Advanced lighting (rig rundown)

[charmander16]

There are many different ways to approach advanced lighting for reptiles, but for this I'll provide some info on how I've done it.

At a bare minimum bearded dragons require enough heat for basking and UVB for making vitamins. This is typically achieved by using a heat producing basking bulb of some kind and a separate UVB bulb (though this can be achieved with a single all-in-one basking/UVB bub).

But there are many reasons to go beyond just the basics to improve quality of life for your dragon. My lighting setup strives to achieve the following goals:

• Provide lighting and heating gradients with many different temps and light levels available
• Provide bright Full Spectrum light
• Gradual sunrise and sunset effects
• Dynamic lighting and heating in tune with natural daily cycles

I achieve this using the following basic lights:

• Halogen basking light
• Reptisun T5 10.0 UVB light
• Full Spectrum LED aquarium light
• Ceramic Heat Emitter

My viv happens to be larger than average, so I'm actually using two basking lights.

Here is basically how my setup works:

6:00 am - Halogen basking light starts to gradually come on over a 30 minute period (reaching 107 F)*
6:45 am - UVB light comes on (along with an additional basking light)
10:00 am - LED light comes on gradually over a 15 minute period
1:00 pm - CHE bring temp at a probe location up from 88 F to 100 F
2:30 pm - CHE shuts off
5:30 pm - LED lights gradually turns off over 15 minutes
7:00 pm - UVB lights (and secondary basking light) turn off
7:00 pm - Halogen basking light gradually turns off over 30 minutes
Overnight - The CHE keeps a minimum temp of 75 F at probe
* When the CHE brings the probe temp up to 100 F the temp under the main basking light reaches about 118 F.

What this does is create a relatively dynamic environment that crudely simulates a real day cycle. It's not anywhere near as a good as a real daylight cycle, but it's a lot better than just a basking and UV light coming on and staying constant from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm.

The LED lights provide bright white full spectrum light that is important for good vision in dragons and also helps with growing plants. Having this come on mid day, I believe, helps to create a cycle that the dragon can use to get a better sense of the time of day. Reptiles are very sensitive to changes in light quality and they use changes in light quality to regulate their internal clocks so I believe that having this 10:00 am to 5:30 pm bright light period helps to provide a better sense of time for the dragon.

The CHE helps to simulate mid-day heat, when most lizards take shelter. (Although dragons are known to stay out in mid-day heat). When the CHE comes on our dragon will typically move out from under the basking light and may stay up on is basking platform but not directly under the light or he may also leave the platform to move to his log or ramp or go dig in the dirt for a bit, so I believe this helps to trigger and stimulate other activities instead of just sitting under the basking light all day.

Below is a picture showing the viv setup without the LED light on:

This is what it looks like with the LED light on:

You can hopefully see that it is brighter and whiter with the LED on.

I have all of my lights "mounted" on top of the viv. I like this because it doesn't take up room in the viv, there is no mounting or wiring involved, it seems safer, and it's easier to change or modify the setup and move things around.The pic below shows how I have my lights setup:

Note that the double dome actually only has a single light in it.

Continued...

 

[charmander16]

Now let's get into the specifics of the gear.

The screen the lights are resting on is "1/2 inch steel hardware cloth" : http://www.homedepot.com/p/Everbilt-1-2-in-x-2-ft-x-5-ft-19-Gauge-Galvanized-Steel-Hardware-Cloth-308221EB/205960835
This type of screen virtually eliminates loss of light due to obstruction.

The fixture for the main basking light is a 10.5" brooder light: http://www.homedepot.com/p/HDX-10-1-2-in-Brooder-Clamp-Light-HD-303PDQ/204684496
This is larger than the typical reptile light domes and provides a much broader and more even basking spot.

The main basking bulb is a BT15 100 watt halogen bulb: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EZMGXKK/
I think a lower wattage BT15 bulb would work fine or maybe even better. I have to run this at 50% max power and next time I will try a lower wattage bulb.

The secondary basking bulb I'm using is a 100 watt Zoo Med Reptibasking Spot Lamp : https://zoomed.com/repti-basking-spot-lamp/
I like the light quality produced by these basking bulbs. I think the light is whiter than typical halogen or incandescent bulbs. The bad thing about these bulbs is they can't be dimmed, but as a secondary bulb that's not coming on first thing in the morning this is fine and also this bulb is mounted about 18 inches over the surface so it's no where near making the area too hot, in fact it only gets the are below it to about 87 degrees, which is fine because its a secondary light.

The UVB bulb and hood I'm using is the Zoo Med 24" Reptisun Hood: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AQU8F2O/
I think this is a very good T5 hood. They also make a hood like this with additional LED lights built in.

The LED light I'm using is the 24" Satellite Freshwater LED Plus aquarium light: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CMFFMS6/
I really like this LED light. I looked at a lot of options before settling on this. What sets this light apart is that it is fully customizable. You can dim it and adjust all aspects of its color spectrum. Most LED aquarium lights are far too blue and you can't adjust them. This lets you control the red-blue-green spectrum to fully adjust the color temperature of the light. The way I have it set is I put it on 100% full bright full spectrum and then I turned the blue lights down to about 50%, which creates a very white not bluish light.

The other nice aspect of this light is that you can get a timer for it that will use a 15 minute dimming on/off setting that gradually turns it off and on: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FDV1AFA/

I'm using a 150 watt CHE, but CooperDragon recommends a heat projector that sounds pretty good: http://www.reptileuv.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=196

Although not really important, I'm also using this blue LED bulb as a night light that's on from 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01C4QQQO6/

I use it with the following dimmer: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004DZONXI/

Continued...

 

[charmander16]

Continued...

That's the light, but now for the controllers:

The main controller I use is the Herpistat 2 from Spyder Robotics: http://www.spyderrobotics.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=26
The guy at Spyder Robotics is very responsive and a great help. I'm using the 2 (which has 2 controllers) to control both the Halogen basking bulb and the CHE. I talked with the guy from SR and it sounds like you could actually get the ramping mid-day effect using a single controller, but I haven't tried it. He gave directions on how to program it to ramp up the power of the Halogen light for a period mid-day but I've just stuck with using the CHE for the effect. But this is important because if you want to get by with just a single output controller to save money, that's still a possibility. Here is a comparison of all their products: http://www.spyderrobotics.com/index.php?main_page=page&id=19&chapter=1

The way I have it set is one output controls the light and I have it set to use a 30 minute ramp up/down with max power set at 50%. I used a temp probe to determine what power setting would achieve the temp I wanted. That output has no temp probe.

The second output is connected to a temp probe. The second output is set to a nighttime temp of 75 F and a daytime temp of 100 F. I have "daytime" set to last from only 1:00 pm to 2:30 pm. The rest of the time the CHE will only come on if the temp drops below 75 F, which does happen sometimes at night.

The pic below shows the position of the temp probe. Since the probe is about a foot away from the center of the basking spot it's typically about 88 to 90 F at the probe in the day and when the CHE comes on it gets to 100, which also sends the basking spot up over it's baseline temp. This is fine for a short period.

I'm also using several additional digital timers. I'm using digital because in order to really coordinate the timing of all these tings it works best with digital precision.

The Halogen basking bulb and CHE are controlled by the Herpistat timer. The UVB and secondary basking bulb are on a shared timer. The LED is on its own Ramp Timer. The night time LED is on its own digital timer. So 4 timers in all.

There are power strips with built in timers. I don't recommend those. For one their "day/night" outlets don't let you control the night time power. The "night" outlets are simply on whenever the day is off, so you can't do something like turn on a night light for only a short period. For another, power surges can destroy the timers and whole units. Ironically, the timers in some of those units are not protected by the surge protector. If you use separate timers then if a timer goes bad or gets hurt by a power surge you can simply replace the single timer. So I recommend using a power strip with independent timers.

Another thing that is important, besides just the equipment and settings, is setting up the environment to have a broad range of light levels and temps. You can see from pics of our viv that there are multiple levels and with two basking lights, only one is really set for maximum temperature. The secondary light provides a much lower temp. With our setup there are many temperature ranges on the top shelf and even more ranges on the log and ramp, plus of course the floor.

One thing I see in many setups is people using thin branches or narrow shelves for basking spots. I can say from experience that it's better to have a broader area where they can bask. If all they have is a thin branch that's at 110 or 105 degrees and then the ground that's at 80 or 85 degrees, they don't really have many options for temps. They can either bask at max temp or go to a much lower temp, but few options in between.

With the large shelf that we have I see out dragon position himself at many different spots on the shelf through the day, even when the CHE is not on. Sometimes he will be directly under the light, but other times he's on one of the ramps or on the shelf off to the side o f the light or even in the far corner. So he's really moving around to temps that vary between around 110 and 88 throughout the day and since its a broad shelf with a even temperature distribution he's got lots of options.

This is also something that's easier to achieve with height. So having a higher viv with multiple shelves or branches at different distances from a basking light is also a good option.

 

[AHBD]

Very nice, you've put a lot of thought in to it + sounds like your dragon enjoys the fruits of your labor. Very high tech.

 

[CooperDragon]

I just picked up some of the 100w halogen bulbs mentioned earlier https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EZMGXKK/ I have one in a portable basking lamp (10'' silver dome) and it dims really well. I have it set on full output at the moment and Darwin seems to be content under it. Finding that it has a pretty narrow beam of basking level temps and drops quickly to the sides. It's 13'' off the ground. Dead center I'm reading about 118f and about 4'' from that it's in the 90s and then drops quickly an inch or two beyond that into the 80s. That kind of gradient doesn't allow even basking for an adult. Head is at 102, belly is at 112, tail is at 86. The PAR38 seems to give a wider spread to the warmest temps.