So I might have stumbled on something with my bearded dragons behavior and lighting or I could just be bumbling and rambling, idk you guys be the judge and let me know what you think. Extremely long post I know but hopefully you guys read it to the end.
So to start, my dragon is 10 months old and I bought her at 4 months. With the weather recently warming up we brought her outside for the first time to get some natural sunlight. She turned a vibrant bright green/yellow that I've never seen before afer a short period and I could tell she loved it.
So rewind back to when I first recieved her.
I started out with just a halogen bulb and a reptisun 10.0 t5 in a large enclosure I built measuring 5feet by 3 feet by 3 feet. Due to my own bad husbandry and lack of knowledge she became somewhat sickly. I caught it in time due to admins on here responding to my questions.
First thing I did was get a megaray mvb and install it in her enclosure. I also purchased a solarmeter 6.5 and a solarmeter 6.2 to make sure she was getting proper uvb.
With the 6.2 I was able to get accurate readings of her uvb with both the reptisun and megaray in her enclosure keeping it in the safe sub 200's.
So at this point I had a megaray, a halogen flood and a reptisun uvb flourescent. She basked under the uvb and almost immediately I seen her health improve. I added a small wattage halogen bulb on the cold side for more light and heat and she did great.
Eventually I started tweeking things more. I bought a thermostat to regulate heat in her viv. It's a herpstat 2 which has 2 probes. So I switched the small wattage basking bulb for a che bulb on the cold side and hooked one of the probes up to it, essentially regulating the heat but taking away some light.
Almost immediately after I took that low wattage light on her cold side out she went almost into a semi brumation. Sleeping alot, sometimes most of the day. Staying in the dark side of her tank and not basking as much and I had suspicion it was due to me taking away that light on her cold side.
Even so ever since getting her uvb corrected her colors got better and she was definately in alot better health. The semi brumation didn't bother me so much as erk me a little. I knew she was fine and healthy but why was she sleeping so much? Is what I would ask myself.
With the dark side being so dark in such a big cage I figured I'd add another light... again...lol. I decided on a 4 foot (which span the majority of my cage) led 5000k daylight bulb. So there's no extra heat and no extra uvb. Just bright white light, that I ran from 11am to 4pm to simulate bright mid day sun, and lengthened the time I had the reptisun on.
So low and behold when she started to bask under her uvb bulbs, with the 5000k led light on, I saw her change to the same bright yellowish green that I saw under direct sunlight. She also stopped sleeping in so much. Now I know, no artificial light is the same as sunlight. But I think I may have tricked her into thinking she was? Guesses as to why? Maybe the color change is her showing she likes the lighting? We've all seen are dragons change to a darker color and it's thought that they do this maybe to absorb more heat in the morning and before lights out. Darker color absorb warmth and in turn brighter colors reflect light and heat. Maybe they change brighter colors in brighter light as a natural reaction to deflect heat as it isn't as needed? One can only guess.
What I do think is significant is that by adding the 5000k light across her viv, not changing any of the pre existing uvb levels or heat levels, I saw a significant change in color and behavior fairly quickly, actually that same day. So what does it mean? To me it means that the way they see light is more complicated then I thought and it means alot to there overall health. Uvb plays a role but if we can trick them (which is what we're doing with artificial light) I think we'd have alot happier dragons!
So to start, my dragon is 10 months old and I bought her at 4 months. With the weather recently warming up we brought her outside for the first time to get some natural sunlight. She turned a vibrant bright green/yellow that I've never seen before afer a short period and I could tell she loved it.
So rewind back to when I first recieved her.
I started out with just a halogen bulb and a reptisun 10.0 t5 in a large enclosure I built measuring 5feet by 3 feet by 3 feet. Due to my own bad husbandry and lack of knowledge she became somewhat sickly. I caught it in time due to admins on here responding to my questions.
First thing I did was get a megaray mvb and install it in her enclosure. I also purchased a solarmeter 6.5 and a solarmeter 6.2 to make sure she was getting proper uvb.
With the 6.2 I was able to get accurate readings of her uvb with both the reptisun and megaray in her enclosure keeping it in the safe sub 200's.
So at this point I had a megaray, a halogen flood and a reptisun uvb flourescent. She basked under the uvb and almost immediately I seen her health improve. I added a small wattage halogen bulb on the cold side for more light and heat and she did great.
Eventually I started tweeking things more. I bought a thermostat to regulate heat in her viv. It's a herpstat 2 which has 2 probes. So I switched the small wattage basking bulb for a che bulb on the cold side and hooked one of the probes up to it, essentially regulating the heat but taking away some light.
Almost immediately after I took that low wattage light on her cold side out she went almost into a semi brumation. Sleeping alot, sometimes most of the day. Staying in the dark side of her tank and not basking as much and I had suspicion it was due to me taking away that light on her cold side.
Even so ever since getting her uvb corrected her colors got better and she was definately in alot better health. The semi brumation didn't bother me so much as erk me a little. I knew she was fine and healthy but why was she sleeping so much? Is what I would ask myself.
With the dark side being so dark in such a big cage I figured I'd add another light... again...lol. I decided on a 4 foot (which span the majority of my cage) led 5000k daylight bulb. So there's no extra heat and no extra uvb. Just bright white light, that I ran from 11am to 4pm to simulate bright mid day sun, and lengthened the time I had the reptisun on.
So low and behold when she started to bask under her uvb bulbs, with the 5000k led light on, I saw her change to the same bright yellowish green that I saw under direct sunlight. She also stopped sleeping in so much. Now I know, no artificial light is the same as sunlight. But I think I may have tricked her into thinking she was? Guesses as to why? Maybe the color change is her showing she likes the lighting? We've all seen are dragons change to a darker color and it's thought that they do this maybe to absorb more heat in the morning and before lights out. Darker color absorb warmth and in turn brighter colors reflect light and heat. Maybe they change brighter colors in brighter light as a natural reaction to deflect heat as it isn't as needed? One can only guess.
What I do think is significant is that by adding the 5000k light across her viv, not changing any of the pre existing uvb levels or heat levels, I saw a significant change in color and behavior fairly quickly, actually that same day. So what does it mean? To me it means that the way they see light is more complicated then I thought and it means alot to there overall health. Uvb plays a role but if we can trick them (which is what we're doing with artificial light) I think we'd have alot happier dragons!