Male beardie, 14 months old and 260g

[Ell R]

My bearded dragon, Pickles is about 14 months old, hes extremely active and gets a few hours of free roam a day under supervision.
I'm concerned that Pickles is underweight and small for his age.
his usual diet is mealworms most days with crickets, wax worms, and dubai switched in and out. He also gets a variety of greens each week: carrots, yellow squash, kale, strawberrries, and apples are some of his favorites. his food is always dusted with calcium with D3 and a couple days a week he also gets a vitamin supplement dusted on his insects and greens a couple days a week
Pickles is housed in a 40 gallon breeder tank, he has a small ceramic heater above his hammock for nightime heating,(cool side.) there's a large tube uvb bulb throughout the middle of the tank sitting on the mesh screen that i replace every few months, and he has a heat spotlight by his water to bask. i often move his uvb light next to his spotlight to increase the uvb he might intake.
otherwise he has a large ferret litter box for a water bowl (because he loves to splash around in the water.) His substrate is alfalfa pellets (likes to dig but didn't want to risk impaction) and he has some logs and some toys.
temperature wise his cool spot is around 75-85 degrees F based on if my roommate decides to turn the heat off or crank it (obviously no in between right??) While the warm side is usually 85-110 degrees F also based on the same roommate

My big question here: why is my dragon only 260 grams if he seems healthy and happy?

 

[Ell R]

What is the brand and bulb you are using for the UVB ? Distance is key on the UVB ----This makes all the difference in the health of the dragon and growing --- what are the actual basking temps ? And how are you taking them --? The lighting in the tank is the most crucial thing for the dragon --- can you post a pic if him please -- you might want to consider upgrading to a bigger tank as well - the 40 gallon is minimum and usually a 75-120 gallon is recommended - its good he has free roam time every day since hes in the 40 gallon

i usually use a heat gun to take basking temps, however it recently broke after i moved (by bad roommate) so i purchased one of those really cheap ambient temp gauge until the new gun comes in the mail: temps are from when i acclimated his tank to this house.
most all of my lighting is reptisun, or zoomed. the ceramic bulb and dome i got from somebody i know who didn't know exactly where she got it.
i have plans to upgrade his tank but recently moved 5 hours across state for a job so i wanted to wait until i was settled to mess with his enclosure.

 

[Ell R]

ok so you can get a digital probe thermometer for $5 at petco or petsmart -- i need to know exactly what lighting your using for a UVB Reptisun tube or coil??? I recommend you get a digital probe thermometer -- and you can get a infrared heat gun for like $10-12 from your local home improvement store --- the tank can wait as you said -- here is a nutrition website
http://www.beautifuldragons.com/Nutrition.html I would switch the greens up from kale to collard turnip and mustard greens --- give a variety --
A good healthy weight for a adult bearded dragon is 300 grams --

I've been looking into them today and just am on an odd hours job schedule and haven't been able to stop at one when they were open next day or two ill have one. It is a tube light, ( one long tube of straight light that emits uvb.)
i switched his diet to mustard greens and cucumber as the center food about three weeks ago, i switch every couple weeks (still including them but differing ratios with other center foods.) He's been prompted to eat more these last couple weeks and tending to eat more, i cant really tell if hes more interested in it, but i am going to introduce more protein for the next couple weeks and weigh him more often.

++BACKSTORY++
i recently got this dragon from a breeder i had been talking to about a different dragon he had up for re home. he tells customers that if they ever absolutely need to re home, that he will take back the dragon and re home it so he knows they get to a good place. he had a juvenile translucent up for re home from an older couple; apparently he bought her a dragon as a gift an she didn't like the responsibility that came with it but she didn't want to say so, so the dragon had slight weight issues, and hadn't been handled much.
the breeder ended up finding a different home for that dragon before i had time to go over.
when i contacted him, he told me he only had one dragon left, it had been sprung on him by a teen who had been keeping him in his semi heated garage all winter ("with lights")
so i took pickles in. -his name used to be venus, the teen thought he was a girl, but i decided pickles fit him better

i've had pickles about 8 months and i didn't know his age until january, and i hadn't done re-research on it when i got him. i thought he was much younger than he is.

Edit: i forgot to mention that the kids reason for bringing the dragon back was because the dragon (pickles) somehow damaged his tail when he was younger and grew it kinked towards the base.
i have already done research on mbd, i just didnt think those things were effecting my dragon because of his uvb bulb// i moved across a state a month and a half ago and am still getting my bearings here.

 

[Ell R]

so sorry this is late! i lost the forum for a bit.
pickles has already started gaining weight: i've increased the amount of protein in his diet by adding more crickets and dubias, and switched his greens to mustard and collard with some calcium powder.
i recently figured out how to get to the bulb on my fixture: it's a zoomed T8. i bought them at a petstore about 6-7 months ago.
when i first got pickles, the glands on his legs were also plugged, (that cleared up with bathes and rubs)
he also has very prominant humps under his tail.