Looking at geting a beardy for my wife.

[Maverick67]

What do I need for a set up. I have looked online and I get conflicting info. Pics of setups would be nice. She would like to start with a young one so where do ye go from there.

Edit: Yes she wants one.

[BPelizabeth]

we for a wee one you are really good with a 20 gallon so as not to stress him. I personally use Power Sun bulbs in all my enclosures as they are an all in 1 bulb. I order them from www.petmountain.com as they are half the price of anyone else. I would suggest getting some laminate for the bottom of the aq. (very cheap) and cutting and laying it down. Cleanest thing to use and cheap and easy to clean. When they are little you really want to stay away from sand. Get him a good basking branch and a little hide and a water dish that is not too hard to for him to get out of. You can do all this on the cheap for the hide and the dish...$$ store. A good branch you can get outside. Just cook it at 250 for an hour in the oven. You will also need a cricket enclosure. When little they eat 20% greens and 80% protien. Oh yea.....forgot....I just use a lid to a tupperware container to put greens on. I think that is about it. You may need a red light at night depending on how cold your house gets. At night you don't want to it to get below 70.

When they get bigger it is recommended a 4x2x2 enclsosure for an adult.

[maverickgtr]

Pretty much what BPElizabeth said. We started our beardie out in a 40 gallon breeder tank, but it can be stressful so start with a 20 gallon. Laminate or tile is super easy to clean, nice looking, and you can match it to the room you have the tank in. This is an awesome site to reference when getting greens for your beardie. Also, make sure to only get or cut food items that are small enough to fit between your beardie's eyes to avoid impaction. That counts for crickets, roaches, greens, anything. And feeding your beardie wild bugs or plants from anywhere outside is generally bad because of wild bugs and plants being exposed to pesticides that can harm your beardie.

We have a 10.0 desert UV bulb and a 100W Daylight heat bulb and a 100W Infrared bulb for night time because our apartment gets frigid at night.

Here are some pics of our setup but we didn't have the lights set up then.

[Maverick67]

Excelent thank you. when It gets lager I have a 40 gal. metaframe tank with a slate bottom that my BP is in now, but i would like to swap to a 40 long or 40 breeder for her. With a slate bottom tank is substrate needed? If I was to swap and put the young beardy in the 40 gal would a blacked out divider do the trick? I have a little bit of plexy and plywood I could whip up a divider very easily. Anything I need to avoid while caring for it? Really any details you guys can give me would be helpful.

[maverickgtr]

Our beardie is now on unpolished slate tiles and used to be on sand because of some bad info. We actually just put in the slate tiles last weekend. We used some of the sand to "grout" the tile and to make it all level since the unpolished slate is all different sizes and textures on the "bottom" of the tile so they don't sit straight. But yea she's fine on just the slate, it actually helps keep her nails naturally filed down since beardie nails get really sharp and you have be very careful about clipping them because if you nick the quick they can bleed out.

Beardie's need just a log or branch to climb and bask on, phosphorous free calcium powder to dust crickets and greens with, crickets/roaches, greens, and attention. Lots and lots of attention. They're the dogs of the lizard world. Start handling them young and they'll be your best friend. Isis starts freaking out and trying to run up her glass tank to get out if we walk out of her view for too long.