Tank setup

[prescottguy]

Hello. So I had a bearded dragon that passed away. He was only around 5 months old. I got him from a pet store. He never really ate a lot and seemed very sluggish all the time. Then he stopped using his right rear leg. Now I need some advice. I have about a 30 gallon tank, and I am including a picture. I have a 150 watt heat lamp and a 150, 13 watt uvb coil bulb. Now everything I have read said stay away from coil bulbs and I think I may be responsible for his death due to lack of good UVB lighting. The basking heat was around 102-104 degrees at the top which was about 10 inches away from the heat lamp. The bottom of the tank was around 90 degrees. The cool side was around 65ish at all times. I was coating his crickets with calcium powder but he seemed not interested in eating. So my question is: Should I get the Reptisun 10.0 hood light and then use my heat lamp during the day and my night lamp at night? Any thoughts would be appreciated.

. I want to do this right for my next beardie.

 

[VenusAndSaturn]

I believe i've spoken to you before when you had a different account? The picture is familiar anyway.

But yes the coil bulb was most likely the reason of death along with a few other things.
You'll want a reptisun T5 HO 10.0 22" or 34" bulb with a reflective fitting fixture (go for the 34" as when you have to upgrade to a larger tank it'll be more useful)

You can keep the heat lamp as 102-104 is good, the bottom portion of the warm side is good as well as it is in the 90-95 temp range. For the cool side you need it to be around 70-85, 65 is a little too cool for during the day temps so if you can you may want a low wattage CHE over there or turn the temp up in your house.

Unless it gets below 65 during the night you dont need a night heat source, however if it does make sure the bulb is a ceramic heat emitter and does not produce any light at all.

You'll want to clean everything inside the tank very well to avoid contamination and disease with the new beardie.

Make sure you have multivitamins as well, a bearded dragon that is 1-20 months should be getting calcium 5x a week dusted on their insects with multivitamins 2x a week.
And then at or past 20 months usually 3x a week for calcium and once a week for multivitamins.

 

[prescottguy]

Thank you very much. So with my tank being 36 long the 34inch should work or even a little smaller and doesn't have to span all the way acroos the tank? Thanks for the advice. I did post this under another account but I lost my password.

 

[VenusAndSaturn]

Ah okay. And yes the 34" uvb and fixture should work very well as when you upgrade to a 40-50 gallon you can still use it. Though the preferred enclosure is a 75 gallon or larger which you can use the 34" uvb tube for that as well however its better to have a 46" for that.

I always recommend going with a uvb bulb that is the same length or near the same length of the enclosure however some people recommend having at least one portion of the tank with little uvb if the beardie wants to escape, though if given a hide they can use that to escape most of the uvb if needed.

 

[prescottguy]

So do I need the 10.0 or will a 5.0 work?

 

[VenusAndSaturn]

You'll need a 10.0.
If you got a 5.0 it would have to be mounted inside the enclosure and the beardie has to get within at least 6-8 inches of it to get uvb from it as it is a similar strength to a t8 10.0 bulb.

 

[prescottguy]

Thank you very much. Living in Montana I have to wait until the store gets more beardies in due to the cold weather but I ordered the reptisun 10.0 bulb and hood today.