Hello! I'm Ani, I'm new to the forum and a new beardie owner my little guy is a 4 months old beardie named Gilberto. He's a red/orange trans her hipo leatherback.
I had a few questions regarding his enclosure...
Enclosure
I have him in a melamine/wooden diy enclosure from an Ikea besta cabinet. Dimensions are: 4.2 feet long, 1.5 feet wide, 2 feet tall with a secondary level inside. All white inside to reflect more light.
Substrate
I'm using untreated slate tiles with a plastic cover (the one you use in drawers) underneat. Level is made out of light brown wood textured melamine
Lighting
I'm using a sylvania 76w flood light as basking light and a T8 reptiglo 10.0 tube light mounted inside the terrarium overlapping with the basking light; less than 8 inches from the basking spot.
Temperatures
Basking spot : 106F with some zones around 95f and others around 110F
Cool side: 82f
Nightime 76f, but will install CHE on oposite side of basking light when winter comes
So... is everything ok? I know reptiglo is not the best bulb around; but I'm trying to get a t8 arcadia 12% and can't seem to find one anywhere other than ebay, and I don't really trust a bulb from ebay (I live in Spain). So far, he seems ok. Eats around 5-7 dubia roaches per feeding (2x a day) and most of his greens daily. Poops twice (or thrice!) per day. Seems normal consistency, not particulary stinky poops...
I'm asking mainly because I am concerned with the reptiglo.. i've read tons of things about them here but everything seems pretty old? (2009-2010ish?) and I was hoping maybe they fixed the tube?
Anyway, thanks in advance for your help! I welcome any opinions/improvements you recomend! I'll try to figure a way to post a picture of his enclosure on the next post!
There...! Finally!
Kind of hard to take a good picture because there's a table in front of the enclosure, but if you need better ones I'll take new ones. Thanks!
Hi Ani, nice to see such a big beautiful enclosure and healthy looking dragon. And I know that you meant that Gilberto is a trans. het. hypo leatherback . Looks like a good set up and as long as the Reptiglo uvb bulb is close as you say, then it's fine. It's the weaker coil bulbs that caused eye damage in some dragons in the past, probably were positioned wrong ,too but the long tube bulbs are good. I've used them myself and one of the top breeders in the U.S [ Tamara from Rainbow bearded dragons , just see her care sheet ] uses the Reptiglo exclusively , has done so for years [ and her dragons are huge + fast growing ]
So no problem there, just replace it every 6 months or so.
Oh! I just noticed the typo...! Thanks!
Oh that is SUCH a relief! I kept looking around and every post I found of this forum recommended reptisun/arcadia exclusively and well, they seem to be hard to find in some places...!
Thanks so so much!
Yes, it should work well if you have it within about 8" of the dragon. And just so you know, mesh hammocks can sometimes snag nails and once in a while cause a foot sprain. If you have more wood pieces for him to climb [ like your log , or another branch ] that would be a better choice for basking.
Oh! It's not mesh... it's actually a medical scrub fabric, just happened to have some old scrub pants around... will that be ok? Or he might snag a foot in there somehow? He uses them rarely, prefers his branch. I thought he might like them more when he's older but I'll take them out if they're dangerous.
I'm trying to get a few more branches aswell! Thanks for the suggestion ?