Okay so I have two pictures here, the first is my beardies 20 gallon tank. She's ~14-15 inches tail to nose I think right now. I believe shes 4-5 months old... I bought a 40 gallon today and have some questions.. In pic #1 its a reptisun 10.0 compact UVB... in pic #2 its a reptsiun 10.0 24" tube version and I mounted it inside of the tank.
1. Is a 40 gallon too big at her size at this point?
2. Is the UVB I set up in the 40 gallon good enough in terms of... its not in a hood so I'm not sure the UV rays are directed downward, more like they're going everywhere.
Not an expert, but I think at 14-16", I think she's much older, more like a year (just a guess).
I have my tube on top, but I've seen others with them mounted inside. I'm using a reptisun 10.0 in mine too. Definitely don't keep using the coil uvb bulb, I read they can cause eye issues.
If you don't have one, you need a heat bulb. For her size, I believe the basking temp should be somewhere between 95-105, but double check it.
really? A year?? I got her from a petsmart lol, I don't think she was 7 months old when I bought her. Heres a picture from early June (I got her in mid may). I mean she fit into a little cup from the store so she's grown a decent amnt.
Certainly I could be wrong, last time I had a Dragon was over 10 years ago. Mine new guy is only 6" and estimated around 2 months old. The store told me they believed their Dragons were between 2-3 months old and he was one of the smaller ones. Here's a photo of mine, yours just looks more older and bigger than mine:
Compact UVB's are fine as long as you mount them correctly. the compacts are generally designed with more vertical space in mind and so have a more narrow field of UVB intensity. I used them perfectly fine until Fred got a bit bigger and then switched to the tube in order to add more length to his UVB area. Eye issues arise from the beardie getting too close to the bulb and the strength of the radiation being too intense... same as if you used a T5 HO bulb at 6 inches... too strong. and yes if you dont have a heating element then you will need one, a PAR38 halogen flood light from a hardware store will do nicely. besides that, mounting the lamp inside the enclosure is fine, just make sure you have it at the correct distances, there are differences between light transmission through screen and without. you could rig a reflector and secure it above the lamp so more light is directed down also, make it easier to look into the enclosure too.