Help! What is this?

[KriminalDragon]

So one of my baby lizards had a big stomach and shortly after stopped eating and VERY rapidly lost weight. At first we thought it was impaction so we gave him/her a warm bath for 15 minutes. At the time it was late so I had to go to bed. In the morning I checked on it and the lizard had its head up and looking around and seemed fine. When I got home that night I saw that s/he wasn't moving and i was very sure it had passed. It would breath very little and shortly it got really stiff and died. I was sad and I was curious so i wanted to see what was wrong so i dissected it and found this. The span of the noticeable symptoms was 2 days (although now that i think of it he had not been eating as much as the others). The little one went downhill very rapidly and i'm sure the lizard had this for a while. This happened about a week ago and i thought it was one of those things that just happen sometimes (like cancer). But just today i came home to find another one dead without had showing any symptoms like the last one. I feed my lizards kale, spinach, (and the like), crickets, and wax worms. I supplement with calcium and vitamins. I use a UVB light and a heat lamp. The one side of the tank is 99-102 degrees fahrenheit and the other side is 78-82 degrees. Is this something i did wrong, is it diseases, parasites (i do treat my adult lizards for parasites), or could it be genetic? I need to know so i can prevent this in the future. Any links would be helpful because i can not find pictures or articles. Any impaction pic i find doesn't look like this. My parents suggested that maybe it was a cyst of some sort. Anything is helpful. Thanks.

 

[Hdrydr31]

Oh how sad very sorry.... to be honest that looks like a polymer water crystal is it squishy??
Also I would avoid spinach as it's hard to digest as it has alot of calcium..

 

[KriminalDragon]

Oh how sad very sorry.... to be honest that looks like a polymer water crystal is it squishy??
Also I would avoid spinach as it's hard to digest as it has alot of calcium..

I try to avoid spinach unless that's all we have. I also thought it could be one of those but i don't know how how it could have gotten one. When they hatched in the incubator there was a wire mesh separating the egg containers and whatever crystals we used, and they were put immediately into the enclosure. Unless maybe the crickets had somehow eaten it and they were ingested by the lizards. I might post this some other places too to get more opinions. I'm afraid a few of my other lizards might have it because one has a large stomach. I'm thinking of taking all of the lizards to the vet to see if anymore have it.

 

[PatsyB]

I have no experience in this but my first instinct is that it's a kidney stone caused from too much spinach. Spinach blocks their bodies absorption of calcium and fed at a higher amount could cause problems. So think you are feeding kale that is high in calcium and then you are feeding spinach that blocks the body from absorbing it, where is it going to go? But I'm not a vet so I don't know for sure what it is. I tried to find pictures of kidney stones but couldn't find anything.

Baby dragons need a higher basking area than adults. 99-102 degrees is perfect for adults but the babies need it to be more like 110-115 to digest their food.

So sorry for your loss.

 

[KriminalDragon]

I have no experience in this but my first instinct is that it's a kidney stone caused from too much spinach. Spinach blocks their bodies absorption of calcium and fed at a higher amount could cause problems. So think you are feeding kale that is high in calcium and then you are feeding spinach that blocks the body from absorbing it, where is it going to go? But I'm not a vet so I don't know for sure what it is. I tried to find pictures of kidney stones but couldn't find anything.

Baby dragons need a higher basking area than adults. 99-102 degrees is perfect for adults but the babies need it to be more like 110-115 to digest their food.

So sorry for your loss.

Thank you. I have researched kidney stones and they dont look like this. I try to avoid spinach unless it's all I have so they are rarely fed it. The blob was also in the stomach. Should I raise the temperature? All of the research I ever did said 95-100 degrees for baby beards or else it gets very uncomfortable for them.

 

[PatsyB]

I would bump up the temp to at least 110. A few degrees higher or lower is okay but aim for 110. You want to make sure they have places to hide in their tank so if they do get too warm they can get out of the heat if they want.

 

[Hdrydr31]

How are your dragons?? Did you ever find out what that was? was is soft or hard? what about taking it to a reptile vet to see if they can identify it??

 

[Hdrydr31]

This is why I think that it was a water crystal as they can get pretty big

 

[KriminalDragon]

I would bump up the temp to at least 110. A few degrees higher or lower is okay but aim for 110. You want to make sure they have places to hide in their tank so if they do get too warm they can get out of the heat if they want.

Alright thanks! I will. I do have two hiding places but one of them I'm going to replace with a different one cause it's a better hide

 

[KriminalDragon]

This is why I think that it was a water crystal as they can get pretty big

I might. Right now they are fine and the one with the big stomach no longer has a bloated stomach. It was soft and squishy but I don't know how he could have eaten it. I'm looking into it more.

 

[Hdrydr31]

I might. Right now they are fine and the one with the big stomach no longer has a bloated stomach. It was soft and squishy but I don't know how he could have eaten it. I'm looking into it more.

Well they can be pretty quick and it's impossible to watch them every sec it could have been small at the time and once inside the dragon it will soak up any moisture getting bigger and bigger until it's the largest it will get. And in the process blocking where ever it is. That really is what it looks like to me