18" bulb in your tank may be all the ambient lighting you need for your day/night cycle. Nightime heating: You might need nighttime heating if the room in which you keep your enclosure gets very cold at night (say, below 60 or 65 degrees). If you keep your house at a normal comfortable temperature, than this is likely not a concern. If you do have him in a really cold room, then set up a ceramic emitter to provide heat without light at night. As always such a heater should be carefully monitored to be sure it doesn't overheat, such as by using a thermometer, but also make absolutely sure the animal can't come into contact with the heat emitter itself, because it can be burned easily. I hope this is helpful, and as always someone jump in if I got something wrong! Also Fitzy Fitz feel free to post your plans if you decide to build your own enclosure. 
Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 23:43 on Oct 16, 2014 |
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Oct 16, 2014 23:35
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Fitzy Fitz posted:Thanks man, that's a huge help. I went ahead and bought one of those mercury lights because I felt bad for the little guy, and they were having a huge sale on them at the store. Down the line I'll probably upgrade. Right now the temps are 105 under the light, 85 on the close end, and 75 on the far end. I'm a little concerned though because he started shedding just a few hours after I hooked the thing up. It seems like normal shedding as far as I can tell, so maybe the light actually helped him out a little bit? I hope it's not bad! He's been hanging out under the light, so I think he likes it. I didn't read it thoroughly but that looks like a decent enough design. The one thing I'd be careful of is the screen - if your bearded dragon rubs its nose on the screen much it can abrade away scales and give them an open wound. It's better to have glass on the front, although with glass you then have to provide ventilation (hence my suggestion to add vents to an enclosure). If you do use screen, see if you can find a coated screen that won't be as harsh on the animal's face. Octolady posted:Anyone know the best way to transport a crestie to the vet? (Or any other small lizard) All I have at the moment is a large size kritter keeper. I've had a crestie drop a tail during transportation, because he freaked out. It was when we were moving house, and my wife put his tank into the passenger seat of the car and belted it in. The gecko's tank didn't have anything covering the glass, and he's quite a spazz anyway so he panicked as soon as my wife started driving down the street. I think he could see right out the windows. So the key thing I think is to cover whatever you transport her in, like with a towel or something, so there's no view outside of all the crazy movement and stuff. Keep the stereo off, drive carefully (no sudden braking or sudden acceleration). Also avoid a temperature shock, so if it's really cold or hot out, start your car and run the heater or A/C until you have a comfortable temperature. A critter keeper should be fine, though. Put in something easy to hide in like some egg crate or a deep layer of moss or a bunch of paper towels. When you get to the vet, sit her keeper down somewhere and leave it there for five or ten minutes before you open it up, so she has time to calm down after all the movement. If your gecko does drop her tail, don't panic. It's stressful of course, but she'll survive. Most adult cresties found in the wild are tailless. It will take her a while to get used to jumping without her tail but eventually she'll get the hang of it. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 00:06 on Oct 18, 2014 |
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Oct 18, 2014 00:02
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Fitzy Fitz posted:Ah that makes sense. He didn't mention why he went with screen on the front, but it wouldn't be hard to add glass and vents. An open top may allow your lizard to escape. It will almost definitely allow live crickets to escape, too. And, it may let people or other pets or whatever get in. You do have to be careful about a lightbulb inside the enclosure, just making sure your bearded dragon cannot reach it/brush against it, and that the temperature of the lizard isn't too high when basking. What I mean by that is, if you are shining a heat lamp on a spot on (say) a rock, which is 12" from the lamp, and then taking your temp there... well, when the lizard gets on that rock maybe she's now only 8" from the lamp and her skin is getting much hotter than the rock was? An infrared thermometer is a great way to figure stuff like this out. They're little keyfob-sized doohickies that you just point and push a button and it gives you a temp reading nearly instantly. I got one for like $15 I think.
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Oct 19, 2014 09:00
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 13:45 |
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San Diego doesn't have winter. He'll be fine.
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Nov 22, 2014 09:32
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