UVB & Heat - After Meals

Currently, Smaug's enclosure is kept in another room due to our cat. They get along, but I don't know if I trust our cat enough (when we're not home) to move his current enclosure into our living area. His enclosure is a 40 gallon breeder, open lid setup with suspended lighting (basking bulb and 24" fluorescent Reptisun 10.0 UVB). I am in the market to get a full enclosed melamine adult enclosure (4x2x2) with mounted lighting on the inside. The main reason to get the larger enclosure of course, is so he have more space as he grows...but the other reasons are that we can keep the new enclosure in our living room so he can have an open view of the house and be entertained without worry of the cat getting in. I noticed he gets stressed out being in there alone all day. I know this cause he gets lighter in color and perks up when I let him out for social time before feeding, when we get home from work.

We have a spot on our couch where we've setup an additional clamp lamp for a basking spot so can be warm and come and go as he wishes to thermo-regulate on the weekends when we're at home.

So to the point of my post: After feeding him, does he need to be by the UVB source AND basking after eating? Or can he go with just basking in the living room with us as long as the temps are good? He has exposure to the UVB all day long while we're at work.

I know it seems like a weird question, but I can't seem to find anything specifically about needing UVB after eating.

Thanks!

I'm sure he'll enjoy being in the living room with you if you can get a larger enclosure or get a mesh top for the current one. I think that if he's getting an hour or two of basking temperatures after eating it is OK. UVB helps digestion as well but if he's getting exposure all day he doesn't need it later on necessarily. In nature the intensity (and UVB exposure) from the sun decreases toward sunset anyway. If he has proper lighting throughout most of the day, I think he'll be fine either way.

Great! Thanks Cooper!