Pool Maintenance Little Rock

pool maintenance little rock
What kind of tank for a chinese water dragon?

So I am going to be purchasing a chinese water dragon very soon and I am going to be getting about a 50 -55 gallon tank for him. (would get a little bigger but I don’t have the space for it.)

I have been reading up on them and of course they love tropic climates… ok well here is where the question comes in….

Fish tank or tank made for reptiles? I ask this because well I want to make a portion of the tank a pool and the other the dry part (soil, moss, ect.) I don’t want to put a water bowl as his source to cool off in I want to make a custom side with about 4 inches deep of water with a waterfall leading into it probably with a bed of smooth rocks ( I don’t mind the maintenance, plus with a bigger pool probably help with humidity) I know the reptile tanks are not made to hold water cause of the pressure causing leaks but do you think it would leak with a 4 inch deep pool that doesn’t even go across the whole tank?
yea you guys are right better to be safe than sorry

55g is nowhere near large enough. Dragons get -big- sometimes as much as 3 feet (though most of it is tail). 55 would be big enough for a year perhaps.

As others mention, water dragons don’t ‘understand’ glass. Especially if the tank is too small (and 55g will be eventually) they’ll start trying to get out, move around and constantly smack their snouts against the glass. They’ll do this to the point that they wear an open wound on there.

At a minimum, you need it to be 4 feet long, and 4 feet high (6 is better). You can’t get this with most aquariums. Dragons that lack climbing space have a lot of health problems, and for females it can be lethal – if they don’t climb, they can’t lay eggs (even unfertilized), and become egg bound.

Most people build them out of plywood, or get a piece of second hand furniture (Ikea wardrobes on craigslist are good for this). Plywood cannot be pine or cedar, and you’ll need to water-proof it with polyurethane. How you make it is basically limited by your imagination. But keep in mind that maintaining humidity, temperature and getting the appropriate UVB lighting are not optional at all. This isn’t a particularly cheap undertaking.

Rocks on the bottom of the water pool make maintainance a royal pain. Especially given how frequently you have to change the water.

Oh yes. And reptile tanks will NOT hold water. A friend of mine once was given a reptile tank and told it was a fish tank. The night he filled it up with 30 gallons of saltwater the bottom cracked open and 2 AM and dumped it all onto his carpet. It’s never a good idea to expect them to be more than water tight, but not hold the weight of it.

Edit: check out Tricia’s guides here

http://www.triciaswaterdragon.com/enclosur.htm
http://www.triciaswaterdragon.com/cheap.htm

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