Juvenile Bearded Dragon Not Eating, Resting Most of the Day

[YoursTruly]

I got the dragon about a month ago. He is around five months old now. When I brought him home, he ate normally for the first few weeks. He would eat about seven or eight small crickets each day, as well as a couple superworms and kale. As of about a week and a half ago, however, he stopped eating almost altogether. He would maybe eat one or two crickets per day. Now I can't get him to even look at the crickets, and he basks with his eyes closed all day.

I took him to the vet yesterday out of concern. This is my first reptile, let alone bearded dragon, so all of this is new to me. The vet said that, after testing his feces, he did not have any parasites. She also said that this is common in young bearded dragons. She gave me an antibiotic anyway, as well as reptile formula. I have to force-feed the formula to him, and I feel horrible doing it.

I'm looking for any help I can get, and any knowledge from veteran beardie owners I believe his habitat is correct. The temperatures are as follows: basking 106.5°F, mid tank 93.2°F, and cool end 85.7°F. Humidity is usually 20% to 30%, and the bulbs are as follows: 100W white heat bulb over a raised basking spot, 12% UVB bulb mid tank, and a 60W black night bulb. On the basking end, I also have an 8W adhesive heating pad on the outer side of the tank. He sleeps on that side at night and I thought it would help keep him warm. Also, he is pretty small, so I have him in a 20L tank.

iI hope this isn't TLDR, but I'm desperate for help.

 

[PatsyB]

Drop the black night bulb at night. Beardies can see spectrums of color that we can't see even black, so he could be seeing shadows over his head at night and not getting a restful sleep. If his tank drops below 65 degrees at night, you should use a CHE bulb. It puts out heat but no light. Also, the heating pad on the tank isn't doing any good. It is heating your glass and not the air in the tank. Bearded dragons can't sense heat on their belly, they have a "3rd eye" on top of their head that helps them find heat from overhead so they will never seek out a heat pad for heat.

 

[YoursTruly]

I have a CHE now. I've also installed a 24in Reptisun 10 UVB tube instead of the compact one. I've read that it is much more beneficial and more evenly disperses the UVB rays (it's been a costly weekend!). In the time since I made this post! I took Thane to the vet and had him checked out. No parasites, but she gave us an antibiotic anyways. He has been taking that since Saturday. However, I noticed some crust and infection in his eyes and have scheduled a recheck appointment. Personally, I think that the compact bulb irritated his eyes, but I still want to take him into the vet to see if he needs an additional or different antibiotic.

 

[PatsyB]

Yes the coil bulbs will irritate the eyes. How are his eyes today? You could get some sterile saline solution in the eye section at the drug store and you can use it to rinse the eye with. Unless the doctor can give you some medicine for the eye.

 

[YoursTruly]

He's starting to do better! He has antibiotics, a calcium supplement, and eye drops from the vet. I bought dubia roaches and he seems to really like them as well