Water Dragons: Health Concern in new enclosure.

[Mountain Dragons]

So my water dragon hatchlings (7-10 weeks) have been in their new enclosure for about 2 weeks. The larger one is comfortable enough but he has gotten bloated over the last week. What are the chances this is an impacted gut? He doesn't seem to have any behavioral, feeding or energy changes. Is he getting fat?


Dragon #2, the smaller one, who has always been very skittish, has started burrowing and seems to spend most of her day in the soil under a flat piece of cork bark. Should I be worried or do they just feel like burrowing sometimes? Is she trying to get away from her larger roommate? This is mostly a problem because I hand feed (forceps/ cup full of feeders) them so I know they both get food, but if she's upset she wont eat in front of me anyway.

Any input would be appreciated and I will elaborate on anything, just trying to keep the initial post short.
Thanks!

 

[GBWhite]

Hi,

The one in the photo looks fine and healthy to me and if it's doing what you say then that is a sign that it's going okay and impaction shouldn't be an issue if you're hand feeding. Without knowing your set up it's quite possible that this one is dominating the basking spot and not allowing the other to thermoregulate properly. Maybe a photo of the entire enclosure might help to work out what's going on between them. Also how sure are you that they are different sexes? It's very hard to determine the sex of such young water dragons and you might just have two males which could also contribute to the other one being a little shy.

Cheers,

George.

 

[Mountain Dragons]

Thanks for the input,
The big one just changed shape so starkly I had no idea if that was normal. And no, I really have no idea what their sex is. The big one has grown faster and has red on the underside while the small one does not. I know that means nothing at that age and it's become a bad habit of referring to them as such. Also, I couldn't find a good source mentioning the age at which they start becoming territorial so I wasn't worried about it till now.

Ill post a pic of the enclosure tomorrow, it's their bedtime over here.
[doublepost=1563581678,1563508241][/doublepost]So here's my setup. It seems likely the little one is just avoiding me. Their light kicks on about 1.5 hours before I get up and Little was out basking this morning. When I came home from lunch it was out, but by the time I got their food together it had disappeared again and is still in hiding as the work day ended. It had a rough move to the new enclosure and I wouldn't blame it if it takes weeks to get over.

The basking light and terrarium light are on a timer on a 15 hour cycle, there is a ceramic bulb above the hammock controlled by a thermostat. The probe is near the bottom and set to 25C. It gets closer to 35C on the hammock as you near the rock background. I see them using it for basking sometimes. It kicks on rather frequently because in the center hole uptop is a fan on a timer. You cant see in these photos but the door shelf has screen-covered holes along it's length and gets very good circulation. The basking light hits 43C directly under it when the rocks heat up which is a bit hot, but go to 35 if you move 3 inches in any direction, 32 toward the back. The Biggun is sitting on the cork Little hides under. It hangs around 20C over there. I pulled out the bamboo tube to make room for new feeding dishes. They avoided it because they had problems dealing with the smooth surface.

Thanks again