bulb keeps burning out

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Purperc

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We have recently completed an enclosure for our bearded dragon. He moved in this spring. The only issue so far is the basking bulb has been burning out extremely quickly. I finally kept track with this last one and it didn't even last a month. It is mounted to the wooden ceiling with a ceramic fixture attached to a plastic light box. We had a night bulb in the other fixture but realized we don't really need that, especially in warmer weather, so we've just been using one side. We've tried the ZooMed and All Living THings 150w bulbs. Any ideas why it would be killing bulbs so quickly?
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Beardeddtagonlover

Hatchling Member
I honestly haven't had a problem try a different brand I had good luck with the zoo med brand also try a halogen flood light they run hotter then incandecent so you won't need a 150 one question you have a uvb light?
 

CooperDragon

BD.org Sicko
Staff member
Moderator
Is the fixture rated to handle the wattage of the bulb? Is it connected to a surge protector? I suggest avoiding bulbs with neodymium coating because that will filter yellows out of the light and may cause things to look distorted to a dragon.

I had trouble with the Zoomed bulb burning out quickly and being fragile too. I switched to halogen flood lights (PAR38 or BR40) and found that they tend to last quite a bit longer.
 

Purperc

Member
Original Poster
We actually have 2 UVB lights, spanning the length of the cage. My plan is that once it reaches the end of its shelf life I"ll move it to the cool side so there's always a full strength one in the basking and a little extra for the rest of the tank.

Do the halogen flood lights have the heat output of a basking light?
 

kyleena29

Sub-Adult Member
It's better to have the uvb right next to the basking spot and covering 1/2-3/4 of the cage length. This way they have areas without uv they can go to. The halogen floods will probably be brighter and they put out more heat. Since you use a 150 watt, you can try 75 or 100 watt halogen.
 

Beardeddtagonlover

Hatchling Member
Basking light is just a narrow incandecent beam flood light a halogen is a flood light made for outdoors they run hotter then incandescent for example I have a 50 watt halogen not strong enough to raise ambient temps but on the basking spot without a dimmer runs hot as hell the problem with halogen I found some of them are narrow beam while others are wide some say so in the box you want to get the wide beam the only halogen that I like is the 80 watt/120 equivalent but I'm using a regular 65 flood light I live in Texas so it's always warm even in the winter I will just raise the basking an inch or 2.and. Just like Copper dragon said about the light fixture your using a ceramic fixture so that should handle the heat but what is the plastic thing your talking about? I would take that out and mount the fixture directly on the ceiling maybe that is where you problem is I bought a porcelain socket for 1.50 at home Depot it handles 600 watts made whole on top for the wires and screw right on the wood.
 
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