Hello.
I’m a first time bearded dragon owner.
I have searched for endless hours to get a light schedule, for the uvb light and basking. I understand that minimum of 12 hours to 16 for light and the other for dark.
But my question is for the “light” hours how should that be divided between the uvb and basking? And which one goes first and last? UVB first thing in the morning followed by basking or vice versa?
Thanks for reading and helping.
You can do it a couple of ways. Either have them on two timers and have the basking light come on first (UVB a couple hours later) and off last (UVB going off a couple hours earlier). Or just have them on a dual outlet timer and set them together. There's no problem with doing it that way.
If you have a high power UVB like a T5 12%/10.0 bulb then you may want to bring that on later to simulate the way sunlight increases and decreases slowly with the most UVB being in the middle part of the day. To start with I'd just have them go on and off together though.
You can do it a couple of ways. Either have them on two timers and have the basking light come on first (UVB a couple hours later) and off last (UVB going off a couple hours earlier). Or just have them on a dual outlet timer and set them together. There's no problem with doing it that way.
If you have a high power UVB like a T5 12%/10.0 bulb then you may want to bring that on later to simulate the way sunlight increases and decreases slowly with the most UVB being in the middle part of the day. To start with I'd just have them go on and off together though.
All my lights are connected to a powerboard , I am running 3 large tanks (4ft x 2ft x 18" tall for the 2 adult eastern BT skinks (George & Mildred) and my big female beardie Peppa) and a 100L tub for my water skink Fluffy , the UV and basking lights are all connected to this powerboard, the powerboard is connected to a 7D programmable inline timer.
The lights are programmed to turn on at 6am and off at 10pm. This explains my reasoning for a 16 hr photoperiod : viewtopic.php?f=1&t=236209&p=1815777#p1815777 …. I don't adjust the photoperiod to simulate summer and winter , I set and forget.
Is not necessary for a dragon or a skink to be encouraged to brumate … none of my gang have even shown any interest in taking a long nap over winter. Breeders think brumation improves breeding productivity - but I've not seen any scientific proof supporting this. Essentially brumation is response to colder daytime temperatures and big reduction in the amount of food available (in the dragon's / skink's) natural range in winter.
My heatpads, I'm running a 7W heatpad 24/7 controlled by a switching thermostat for each lizard, set to either 34degC for the skinks or 36degC for the beardie , these are all connected to a separate powerboard.