Monster Cage basking blues

[Desdemona]

I got my beardie a huge cage since I found it on Craigs list for a great price. It was used for a large snake. It is 2' x 2' and 6' long. its made out of thick plastic and I have slate tiles for the floor. Her basking area is a set of 3 large branches. I have tried basking lights, but they get far to hot (the smaller one got hotter than the larger) and round bulb types, but they are not hot enough. To make things worse the bulb area in the cage just fried on me. Its solid so I can't just put a bulb on the top. I might end up just seeing if I can do a trade for a tank. Right now I have a dome proped high on a limb with a less warm bulb, she can't get to it without some serious aerobics but I don't want to keep that setup for obvious reasons.

Ideas? Different cage? I wired in the thing for the UVB so should be able to wire in a new socket, but the lack of good basking spot is getting me down. The slate seems to stay on the cold side naturally. Some other kind of rock maybe? Ideas?

 

[Jess]

Get a dimmer switch. Custom cages are much more insulated than glass, so they don't need nearly as much heat. In my 4x2x2, I have a 50 watt spotlight on a dimmer.

 

[Desdemona]

oh, also, she seems to dislike heat a lot. I own a large number of probe thermometers and they will all say less than 100 but she will be hanging her mouth open like she is hot. She also likes to crawl under her log where its very much not hot. She will hang out in the basking spot if I put her there but never seeks it out herself (I only put here there on occasion). I am careful that its not to hot if I put her there. Brumation? She is well over a year old, but I don't really want her to brumate til her poops get backk on schedule. She is driving me nuts, will probably take her to the vet when I get paid because she has been a super slow pooper lately, even when fed pretty small crickets. I am also awaiting a shipment of hornworms since they are pretty awesome in terms of soft bodied bugs that will fill a dragon and give her even poop.

 

[Desdemona]

I have a dimmer and my spot lights are still to warm, in the 117 degree area with the dimmer all the way down. The smaller watt bulb hit 120 degrees

The round bulbs hit around 90 where she will actually bask but much warmer closer to the bulb.