advice on lighting

[npgeorgeuw]

Hello, proud parent of (2) bearded dragons here, 1 juvenile (13 grams) and 1 baby (8 grams). We've got our animals housed in their own separate 55 gallon vivariums with a basking area lit by a 150 watt neodymium bulb (can't recall the manufacturer off hand, maybe all living things?). Temps are ~105-110 in the basking area and have a reptsun 10.0 36 inch/30 watt bulb lighting the length of the cage, ~6-7 inches from the dragons. Temps on the cool side are room temperature at the lowest corner of the cage. Room temperature is typically 75 as controlled by a space heater which is usually spot on maybe a little higher 75-77 degrees.

I have read that neodymium lights are not ideal for bearded dragons. A few have said it's due to the spectrum a few others have said it's due to lack of UV output. Considering I'm not using it for UV "output" what are the arguments for or against their use for basking lamps? The light spectrum based on the box and my subjective eye appear in the right daylight range.

My second question is how many of you light the dark/cool side of the cage? Since I can't keep the windows open (each cage gets cooked from the sun) I'd like to lighten their environment and stimulate hunting/activity and I've heard that bright enclosures usually equates to more active dragons.--Can anyone vouch for this?

 

[Taterbug]

Neodineoum coatings result in the filtering of yellow and are tuned to the human eye response, so it's possible that while the light looks more like daylight to us the it maybe distorted for our scaley friends.

I have my basking lights and UVA to one side, and a 36" "daylight" florecent running the length of the tank to brighten it up. I also have lots of shade.

It's also worth noting that reptiles can see UVA the same way we do colors. Most of our lighting options are deficient in UVA. Mercury vapor bulbs and metal halides produce more sunlike color spectrum and lots of UVA, it might be worth looking into eother (metal halide comes in a non uvb emitting type as well and is considered the closest available visible lighting to natural sunlight.)