For this time of year, a 12 hour day cycle & a 12 hour night cycle is perfect. As the summer
time begins you could increase the day cycle to a 14 hour time period & the night time cycle
would be a 10 hour period.
I try to emulate the photoperiod outside , I live in the native range of eastern bearded dragons, even see wild specimens on my fences and tree's trunk and in my yards occasionally.
I never go under 14hrs , so lights on 7am , off 9pm.
Here is are the real world natural photoperiods experienced by central bearded dragons in their native range
Thank you kingofnobbys for such a detailed response! If I'm reading these graphs correctly, i looks like June 21st (shortest day of the year in southern hemisphere) is close to 12 hours, and just under 12 if you're only counting full daylight. And then it looks like about 14 hours of daylight in the summer (december). Do you recommend fluctuating his light timing to give him a sense of having seasons? Or is that unnecessary? I have also wondered if winter brumation in necessary for their health.
I've adjusted the lights seasonally in the past. I found that it isn't really necessary though. They seem to ignore the lights and will change their sleep cycles independently. I tend now to follow their sleep cycles a bit with the lighting. This may vary between dragons.
As far as brumation goes. Not all of them will go into brumation. Some will go into a partial brumation and just slow down a bit and others will go into full brumation for months on end. That really varies a bit between them. It isn't necessary for them to do this but a lot of them will as an instinct.