Hi guys! I’m super new to owning a bearded dragon, and I just recently gotten my beardie on Tuesday and I’ve been having a lot of difficulties with the heating. I might just be overthinking it, I just want to make sure I have the best environment for the little guy! I know they’re about 4months old, and their name (and gender) are TBD.
I had gotten a tank starter set from a place called Reptopia in Albany, OR. And it came with a 40gl (I believe) tank, a Flunkers Sun Dome that’s meant to increase UVB. The bulb they gave me was a Vivosun that’s supposed be both a heat lamp and a UVB. It’s at 125W/120V. I keep this on for the day, and on his basking side, but it hasn’t gotten up past 90 degrees. And the night I had gotten them it was the only one I had and so I had to put them in their carrier thing and put a t-shirt around the outside so they were warm but the light wouldn’t keep them up. It wasn’t great, I know but it was all I could do at the moment. The next day my partner got a Zoo-Med (up to 100W) mini deep dome Lamp fixture that also is UVB (and now that I’m reading the box it says that it’s 24 hours so that might just be what I need to do but I want to make sure) it’s a red light and I’ve noticed it doesn’t bother them while they sleep, but at night it’s currently only at 83.1F. I read a lot of online stuff and it says it’s fine as long as it doesn’t go past like 70F at night time. My partner also got a heat rock for the basking side. So they also have that. I’m just kinda stressed and constantly checking the temp and struggling to keep it where it needs to. The setup also came with a digital thermometer, but I swear it’s constantly changing and never stays at one spot. It’ll read like 75.3F for a solid 5 minutes then start slowly going down.
I have a little log and a tree in his basking side, I recently moved the light over the tree just so that way they could climb up and get more heat if bedded. But I haven’t seen them use the heat pad like at all, so maybe that’s a sign? I’m not sure.
If there’s anything more I could do, or if anyone else had this problem but there was an easy fix please let me know. I’d greatly appreciate it. I just want my beardie to be happy and warm.
Thank you so much!
***edit
I currently have the tank on my floor because I don’t have a table for it yet, so I won’t be able to use tank heaters until I can find a big enough table to elevate the tank.