Heating & Lighting Question

[BPGuy]

Over the weekend, we purchased a juvenile beardie for my 10 year-old son. This is his second attempt at keeping a beardie; the last one died about a month after we purchased it. Consequently, I want to make sure we are getting our husbandry right.

When we purchased the first beardie, we also purchased a Zoomed Bearded Dragon kit. It included a 20 gallon screened top tank, a double dome light (with a 100 watt incandescent bulb and a red bulb), and a UVB 5.0 compact flourescent (with hood). When we bought the new beardie this weekend, I was told that we really needed a UVB 10.0 bulb, so I purchased one of those. I have a Herpstat 2 that I wasn't using for anything else so I connected the 100 watt incandescent to the Herpstat and set a daytime temp and a nighttime temp (I'm at work right now and don't recall the exact temp settings, but they were within what is normally recommended for beardies). I did not use the red light. I connected the UVB 10.0 bulb to a separate timer and had it set to be on for 14 hours. What I quickly discovered is that the Herpstat frequently would cause the incandescent bulb to dim and then get brighter. This drove my family nuts. In addition, I was concerned that the light would not be good for the beardie at night (it was effectively giving him a 24-hour daylight). Consequently, last night I switched the incandescent bulb to a 100 watt CHE that I wasn't using. From what I am seeing, the 100 watt CHE is not strong enough to get the basking area to 104. As a result, I'm considering switching to a 150 watt CHE, but before I do so I want to make sure it is acceptable to use just a CHE for heat. In other words, my first question is this: If a CHE is used as a heat source, is an incandescent bulb also needed to provide daylight? Or, is the UVB 10.0 a sufficient daylight source?

Second question: Knowing that I have the following equipment that I am not currently using, what would you recommend I use for heating and lighting for the beardie:

• Double-dome fixture
• Two single dome fixtures
• Two CHE fixtures
• 100 Watt and 150 Watt CHEs
• Assorted red and white incandescent bulbs

Third question: Does it make a difference where I place the UVB 10.0 (i.e., over the basking area or over the cold side)? If it does make a difference, over which side should I place the UVB?

Thanks in advance for your advice and suggestions for this beardie newbie.

[jclaiborne]

The 20 Gallon tank will work for when he is a baby, but you will need a bigger tank as he starts to grow. A minimum would be a 3ft long by 16in deep and 18in high. I would also drop the light cycle down to 12 hours a day. So they get the day and night cycle going. I saw that you said you were doing night time temp drops that is great. What are the ambient temps in your house? I have my beardie setup with a 100W basking bulb during the day, and during the winter a 60W red bulb for the night time, however durring the summer I don't do a night bulb because the temps in my house are around 75 degrees. Is your UVB bulb a CFL or a longer bar style bulb?

[PitOnTheProwl]

CHE and UVB and you are good just make sure the temps stay up.
I have never dropped their temps.
The other thing you can do is give them something to climb on to get closer to the heat source.

[jclaiborne]

CHE and UVB and you are good just make sure the temps stay up.
I have never dropped their temps.
The other thing you can do is give them something to climb on to get closer to the heat source.

Good point about something to climb on. I have various pieces of wood in the enclosure as well as one of those Green "hammocks" that sick to the corner of the tank. My guy loves that, they also make magnetic "rock" shelves that they can sit on as well.

[BPGuy]

The 20 Gallon tank will work for when he is a baby, but you will need a bigger tank as he starts to grow. A minimum would be a 3ft long by 16in deep and 18in high. I would also drop the light cycle down to 12 hours a day. So they get the day and night cycle going. I saw that you said you were doing night time temp drops that is great. What are the ambient temps in your house? I have my beardie setup with a 100W basking bulb during the day, and during the winter a 60W red bulb for the night time, however durring the summer I don't do a night bulb because the temps in my house are around 75 degrees. Is your UVB bulb a CFL or a longer bar style bulb?

The UVB 10.0 bulb is a 13 watt Reptisun CFL. Right now, the ambient room temperature is probably 68 at night and in the low 70s during the day. During the summer, the room will get up to 84 degrees during the day and not cool off much more than that at night.

The plan is to move the beardie to a 40 gallon Zilla Critter Keeper tank when he gets bigger. The 40 gallon is one of two tanks in which we used to house our ball pythons until we switched to a T8. Ideally, I would like to get a front-opening cage (like the T8) for the beardie, but I have to find one that will fit in his room. The 40 gallon likely would go on his dresser, but that will make it too high for him to reach (one of the reasons why we ditched the 40 gallons for the ball pythons).

[BPGuy]

CHE and UVB and you are good just make sure the temps stay up.
I have never dropped their temps.
The other thing you can do is give them something to climb on to get closer to the heat source.

I have two fake tree log/branches that I bought from Petsmart awhile ago that are in the beardie's tank. One is right below the heat source and the other is on the cool side. I'm also planning on buying some ceramic tiles to line the bottom of the tank to help retain heat at the bottom (right now we're using paper towels as a substrate).

Based on your comment, it sounds like what I should do is just replace the 100 watt CHE with the 150 watt CHE and keep that plugged into one of the Herpstat's outputs and then put the UVB bulb on the other Herpstat output but set that output as a light timer (rather than as a heat regulator). Would that make sense?

- - - Updated - - -

Good point about something to climb on. I have various pieces of wood in the enclosure as well as one of those Green "hammocks" that sick to the corner of the tank. My guy loves that, they also make magnetic "rock" shelves that they can sit on as well.

Oh, I'll have to check out the "rock" shelf hammocks. Thanks for the recommendation.

[jclaiborne]

The UVB 10.0 bulb is a 13 watt Reptisun CFL. Right now, the ambient room temperature is probably 68 at night and in the low 70s during the day. During the summer, the room will get up to 84 degrees during the day and not cool off much more than that at night.

The plan is to move the beardie to a 40 gallon Zilla Critter Keeper tank when he gets bigger. The 40 gallon is one of two tanks in which we used to house our ball pythons until we switched to a T8. Ideally, I would like to get a front-opening cage (like the T8) for the beardie, but I have to find one that will fit in his room. The 40 gallon likely would go on his dresser, but that will make it too high for him to reach (one of the reasons why we ditched the 40 gallons for the ball pythons).

When I was running a CFL i put it right next to my heat source, reason being I was told by a breeder at the expo that it would "better simulate the sun" that way. I don't know how true that is, but when my CFL burnt out I replaced it with a tube light so it spans the length of the cage. If you want a front opening cage there are options. I myself use Vision cages (front opening) because I can get them locally and they have light drops in them for CHEs or heat bulbs.


Here are some of the "shelving" and hammock Ideas I was talking about:


http://lllreptile.com/store/catalog/...-reptihammock/ (I tried to pull a picture of it from the zoomed website but it was giving me an error)


http://lllreptile.com/store/catalog/...um-rock-ledge/ (the magnetic rock is made by a company called pet tech)

[BPGuy]

Thank you all for your comments and suggestions. I've been running the CHE on the Herpstat, and things appear to be going well. Although I have the Herpstat set to a daytime temp of 104, it never quite gets to that point. However, I think that is because the Herpstat probe is mounted vertically (instead of horizontally) to the wall of the tank and the center of the CHE is about 4" inches from the wall of the tank. I have a digital thermometer attached to the wall of the tank immediately next to the Herpstat probe, and that thermometer will register 102.x during the day. A large fake log that reaches to the top of the tank is positioned directly underneath the CHE. I've also added a hammock below the CHE, and have seen the beardie basking both on the log and the hammock.

We tried to add some porceline tiles to the bottom of the tank last weekend, but we couldn't find any that would fit nicely, and I ended up breaking the tiles when I tried to cut them with a tile cutter. As a result, we're still using paper towels as a substrate.

[jclaiborne]

Sounds like your setup is comming along nicely. I use SaniChips as a substrate and it works really nicely. I thought about using tiles, but the SaniChips clump around their waste so its easier to clean up.