asian water dragon help

[Pyro]

I've been offered a free juvenile male green water dragon but need to buy a set up for it before I can accept. Speaking to my dad at the moment about buying the vivarium and powersun bulb for me, but waiting for his answer. I have two books about them which I have had for about a year now (Water Dragons by Langerwerf & Green Water Dragons by de Vosjoli) which provide pretty much all the answers to questions I come up with. I do however have things I can not find in them.

- How much veg should be given once a week and are any better than others to give? Should any be avoided?

- Roughly how fast will he outgrow a viv which is just short of 3x3x2?

- If feeding insects every other day, with a dusting of nutrabal every other feed, are crickets or locust better and how many should be fed at each feed? Is it a good idea to buy both and mix things up for variation?


I got bitten 3 times when handling the little fella today so I know he's a bit mental but I'd love to take him home & tame him down!
Thanks

[Jim2109]

that viv is probably good upto about 9 months. the fact that you know the sex says to me that he is already too big for that viv. ideally you want to go 5x5x3 minimum.

they should ideally eat veg, but i dont know of many people that have had success in getting them to take it, they almost never eat any. try kale, strawberries, mango, sweet potato. see if he will take it, probably not.

crickets and locusts are both fairly equal. gut load the crickets well and they are both fairly similar nutritionally. feed until he doesnt eat anymore. some people say feed as many as he will eat in 15 minutes. i try to use locusts only now and just stick a load of them in the viv in the morning, and if they are all gone by the afternoon then i stick some more in. mine are babies though so not at the same stage of eating.

with regards his aggression, hes probably just a juvenile and by most accounts they go through a moody period where they dont like people and get fussy with food, etc. he will probably grow out of it. if he is biting then try head bobbing at him. it sounds odd but you need to establish yourself as the alpha male and head bobbing, heat butting, tail whipping, etc are ways that water dragons stake their claim to be number 1. if you sit there and head bob at him and dont back down if he bites you then he will hopefully learn that he is number 2

[Pyro]

Thanks for the info. He is probably about 6 inches + tail at the moment and his chin is turning pink. He is definately a male and at the shop is in a 4ft viv. I want to eventually have something like a 5 wide 5 high 2.5 deep enclosure, but can move him up into that once he outgrows something cheaper & smaller. I will probably stick to locust feeding too, the staff said locust but I just checked as we use crickets too at college.

If I get the ~3x3x2 viv now, I can hopefully get a larger one built in february.

[Jim2109]

Originally Posted by Pyro

Thanks for the info. He is probably about 6 inches + tail at the moment and his chin is turning pink. He is definately a male and at the shop is in a 4ft viv. I want to eventually have something like a 5 wide 5 high 2.5 deep enclosure, but can move him up into that once he outgrows something cheaper & smaller. I will probably stick to locust feeding too, the staff said locust but I just checked as we use crickets too at college.

If I get the ~3x3x2 viv now, I can hopefully get a larger one built in february.

locusts are expensive to feed every day, thats why most people dont. if they cost the same as crickets i dont think many people would bother with crickets at all. im trying to breed my own so that its not an issue. for the time being i buy in bulk and it costs me about £7/week for locusts. compared to £3 per month for crickets!

[Pyro]

Originally Posted by Jim2109

locusts are expensive to feed every day, thats why most people dont. if they cost the same as crickets i dont think many people would bother with crickets at all. im trying to breed my own so that its not an issue. for the time being i buy in bulk and it costs me about £7/week for locusts. compared to £3 per month for crickets!

Locust are the same price as crickets where I go, and I got my last lot of hoppers free since I'm helping out there a lot at the moment. Costs of live food is not a problem for me, in fact the only problem is the cost of such a large adult sized vivarium. Hence I will have to use something smaller til then.

I would be getting mr dragon out regularly anyway, to help tame him down, so he wouldn't feel as trapped in a 3x3x2