Temperature in tank

Hey, I am new to the wonderful world of beardies but have got one for my son (secretly for me) for Xmas. I have built the vivarium which is 4ft x 2ft x 2ft and have a 150W basing lamp on the right hand side. This came with the metal mesh on top of the viv but when the basking light is on top of this, the temperature will only reach 32 degrees Celsius. I removed the mesh and put the light on a clamp, suspended in the cage about 10 inches from the rock site and the temperature reaches 42 degrees. With either setup the temperature at the cool side will only reach 21 degrees and i am a little nervous that this may not be warm enough. At night the temperature in my house can drop below 16 degrees so I have a ceramic heat source en route for this purpose. Would this gradient(42° to 21°) be too excessive? And would 32° in the basking site be too cool? Safe to say i want it to be comfortable as possible when he arrives on Xmas eve. Thanks in advance, Mark

Are you able to raise/lower the basking light to change the temps? Or can you connect it to a dimming thermostat? 42 is a good surface temp and a young dragon may love it, but it's at the high end of the recommended range of 38-42 so I wouldn't let it go much higher to begin with. Once you've had your dragon for a while you can observe how they use the space. If they sit in the hottest spot often, then you can bump the temps up a little bit. If they sit off to the side in slightly cooler areas, bring the temps down just a little bit.

The gradient to the cool side is fine. The cool side of my enclosure is sitting at 22 at the moment. They will move around to get what they need at any given time as long as they have options available. Same goes for UVB. Intense UVB over the basking area should give way to little or no UVB over other areas in the enclosure. A nice gradient for them to choose from.

Overnight temps will be helped by your heat emitter. I have mine set on a pulse on/off thermostat that kicks in when the temps drop below 20 and turns off when temps hit 23. I put the probe for this on the cool side floor under where the emitter is, essentially reversing the heat gradient across the enclosure at night.

Moved by moderator from Advanced Discussion to Enclosures.