Reptile & Amphibian Forums

It took me a while but finally I finished the new enclosure for my capra.
In this picture both lights are on but normally I have only one UV lamp on the right side above the water. The temperature will be 86F on the right side and 75F on the left side.
The tank is 39.5 inch long and high and 15.75 deep (as I come from Holland I hope I'll have the inches right, we talk about centimeters )
What do you think?
Any suggestions to make it more comfortable?
Thanks,
Doret

Mail it to me, I will make do with it

it looks PERFECT
I would have fish in the water with a warerfall filter, and a fogger for the dawn and dusk times (U can get a floater if the water is more than 15cm deep for it as well)
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Elizabeth (ecb)

Make this world a better and more beautiful place that You have been in it
*Edward W Bok*

That is fabulous! My dragons just turned green with envy Oh, never mind, some were already green

I don't know how that I would do anything different other than to have more foliage. It looks like you have several plants so just letting them grow and vine all over will take care of that. Other than that it looks great. You didn't say anything about humidity so I will ask. Do you have a misting or fogging system? That would be the only other thing I would recommend. I am not currently using one but will say that my dragons looked their very best when I did have a fogger set to cycle at dawn and dusk. I put it on a timer and let it go for 20-30 min just after the lights came on and just before they went off.

So, did you build this yourself or just decorate it? It is a lovely design and I can't imagine your MHD wouldn't be happy in that.

I do have a couple of questions. That big tree trunk thing on the back wall, is that ready made, real wood, or did you make it? It looks like you have a semi-aquatic tank and a filter in the water end. Is this correct.

Finally, if you converted the dimensions correctly then you have an enclosure that is 100 cm tall and long and 40 cm deep.

I used to know the conversion when I first started working with these guys because the only references I could find pertaining to MHDs used metric measurements. Since then that has become less important to me and I now use an on-line conversion. There are several good one and one of the best is www.convert-me.com/en/ as you can plug in any measurement and it will convert to all possible others. Another good one is www.digitaldutch.com/unitconverter/.

I just looked down the forum to see if you had posted before and ran across your old post. You had asked about when the horns would start growing and that she was only 27 cm. I don't know if anyone else ever answered this question but at 27 cm your dragon is very close to full-grown. 27 cm converts to 10 inches and the dragon would be full grown at 30 to 38 cm. The horns start developing at 4 to 6 months of age. At 27 cm I would think your dragon is 18 months to 2 years of age although I do have a couple of adult females who are on the small side and are probably no more than 28 cm total length.
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Marcia - FroggieB Dragons
www.froggieb.com/MHDHome.html

Thanks both for the reply's (and yes Elizabeth, I did understand the joke )
I tried to reply 2 times before but the first time I pushed the wrong button, the second time I was not logged in
Thirth time I type this now

There is a small kind of waterfall and, of course water, about 15 liter. I have put a pump in the water with no filter, just because I never see my capra in the water. This one I can clean in a few minutes.
As I have bought 6 small fish for my watergragons ones (5 died) and they never eat one, I know I don't want them anymore. Every week when I cleaned up the waterpart and filter, it took me half an hour to catch those little-fast-swimming-creatures.

Every morning and evening I mist the enclosure and for now the humidity is 77% in de daytime and 90% at night. I will see in about two weeks if this will stay the same. Otherwise I will buy a misting system to take over the hard job
Under the tank there is a heatmat which warmes up the water a bit.

There will be some more foliage in there. First I wanted to observe her for a couple of days and I can see now she is doing well. I never saw her move as much as she's doing now. At nighttime she's moving to the highest and darkest place and hiding between the plants over there. (on the left at the top).
The plants are all fake but I will buy some real stuff for her.Probably better for fresh air and humidity.

Also I want to thank you for the reply of my older questions.
She's still 27 cm so it looks like she's just a small adult female.

But I have a new question.
Only ones or twice a week I find feaces (is this the right word?). It is huge for a small animal like her, specially the white part, that's about 3cm, 1.2 inch long. Sometimes her belly is also swollen up and it feels soft then. I didn't had de chance to bring some to the vet as I never knew for how many hours it is laying there.
When I just got her she was skinny so I fed her every day, as much as she wanted (5 or 6 crickets). Now she's a little spoiled because she only eat all kind of worms, she only eat crickets when she is very hungry. Now I feed her every other day, still as much as she likes, except when she is swollen up.
Any suggestions? (I will bring some faeces to the vet as soon as possible)

Doret.

I forgot about the back wall.
Yes, I made it myself and it turned out the way I had in mind.

So I am a little proud of myself

I agree with you on the fish, they are a lot of mess in the water your dragon will be drinking and my MHDs have never shown an interest. There was someone a while back who had a beta in a bottle above the water for a fountain and the beta disappeared. He has assumed that the dragon ate it. I am sure it is possible and perhaps a fish struggling on the ground would be a better meal than one in the water

I really like your setup. Sounds like you have all the necessities covered. I do like live plants myself but find that with some of the animals they don't survive. With those I just sink the pot and all so they can't dig it up.

About your dragon, how long have you had her? I am guessing not real long since you haven't had a fecal done and your first post wasn't that long ago. The reason I ask is because so often they are gravid at her size. This is something you may want to be on the watch for. Elizabeth has surprise eggs more or less. I kept thinking she had had erowin too long for her to be gravid and Elizabeth kept thinking she was gravid. Even though I have worked with these animals longer she was right!

It is pretty normal to not see feces any more often than what you are finding. The feces is large for these small animals but it seems very normal. It still amazes me when I see how large the ones from the babies are! My little ones at about 10.2 cm drop feces about 1.3 cm. That seems large to me! But it is very normal. I go ahead and feed them when they want. I have found they don't eat as much when they are puffy unless they are puffy from being in the early stages of being gravid.

The only thing I can suggest is to get the fecal check when you can. Sounds like you are doing what needs to be done.

I love your tank, you will have to tell us how you built that tree trunk on the back wall My dragons want one!
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Marcia - FroggieB Dragons
www.froggieb.com/MHDHome.html

I'm very glad to hear that she is acting normal and that her feces look normal too

I bought her 5 months ago, seems like a long time to carry eggs and because her belly is soft if she's swollen up, I don't think I can expect small capra's.
Maybe I fed her too much before, at the moment she is in a good shape. And active.

The back wall en tree trunk I made from the white foamy stuff and covered it with the paste you use in the bathroom (I really don't know the word for it). Then I painted it.
Here is a picture when I started it.

Doret.

eh, here is the picture

Yeah, 5 months is beyond what you would expect for eggs. I do know that they tend to look bloated a lot if the parasite load is too high but sometimes my babies will just eat so much that they look like that for days!

Thanks for the photo. That really did turn out nice. I have wanted to set up some nice vivariums for some time now and that looks like the best way to go about setting it up. Thanks for sharing!
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Marcia - FroggieB Dragons
www.froggieb.com/MHDHome.html