Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Is D3 bad for Water dragons??
I had always been giving mine Calcium with D3 dusted on their crickets, but someone posted to someone else to only dust with Calcium with NO vitamin D/ D3 in it. Mine have always been fine, but now I am worried what might be the problem with it.
Please help!!

water dragons tend to get their D3 from UVB bulbs or natural sunlight i beleive...

It might be possible for them to get too much if you have two different, non-casual sources.

Vitamin D3 is naturally synthesised in the skin with exposure to UVB light. Artficial lighting is unreliable, since most lamps require a distance of about 12-18 inches from the animal for proper exposure and the UVB spectrum of the bulb degrades over time. Natural sunlight is best, but must be done carefully. Waterdragons can get over heated if they are very small or lost, or some other mishap can happen. I use a combination of natural sunlight and suppliments. You can over suppliment, as D3 is a Fat soluable vitamin, however, with comercial calcium D3 mixtures, this rare. You are more likely to have a problem with insuffcient D3 if you don't suppliment then over doing it, if you do. The combination of UVB exposure and D3 suppliments is not likely to cause a problem as the skin only synthesises what it needs. It's that fact that makes UVB exposure so popular. D3 is need for proper calcium absorption and is, in my opinion safe to have with calcium in a suppliment. What is not safe, is phosphorous, because it is important to maintain a ratio of 2:1 calcium to phosphorous, and phosphorous is usually high in the natural diet. In fact the whole reason for supplimenting calcium is not because there is too little calcium in the diet, but too much phosphorous, so adding more only defeats the purpose. Even when the suppliment has the right ratio, because the waterdragons food does not.