I'll be getting a beardie soon and am trying to work out my heating/lighting situation. I have a Flukers clamp lamp with a dimmer and a 100W CHE coming in the mail, can I use this instead of a basking light or do they need a bright light source? If I just leave my curtains open it would be pretty bright. If not what bulb would you recommend for a 30 gallon tank? It's 16" high and my house is always between 74-77 degrees.
Dragons need night bright lights to simulate the sunny desert. They are also adapted to associate light with heat and uv, so not providing light with your heat source will be confusing for them.
Opening the curtains will give you some UVA (most bulbs don't have much( but probably won't be bright enought. If it's in direct sunlight it's actually dangerous as the tank can easily over heat.
Thank you Tater, is there a basking bulb you can recommend, I've seen people say a incandescent household 10W would work? I also have a Reptisun 10.0 coming for the UVB.
It will take trial and error. For a 30g a 50-75w incandecent would be a good start, or a 30-50w halogen. I use par38 halogen floods but they are probably too big for that tank.