Chinese Water Dragon Keepers

[ChameleonRave]

I just got my very first Chinese Water Dragon yesterday. I ended up naming him Glenn, the sex is undetermined, so if he ends up being a female, his/her name will change to Glenda. S/He is a very active little one, running around the set up and chasing down food. As soon as I got home from work last night I gave him a nice warm bath as well as fed him some gutloaded/dusted dubia roaches and he ate up to five of them in about a ten minute period. He is a bit thin, but he is starting to get rounded up with the food he has been eating. I'm not sure on the age, I want to say about 2 - 3 months old. Enough with the talking, but here he is! I was also curious if any fellow members keep Chinese Water Dragons? I'd love to see pictures of them and their set ups.

-Zac

PS - Please excuse the attachments.

 

[chnk]

Here was my rescued water dragon named him grimjaw, because he actually had rubbed his nose to the point it was just bone

unfortunately the previous owner was very neglectful and hes a very undersized and underweight for his age. Age was unknown too. I fed him alot of superworms to fatten him up, but they are definitely not slow. Hes as good as a hunter as a juvenile bearded dragon just beastly. He loved horned worms and didn't even give them a chance to even land in the enclosure when i dropped one in. I was afraid he'd take my finger out one day, love the little rascal. Definitely not fun chasing around the yard either.

I couldn't proved him a big enough enclosure myself so I gave him to a local pets store that gave him a nice size cage . I do miss him but I couldn't afford to feed 4 lizards in the house. My two chams and bearded dragon go through 2000 crickets + treat feeders easily a month or two

 

[ChameleonRave]

Oh wow, I must have forgotten about my thread! He is a gorgeous guy! Now, I'm curious as to if their hip bones normally stick out. This guy came a bit too thin for my liking but eats anything he has in front of him. Dubia he loves to eat!

What was your specific diet for this guy? I'm buying some more feeders this coming week when I get paid and I want to make as varied diet for all the animals as possible! He is currently in a 20 gallon long, but I will be picking up a 55 gallon for him hopefully this weekend from a friend of mine! If you happen to have any pictures of his set up I'd love to see them.

I usually give my little guy a nice warm bath once or twice a week to get him really hydrated rather than having a bin of water in his enclosure. He's a great swimmer, but other than swimming, I'm sure I'll be chasing him around the house when he is allowed some free roaming time. I've already chased him every time I took him out to clean up his cage and change out his water.

 

[ataraxia]

Water dragons are really neat. The hip bones do naturally stick out. They love vertical space and lots of it. They are an extremely active lizard that love to eat, climb, jump, soak in large pools of water.

I see that you have bark on the bottom. Be careful of mold and i would personally buy a large ceramic bowl to feed him/her from. For crickets just de-leg the rear legs by pinching them at the knees. They will fall off on there own. I would also chop up some greens or vegetables real small and put them in the bowl with the insects. Mine will usually take a chomp or two but will not touch the greens of they are cut up to large.

 

[ChameleonRave]

Water dragons are really neat. The hip bones do naturally stick out. They love vertical space and lots of it. They are an extremely active lizard that love to eat, climb, jump, soak in large pools of water.

I see that you have bark on the bottom. Be careful of mold and i would personally buy a large ceramic bowl to feed him/her from. For crickets just de-leg the rear legs by pinching them at the knees. They will fall off on there own. I would also chop up some greens or vegetables real small and put them in the bowl with the insects. Mine will usually take a chomp or two but will not touch the greens of they are cut up to large.

Thanks for that information! I will definitely be looking out for mold, I'm probably going to be removing it and finding some sort of cleaner alternative bedding to use. I am using an old super worm container right now for the feeding dish. I believe I first started to use the dish that is in that photography as a temporary water dish until I got a big plastic container cleaned out! He sure likes to be out and roaming around my room.

I am glad that I have a machine to cut veggies, the name of it escapes me. But I will be cutting some up super small for him. I'm shopping around right now for a nice tall enclosure for him right now.

 

[fluxlizard]

The hip bones do naturally stick out. They love vertical space and lots of it. They are an extremely active lizard

Wow- I'm surprised but I'm going to disagree on a lot of this based on contradictory experience.

Hip bones do not naturally stick out like the adult in the photo unless the animal is thin. They get fat deposits there just like iguanas and other lizards, as well as on top of their head like other lizards. My chinese water dragons did not have visible pelvic girdles (or very visible anyway- it's been a few years so I'm going on memory) and they weren't fat- they were built very similar to iguanas as far as fat deposits go but the tail was more tall and compressed and less round near the base.

I agree about vertical space, but keep in mind they also need plenty of horizontal space. They are a largish lizard with a need for space.

Mine were never "very active" though. They had short bursts of activity and long periods of sitting looking really awesome. A good bit less active than iguanas actually.

Sorry for all the iguana comparisons but most are somewhat familiar with iguanas.

The adult pictured is a skinny lizard, not small for his age though- that is an adult size male. He's probably not going to do much more growing.

A 55 gallon tank will work for a while, but is not large enough for an adult. Too narrow too short. If you could build something at least 30" wide and at least 4-6' long and 3-5' high that would provide a good quality of life. Plenty of thick branches and a water container large enough to for the lizard climb in and soak that is not too large to change 1-2x per day.

Diet- all sorts of insects, if you start a baby when it is young like yours you can put chopped greens (coleslaw sized) and bearded dragon pellets into a bowl and then offer insects (especially worms- superworms, mealworms, soldier fly larvae, silkmoth caterpillars- they also like earthworms) in the bowl where they will crawl into the salad/pellet mix and move it around then some of the salad mix will be accidentally eaten and over time there is a good chance your water dragon as an adult will eat the salad as well. Wild ones are omnivores, captives rarely are, although mine did eat occasional pellets and greens.

Bert Langerwerf wrote a good book on water dragons published by TFH (I think) just before he died. It is worth owning or borrowing if you have an interest in these lizards.

 

[ChameleonRave]

Wow- I'm surprised but I'm going to disagree on a lot of this based on contradictory experience.

Hip bones do not naturally stick out like the adult in the photo unless the animal is thin. They get fat deposits there just like iguanas and other lizards, as well as on top of their head like other lizards. My chinese water dragons did not have visible pelvic girdles (or very visible anyway- it's been a few years so I'm going on memory) and they weren't fat- they were built very similar to iguanas as far as fat deposits go but the tail was more tall and compressed and less round near the base.

I agree about vertical space, but keep in mind they also need plenty of horizontal space. They are a largish lizard with a need for space.

Mine were never "very active" though. They had short bursts of activity and long periods of sitting looking really awesome. A good bit less active than iguanas actually.

Sorry for all the iguana comparisons but most are somewhat familiar with iguanas.

The adult pictured is a skinny lizard, not small for his age though- that is an adult size male. He's probably not going to do much more growing.

A 55 gallon tank will work for a while, but is not large enough for an adult. Too narrow too short. If you could build something at least 30" wide and at least 4-6' long and 3-5' high that would provide a good quality of life. Plenty of thick branches and a water container large enough to for the lizard climb in and soak that is not too large to change 1-2x per day.

Diet- all sorts of insects, if you start a baby when it is young like yours you can put chopped greens (coleslaw sized) and bearded dragon pellets into a bowl and then offer insects (especially worms- superworms, mealworms, soldier fly larvae, silkmoth caterpillars- they also like earthworms) in the bowl where they will crawl into the salad/pellet mix and move it around then some of the salad mix will be accidentally eaten and over time there is a good chance your water dragon as an adult will eat the salad as well. Wild ones are omnivores, captives rarely are, although mine did eat occasional pellets and greens.

Bert Langerwerf wrote a good book on water dragons published by TFH (I think) just before he died. It is worth owning or borrowing if you have an interest in these lizards.

Thank you for all of the information! I really appreciate it! This little one is a picky eater so far! He was purchased through LLL Reptiles and he was thin coming to me. I'm hitting up the grocery store again and trying some more greens, and some more options as far as feeder insects go. I want to get him a nicely built enclosure in the next month or so!