VenusAndSaturn":76mpb4oi said:Those bearded dragon kits are almost entirely worthless, they come with bad lights, bad substrate, and depending on the tank size you'll have to upgrade it within a few months.
I suggest you get a timer, it may be expensive but worth it and move the beardie to a different part of the house that wont upset your sleep schedule. 12 hours of light does not work for a beardie unless in burmation, they need a 13-14 hour time period of light, preferable lights on at 6 or 7 am and lights off at 8 or 10 pm.
<<<< 14 hour minimum
Changing it to fit your schedule may cause problems to the beardie if you get a young one as they need to eat 3 times a day, 10-20 insects each feeding. I suggest going for a full grown adult (20+ months) as they eat once every other day for insects, the same amount but it would be easier for you as they arent as fragile as well.
Then again reptiles are not for everyone. You cant exactly get a reptile to fit your schedule entirely.
Make sure you know what your getting into before hand, i have 7 reptiles all together however only three actually eat insects 24/7. Which costs me about 47 or so dollars to feed every month, it used to cost me around 20 dollars every two weeks as 1,000 crickets was just not doing it for my juvenile beardie who eats up to 40 or more crickets a day, my adult female who eats 20 crickets every other day and my leopard gecko who eats at least 15 or so crickets each night. And thats just the crickets, you have to pay for uvb when you replace every 6 months, heating, the salad portion when they run out, you have to feed the crickets which 2,000 eats about one whole collard green in less than an hour.
dragonroots":24jsxgp9 said:So back to the lighting, i just got a temperature gun from canadian tire and used it to measure the temperature of what is the hottest point in the tank and it fluctuated between 97-102F. Is that warm enough for a baby beardie or do i need to go out and get a hotter bulb. Currently the bulb is a 100w zoomed reptibasking spot lamp.
>>>> on the low end for the basking spot , but it will fine , he'll spend more time basking.
Edit: So briefly i checked it another hour later (roughly same spot) and depending on the distance my gun was to the surface it at one point went to 115F (though that was putting the gun almost point blank) but it quickly dropped and went back to fluctuating between 97-105F
VenusAndSaturn":1jtops4d said:The uvb may be a big problem if your getting it from a knock off brand like all living things..
BRANDS TO AVOID
Not all UVB compacts, tubes and MVBs are created equal or as well.
Many Chain Petshops sell their own brand (
Nomoy Pet,
Zilla,
All Living Things,
Reptile-One,
URS,
MegaRay Brand,
CrawlMiracle,
Nat Geo ,
Sparkzoo reptispar,
Repti-Zoo ,
Natural Selections (in green boxes) ,
all of which are cheap Chinese clones made very cheaply using very poor quality quartz glass and cheap phosphors ==> very poor UV spectrum produced including UVC and bad parts of the UVB band.
Preferably unless you have a 200-300 dollar solarmeter to measure how much uvb it actually produces you want a arcaidia or reptisun t5 HO 10.0 tube light with a reflective fixture.
dragonroots":1gtpmb32 said:VenusAndSaturn":1gtpmb32 said:Those bearded dragon kits are almost entirely worthless, they come with bad lights, bad substrate, and depending on the tank size you'll have to upgrade it within a few months.
I am aware that half the items given were useless, it was a 40 gallon zoomed tank and i am only using the basking light and food/water bowls that came with it. I have bought a hide, a branch, and a hammock for it to climb on and have also purchased a fluorescent uvb tube light. For substrate i am using paper towels at the moment with the intention to switch to a ceramic tile substrate as it got older. I am unable to put it in a different room as i have cats and my room is the only one that is completely secured from them in the house (most rooms dont have walls that reach the ceiling so they climb over them or have sliding doors that they sqeeze through). As for feeding my mother who works a regular day shift all year has agreed to feed it at least once while i am at work. The timer i was fully intent on getting this coming weekend.
RE CATS : THEY ARE A BIG DANGER .
Do not buy a viv with a mesh lid , no mesh is cat proof !!! , if you already have the viv and it has a mesh lid , remove the mesh lid , throw it away , install a solid timber lid , make sure it is impossible for a cat to lift it , lever it up, shift it to the side or force a claw under it .... a determined cat who wants to attack and torture your pet lizard WILL do this .
Edit: also the two months in question are July and August so assuming i get it as a baby of about a month old or so (which from what i read is about the typical age a baby beardie is purchased) by the time the schedule shift would occur it would likely be in it's sub adult stage in its growth at 6-7 months of age (again going by what i have read).
KeyBlu422":36dyzefk said:While unpopular due to bad performance in the past, the new Exo Terra compact uvb bulbs offer similar performance just in a less distributed area and slightly more intense as they've updated their tech. While the whole "eye issue thing" is still possible, it's extremely rare and can be detected pretty quick. Also, might as well go with a t10 over the t5.
KeyBlu422":1d5qd3rp said:Kingofnooby, I use a compact bulb too. Only after doing tons of research on the newer Exo Terra compacts though.
dragonroots":11ran34y said:Okay so if i order this https://www.amazon.ca/Zoo-Med-26053...r=8-2-fkmr0&keywords=t5+reptile+light+fixture and this https://www.amazon.ca/Zoo-Med-26061...coding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=G1JEZVR8CA45JNXVWTYV and put it on top of the mesh lid it will cause no problems and give the dragon sufficient uvb light with the bulb linked. Cause i do not want to waste money buying the wrong thing again (though i was able to return the old fixture).
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?