My young new bearded dragon. *update

[Jittjuke]

Hello, so two nights ago I got a surprise present from my sister of a little beardy I decided to name ZooMa. Right now he is still in his little 10 gal cage. He will be moved tomorrow (Saturday) into his new 40 gal cage. I am still missing a uvb light so hopefully that could be picked up this weekend. And yesterday I made my dad come home early so he could take me to get a 100 wat basking light. Right now it's a bit much on the little tank so I have it hanging from the top of my room. I've been trying to keep his temps at recommended heights so the hottest parts in his cage is around 107 and the more cooler parts around 80.
EATING:::::::
As far as eating he hasn't done much at all. I still only have crickets and lettuce for him right now hopefully going to be ordering him some Phoenix worms tomorrow. But as of right now I put him in a separate container to eat crickets for about 7-10 minutes twice sometimes three times a day. And he hasn't been wanting them. I have also been putting a little bowl of lettuce in his cage all day. I've read a lot of stories on here saying a lot of people had the problem of new beardys not eating but it's just them getting use to the cage and new environment. I really hope it's true. Actually right as I'm typing this right now he just went up and ate a couple bits of lettuce. What could this mean? I mean I'm very happy he will eat something. But I want him to be healthy.

BEHAVIOR:: I just added the new basking light yesterday and he hasn't been doing much glass sliding he moves around to different parts of his cage every like 10-15 minutes. When I hold him he likes it and he will kind of do the thing with the cage he will either sleep or stay awake and just chill there or he will gradually take steps and move more and more each time he comes out. Today I put him on my shirt by my shoulder and he climbed all around my neck.

 

[CooperDragon]

That sounds like good improvement. You may want to pick up an adjustable lamp stand to suspend the basking light from. It sounds like you have a makeshift version of that which is good thinking. You could combine that with a lamp dimmer to fine tune it as well. It will be easier to get the right temps in the larger tank but you may need to tweak the lighting even more. Which UVB light are you going to pick up?

His behavior sounds pretty good to me. Nice and active. Don't worry too much about the eating for now. Keep offering him bugs but don't be too forceful with them. Just let him take what he wants and if he acts stressed by the feeding bin try feeding him in his tank with a few bugs at a time and see if he's OK with that. Plain lettuce won't give him much except hydration. I suggest building salads from items on this list if you can. http://www.beautifuldragons.com/Nutrition.html

 

[Jittjuke]

Yeah I'll probably go to the grocery store tonight with my mom and make him something nice tmr.
And what do you think of this? I'm pretty sure you were the one that linked me it.
http://m.petco.com/shop/en/petcostore/product/zilla-slimline-desert-50-uvb-t8-fluorescent-fixture-401854#

 

[CooperDragon]

Yeah that will do. If it comes with the Zilla Desert 50 bulb you can keep that in otherwise I'd replace it with an 18'' T8 ReptiSun 10.0 bulb. Make sure you remove the clear plastic from the front of the fixture before you use it and it should sit about 6-8'' above the basking area. Closer to 6'' if it's on the mesh top.

 

[Jittjuke]

Ok awesome. I'll look it up when I set it up.
Rn in the 10 gallon his basking bulb I raised it so it's about 15 inches up from the ground. I came in and looked at him and he was like on his stomach laying down. I gave it a few and then he had his tongue out so I figured he was a little bit hot so I just put in his 52 watt reg house bulbs. But the problem was I have a zoo med heater pad in the cage. And I totally forgot to unplug it so I think that's what's causing things to be extra hot. I'll switch back to the basking when it cools down a little in there.

 

[Jittjuke]

And is there a reason he could be getting darker? Idk if he is or not but I thought he might have.