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Possibly ill Chinese Water Dragon

22 13:58:47

Question
Please help me! My poor little baby Chinese Water Dragon seems ill and somewhat unresponsive. We've had him for three weeks, he's in a ten gallon tank, three sides covered. We have a UVB/Light on top of the screened secure top. We've kept the temp. inside around 82-90 during the day, as the UVB bulb is left on all day. At night, we were turning the UVB switch and light switch off and it was maintaining a temp. around 72-75 at night. Now last night and today, I'm keeping the UVB switch on 24/7 to try and help him. He gets fresh water in a good sized water dish daily and we feed, or should I say try to feed him, crickets, meal worms, small earthworms, and I offer him fresh veggies/fruit daily. He really hasn't been very active since we got him but the past two days, he's been very inactive, sleeping a lot and just doesn't look good by appearance. I have an appointment to take him to a reptile vet Wednesday evening but I pray to God it's not too late for him. Is there something else I can do or try to do in the meantime to help him or have we done something wrong. I'm so worried. He did eat a fairly big cricket on Saturday, I'm hoping the exterior of it wasn't too much for his little intestines. We now only purchase tiny crickets for him.

Thank you for any help you can offer,
Angie

Answer
Hello Angie,

Definitely leave all lights off for overnight.  He cannot get any sleep with lights on.
What type of thermometer are you using, to measure the temperatures, a stick on type, a digital probe or a temp gun?
A 10 gallon is rather small & you will need to get a larger & taller tank soon.  They like it taller rather than longer for climbing, etc.  
What is the humidity in the tank?  
Is the UVB light a long tube bulb, or a compact/coil light?  What brand is it?
If he ate too large of a cricket, he may be impacted from that.  The size rule is the cricket should not be any larger than the space between the eyes.  
I would try to give oral fluids to help him out.  Can you tell if there are any lumps in the tummy?  Try giving some sugar free apple sauce or a couple of drops of olive or mineral oil & use a plastic syringe or plastic dropper to get it into him.

Let me know how he is doing.
Tracie