Lighting Question

[unscattered]

My room mate and I just purchased a bearded dragon from someone, 2 year old female. She came with a tank and everything, but I'm concerned about the lighting. Lighting for tanks has always been confusing for me, and all the lady told me was that there were two heat lamps and a uv bulb. Its one bulb hood and one that hangs that has two bulb hoods on it. Neither of these are night time bulbs and neither seem to give off much heat.
I was wondering what kind of bulbs bearded dragons need and what times they should be on, and if anyone can give helpful guidance that would be great. Links to poducts are appreciated.

 

[BrookeE]

Honestly, night time bulbs are pretty unnecessary. Their natural habitat (the desert) is very cold at night. Room temperature (around 70 degrees) is more than sufficient for them. You should have one UV light - this will not give off heat, just UV rays which your dragon absolutely needs. Most people like to have two sources of heat in the enclosure. I prefer to only have one. Assuming your enclosure is a basic 55 gallon tank (this is standard), I use a ZooMed 100W basking bulb. My dragon stays under it, and retreats to the cooler side if she gets too warm. I find two heat sources to be excessive, but I let my dragon outside to get natural sunlight A LOT. People who don't have this luxury probably should have two lamps. If you need another one, the non basking end of your tank should be much cooler, but still warm. I do 10 hours lights off/14 hours lights on.

 

[PatsyB]

A 2 year old will need a basking spot 95-100 degrees and a cool tank side of 75-80 degrees. At night the whole tank temp should drop. As long as its no less than 65 degrees you don't need night time heat. A tube style UVB is good either a Retptisun 10.0 T5 or T8 bulb. If you go with a T8 you will want to mount it inside the tank over the beardies head so it doesn't shine in it's eyes. If you go with the T5 you can mount it over the mesh top of the tank. Mesh blocks out a lot of UVB but the T5 bulb with the proper fixture is a stronger bulb and penetrates the mesh better. When you place the UVB and the basking bulb you want them to overlap some. The UVB produces D3 and the heat bulb with it helps them processes it into calcium.

T5 lighting: http://www.petmountain.com/searchx/0/0/1/1/?s=t5&brand=Zoo+Med

Best thing for your lights is a light timer. This way you can keep them on a cycle and not have to worry about being home to turn it on and off. Like BrookeE, I also keep my lights off for 10 hours and on for 14hours. Some people do 12/12. I do mine the way I do because it gives my dragons an hour in the morning to warm up with the lights so I can feed them before I go to work and it gives me time to feed/clean or just play with them a few hours before they go to bed. You always want to make sure your bearded dragon has a few hours under the basking light to digest their food before lights go out or before you take them out of the tank for any length of time.