Hey mate,
The basics of what you need are the enclosure- 3 foot aquarium should do for one dragon, lighting that provides UVB ( mercury vapour are best, but tubes are also good), and food.
In NZ for these you are looking at around $400 for a reasonable set up (although this could be done for much cheaper) and maybe $10 per week for food for one dragon.
As far as the dragon goes, it depends on what you want. Usually the better the colour the more you pay. Beware though of people who talk up their dragons with silly names like 'sandfire' (an American brandname dragon). Also beware of people selling dragons with "orange highlights", or "red beards" etc. There are basically three colour forms of dragons in NZ, all of which have come from NZDRAGONS stock (the people at the pet expo). These are golds (see livingarts pics of his dragon, some refer to these as reds), the lemon yellows (these are solid yellow all over- will try and post a pic), and the normal "dull" form (depsite refering to these as "dull" they actually often do have a fair bit of colour e.g oranges and yellows, but they never have the solid colours of the golds and yellows). Apart from colour each form seems to have a different body shape. The golds are smaller in size with large heads, the yellows are often huge (500grams plus) and the normals are in between.
If you are paying the extra money for a coloured dragon, which I believe is well worth the price, then you should ask to see the parents. Unless BOTH parents a coloured stock then you will in all likelyhood not get a truely coloured dragon.
Please remember that the vast majority of dragons out there are of the normal variety, and that there are many who claim that they are otherwise.
Hope this helps
