New Bearded Dragons - heat lamp questions and other things

[eileithia]

Hello, my husband and I picked up our new beardies yesterday. We did research before, and are doing a ton now, and want to make sure we provide the optimum environment for our bearded dragons. Both are 8 weeks old, and still housed together. The store told us that they would be ok together for now, but we are not sure when to separate them? We don't know the sexes yet. Our biggest concern right now, is the lighting and heat. We have a basking log, which is 12 inches away from the 100 watt Sun Glo Basking Lamp. It has an Exo Terra Glow shade for night. My thermometer though, which I've placed right now exactly where the dragons are sitting, says 32 degrees. I believe for the size my dragons are, it needs to be 41 degrees? We also have a ZooNed 25 watt D3 bulb right beside the heat lamp so that the dragons get both the D3 light and heat when they bask.
Questions: We don't think the basking area is warm enough. What can we do to make it the right temperature? Get a bigger bulb? We thought of getting sub-terra floor heater, but I haven't seen anyone advocate those and we don't want to make the sand too hot for them. The tank is very large, so they have cool shady areas in about 50% of the tank.
Can anyone offer opinions on a) how to make the basking area warmer, safely (I've read a lot about the dragons getting too close to the heat). b) idea basking logs/rocks/stones etc. We have read that stones can heat up too much and cause burns. Is a log safer?
c) what do people think of the sub-terra heat pads (that go outside, and underneath the tank)

Both dragons ate about 5 crickets each so far today, have pooped, are alert and active. We were also told not to handle them for at least a week so that they can get adjusted. Do you agree with that advice?

Thank you in advance to everyone! I look forward to being a regular on here with pictures and posts!

 

[eileithia]

I've actually just re-measured and the log is 9 inches from the 100 watt bulb. It is currently at 32.5 degrees C. I still think it needs to be warmer. Help? 8)

 

[norbertbd]

Not sure what happened with my last post.

I don't know what the conversions for temps are to Celcius, so I don't know if you're okay or not. In farenheit you want to be between 105-110 degrees for the basking spot. If you look at the top of the website there is a link for care sheets and articles. You'll probably find everything you need there. Your temps need to be measured with a probe type thermometer with the sensor sitting on the basking spot. If you're using a stick on thermometer on the glass, they are very inaccurate. Or a infrared thermometer you point at the source is also another good option.

For the lighting, again I don't know the specifics of the types you mentioned. A lot of people end up with bad lighting that has been recommended by the pet shops. Again, those articles above will be a big help. If your UV light is a coil type light, I don't think I've seen one recommended on this site at all, and most have been described as either causing eye problems or insufficient UV levels. One of the most recommended tube type UV's is the ReptiSun 10.0 and can be order cheaply from petmountain.com, depending on where you're located.

For the basking, you can use a standard household lightbulb, or a halogen flood. The halogen flood will give out a lot more directed heat than a standard household incandescant. You might have to try a few different wattages in order to get the right basking temp and correct overall temp in your viv. I ultimately picked the bulb that got me just above the temps I wanted, then put an inline dimmer switch so I could fine tune the temps. You can get them at most hardware stores and you put them into the cord for the light. It's actually fairly easy.

Hope this helps. There is a wealth of information on this site. I'm still learning a lot from it.

 

[LJean]

http://www.wbuf.noaa.gov/tempfc.htm I use this site for converting f to c. Hope it is accurate.

32.5 c would be 90.5 f. Not warm enough in the basking area for young dragons. You would want at least 41-42 c for heat. You need a good thermometer as described in the last post to be able to determine the basking spot temps.

I am not sure which bulb you have for UVB unless you are specific about it. But do know they have to be a certain distance away to be safe and efficient.

 

[eileithia]

OK. Thank you. We clearly do not have enough heat set up for them. We are going first thing in the am to get better lamps. They told us the 100 watt would be enough, but it's clearly not. The UV light also is a bulb, but not a tube ..which it seems everyone is recommending to cover the entire length. We'll get everything set up proper and then post pics!
Do you (or does anyone) have advise on when to start 'handling' your dragons and for how long? We left them alone today and they were very curious every time we came in the room. They ate in front of us, were active and very alert. We don't want to rush things or stress them at all. Any advice would be appreciated. They are 8 weeks old right now.
Thank you!

 

[LJean]

What size enclosure is it? This would determine what the best UVB light is to use. There are bad bulbs out there that can cause health problems, so you would want to avoid : colored bulbs,
coil/compact bulbs, and any bulbs by ESU or Zilla. If you go with a tube bulb the best one to use is the ReptiSUN 10 (long flourescent).

Baby beardies can suffer from relocation stress and will need some time to adjust. I would handle them minimally for the first few weeks.

Won't be long before you may have to seperate them, so be prepared to have to set up another enclosure.

 

[eileithia]

What size enclosure is it? This would determine what the best UVB light is to use. There are bad bulbs out there that can cause health problems, so you would want to avoid : colored bulbs,
coil/compact bulbs, and any bulbs by ESU or Zilla. If you go with a tube bulb the best one to use is the ReptiSUN 10 (long flourescent).

Baby beardies can suffer from relocation stress and will need some time to adjust. I would handle them minimally for the first few weeks.

Won't be long before you may have to seperate them, so be prepared to have to set up another enclosure.

Thank you! Our enclosure is a 33 gallon right now. (I know we'll need to upgrade in a few months for sure). We went and got a 150 watt Reptile bulb (exo-terra) and now we've got a proper basking temperature! We're also going to add a nice big rock, that will hold the heat better than our log does. We got a better UVB ..Reptiglo 13 W 10.0 UVB. We have the UVB and the Heatlamp aiming on the same basking spot. They seem to be loving it right now!

I'll post a pic soon!

 

[beardie parents]

Is your reptiglo the long tube or a coil uvb bulb? The reptisun 10 long fluorescent tube is a better uvb. Any coil or compact bulb isn't good and does cause damage.

 

[eileithia]

Is your reptiglo the long tube or a coil uvb bulb? The reptisun 10 long fluorescent tube is a better uvb. Any coil or compact bulb isn't good and does cause damage.

Hey Redrock Parents, It's a 10.0 UVB Coil shaped, white light. The reptile store told us we would be overdoing it with a tube bulb when they are so young? Do you disagree? What kind of damage does/would it cause? Why would the same company make bulbs that are harmful, and why would pet stores sell them? I am just curious as I see so many different write-ups. It's the same company who makes them so it seems odd to me that it would be harmful? However, I don't want to have anything harmful for our dragons. We will move to a larger enclosure in a few months and will use the tube bulbs then, mostly so that there is more light coverage (as I assume there would be in the dessert) and we can ensure they are getting enough UVA, UVB etc. Any more details/feedback you can share is appreciated. Thanks.

 

[beardie parents]

The problem with coil bulbs is the way they are made. Here is a link that has a lot of information on all of the uvb bulbs. There is a link that takes you to pics and other information of various reptiles that were under coil bulbs. For a start, they cause eye problems making the reptiles not able to open their eyes or want to eat. In a couple of cases if I remember, two baby beardies died because the owners didn't know what was wrong until after they died.
http://www.uvguide.co.uk/intro.htm

Here is the link of the case history information I was mentioning. This should help you to understand the problems with the various uvb bulbs.
http://www.uvguide.co.uk/phototherapyphosphor-cases.htm

The best uvb fluorescent bulbs to buy are these:
Reptisun 10
Reptisun 5
reptiglo 8

Just make sure that you use the long tubes, non of these are good in the coil or compact bulbs.

 

[eileithia]

Wow. Thank you for that info. It makes me so angry that stores would even still be selling those!

 

[monteandcarma]

I would like to mention the MVB bulb, it provides heat and UV so you only need 1 bulb per dragon, I also would like to mention seperating them asap, I have had 2 baby bds for 2 weeks now and only after a few days did I notice 1 of them laying on top of the other so I immediatly seperated them, you can simply use a rummermaid tote until you make proper arrangments, but keep a close eye on them, if you search this forum you will find many posts regarding keeping them seperate... its simply not worth coming home one day to find a leg or tail missing even at a young age.