Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi everyone. Latly my BD has been realy lazy. Normaly he runs around and has a ball in his cage. However latly he just lays there. Is fact 2 days this week he fell asleep at night in his water bowl and I had to take him out. I have observed him eating both salad and wax worms recently however to me he looks way to skinny. He is about 6" long and you can almost see his back bone and his leggs have no meat n them at all. When he runs now its almost a stumble rather than a run. This look just like an old Iguana I had right b4 it died from MBD. I have been suplimenting every other day with C and PH powder but I am just at a loss. This must be somthing I am doing wrong as I still remember the day I got him at the pet store he was wild and fat. Anyway thanks in advance for the help.

what are your temps? lighting? anything else you can tell about the environment

I assume you're using a UVB-light?

Absolutly. Right now his basking light is a regular bulb, This gives him about 100F basking temps and the cool side of the cage fluctuates from around 75-80 at night the whole cage os about 75-80. Also with the basking light I am using a reptisun 5.0 florecent and giving him Ca and PH supliments. I did what some care sheets recomended and soaked him for 20 minutes today as well as put him in a wood and screen out dore enclosure for 30 minutes today he seemed happyer but when he went back in the indore enclosure it was right back to normal. He has one side with a lot of rocks and a climbing branch with his food and water on the cool side and some running area. I plan to get a larger cage but for his size I think what I have is fine for now. The cage is a 20G long glass tank with screen top. Thansk agan for the help.

How far away is the repti sun bulb? How old is it? (they are only good for about 6 months)
Are you using Calcium with D3? (it's a must!!!)

And what is PH powder?

Have you gotten a Fecal done?
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Joel R

Coming Soon!
www.SpikesAndScales.com

What is PH powder?
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Ph is Phosphorus. The supliment I am using per Kg says it has 20,000IU of the Vitamin D3, 33% Calcium, .01% Phosphorus 1.7% Salt, as well as other such as Iron, Potassium, Magnesium and Manganese. The list gose much farther I dont think it is important to list it all but if it is let me know and I will do so. The Reptisun light is aprox 12" Form were the lizard would play. It is almost time to replace it but I dont think that would be the problem as he gets natrual light anyway. I realy apreciate the help keep it coming. As stated before my first BD died and I dont want this one to die as well.

i'm not an expert by any means, but i'm pretty sure too much phosphorus blocks calcium absorption.

Could this possibly be the problem? As far as I know, the calcium powder with phosphorous is designed for herbivore reptiles, like iguanas. Since beardies eat both greens and insects, they should be supplemented with calcium without phosphorous!

That makes sence I will look into this today. I have read that to much PH was not good but I figured the PH amount per serving in the powder I have is low enough that it would be ok.

I was under the impression that supplementing phosphorous was a really bad idea in a bearded dragon.

You should just be supplementing with phosphorous free calcium w/D3 once a day, and possibly a multi-vitamin (miner-all and the like) once a week. I could be wrong.

Regardless, I'd get him to a vet ASAP.