Feed as many crickets as the dragon can eat in a 5-10 minute period (for your dragon just feed for 5 minutes. The longer time is better for slower eaters )

Chuck the red heat lamp and remove the undertank heater. You don't need either. Instead, for the basking/heat light, use a regular household bulb of the same wattage of the red light. Buy a indoor/outdoor timer (the square plastic ones for inside are fine, I recommend the heavy duty (that hold three prong plugs). Also get a digital thermometer with probe (unless you already have one) this way you can test the basking spot surface temp and cool end /warm end air temp. The basking temp should be 95-115F with the basking area having access to more than one temperature in or close to the range (higher temps are better for bearded dragon babies but don't exceed 120F). The cool end can be as low as 65F at night, around 75-80F is fine during the day. At night the entire tank can be as low as 65F. You don't really need the temp gradiant as much at night. If your house regularly drops below 65F at night, then you can use the UTH for additional nighttime heat (again put it on a timer, probably best a separate timer than the one used for daytime heat/light). Oh one good thing is plug your lights to a power bar then plug the bar into the timer, this way any shorts that may occur will be grounded out by the power bar (or lightening strikes will be blacked by the power bar (if a surge protector as well as a power bar. Note that not all power bars are surge protectors).

For the basking area, something wide (driftwood, aquarium woods, rocks or bricks (securely stacked and either glued together or bolted)) that has an incline (around 45 degrees is good) towards the basking light, works best. This way when the dragon wants to bask at a high temperature (100-120F) it can just climb to that higher point of the basking area. When he is warm enough he can move to lower areas of the basking area or elsewhere in the cage.

You didn't mention if you have a UVB producing bulb in your setup. It is very important to have one of these for your dragon's health. Unless you live somewhere where it's always warm outside and can bring your dragon outside into direct sunlight (provide shaded areas in the outdoor container/cage so he can get out of the sun if hot) for one hour periods at least 6 times a week (and you can spend that time outside with your dragon to watch over him, both from animals getting into the cage or the dragon from escaping), you do need to use indoor UVB producing lights. Repti-glo and Repti-sun are pretty much the best florescent tube style UVB bulbs. There are also mercury vapour bulbs which produce more UVB but need to be mounted much higher above your dragon's basking area than the tubes. (tubes should be within 6-8" of the basking area for greatest effectiveness. MVB have to be a minimum of 18" above the basking area. Other benefit of the MVB is they can double as basking lights as well, since they throw off heat as well as UVB).
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PHLdyPayne

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