GoneForLunch":31faitt3 said:
Heated rocks are not the best for bearded dragons since they have a hard time knowing how hot things are that are underneath them. As long as you're basking spot is 100-110*F and you give her crickets 2-3x a day for 10-15 minutes (allowing her to eat all she wants), she could just be a late bloomer. I'm not familiar with mercury vapor bulbs, but it needs to be a bright white bulb that puts out good heat to get the basking area to the right temps. And UVB? Do you have a
UVB bulb? I would recommend getting a Reptisun 10.0 T8, it's the best for your tank. Usually a 24" fixture with a 18" bulb (that goes into the fixture) will run you around $100 at petsmart, though you be able to find cheaper online. But don't skimp out on the UVB too much, because it's essential. Make sure to get the Reptisun 10.0 T8 and an appropriate fixture for it. The fixture just needs to house the 18" tube style bulb and I also believe it should have a reflector to make sure the UVB is going out at the basking spot.
Commercially made heat rocks have a very bad reputation for overheating and burning the reptiles who have them in their enclosures, the issue is they have no good thermostatic control built in and if the temperature limiting circuit fails they simply get hotter and hotter and there in lies the problem
I have a solution that I have developed (being a retired principle thermal process engineer and somewhat of a boffin (trained in chemistry, physics, chemical engineering and advanced computer control systems)), I thought about the issue and came up with an elegant (simple) and effective and SAFE solution to the issue.
All the best solutions to problems are SIMPLE and ELEGANT.
My solution is I create a ceramic tile sandwich (tiles rough side facing out) and slip a simple 5 or 7 W film style heatpad inbetween the two layers of tiles, cloth tape the edges to keep it all together and keep poo and bugs out of the small gap between the two layers of tiles) and I complete the circuit by plugging the heatpad into a simple digital thermostat who's remote probe is attached to the middle of the top layer of tiles , I set the thermostat to 37oC and run 24/7 , and my beardies' hides are ontop the "heatslab" which are directly under the basking light and close to the UVB200s .
The builty of this arrangement is the thermostat limits the temperature the heatslab can go to, it wont go over this, if the thermostat fails no power goes to the heatslab and it simply cools down, and the temperature is controlled using a closed loop. Also the tiles hold the warmth and spread it out very evenly and the beardies never make direct contact with the heatpad.
All my beardies LOVE their nice cozy warm hides and mostly choose to sleep on their heatslabs of a night.