It is impossible to know what is the best wattage of light for your tanks. To be honest if your finances are so tight you can't afford a $8 digital thermometer, it probably be best to not get new dragons. Feeding and housing them properly will cost more, especially when the female is older. That cage you want to keep the male in now and after you move the female, is still too small. minimum cage size is 4'x2' of floor space. Even if your male is only 16" long he still needs more space than a 3' long cage. It may do for a few months but not as a life time cage. Same with the female sub adult (if housed in there alone).

But right now you need at least a 75 watt bulb to provide basking temperatures and a UVB bulb, for both cages (the tube/strip uvb lights are typically cheaper, just make sure they are close enough to the top of the basking area to provide optimal UVB exposure). Get the digital thermometer or borrow one if a friend has some. Keep it well out of reach of 4 legged furry and chewing critters, and for good measure, make sure they don't chew any electrical devices either..power strips, cords etc.)

It is important to have the digital thermometer with probe or even a temp gun to measure basking spot temps and cool side temps. If these temperatures are too high or too low than it can harm, even kill your dragon. Also, the design of the cage, your normal house room temperature and other factors can effect how hot any given wattage of bulb gets a basking spot. A 125 watt flood style bulb works great to keep my dragon's basking spot temps at 115F in mid area of the basking spot but it may cook your dragon completely.

IN my case I have a 5'x2'x2' home made cage which has screen doors in the front. The top is solid except for a hole I had to put in to get the power cord for the double florescent shop light fixture I have inside (I use one full spectrum tube and one repti-glo 8.0 UVB bulb in the double fixture..I like the extra light this provides the cage for the entire length of the cage (the fixture is 4 feet long). For the basking spot I have a 125 Watt flood light bulb.

When my dragon was younger I kept her in basically a 20 gallon long sterlite container (clear) with the same watt bulb but this worked because the container was open topped and the bulb wasn't as close to the top of the basking spot as it was in a clamp light fixture..so the temps were in the same range but more heat escaped from the top of the cage. But I needed to check temperatures in the spring as my apartment doesn't have heat controls and when the main boiler is on, it can get as hot as 80F in my apartment, especially when a spring day was exceptionally warm..which resulted in the small cage getting far too hot, even in the cool end..so I would have to switch bulbs to a lower wattage. (75 watt for the most part)

Bearded dragons need to have a hot spot of at least 95F but better to have a range from 95F-120F available so the dragon can choose what temp he wants to bask in. They also need a cooler section so they can get out of the heat and cool down..during the day this should be no higher than 80F (low to mid 70's is best). At night it is fine for this to drop to your normal room temperature, even as low as the low 60's F. If basking temperatures are too low, your dragon won't thrive. IF temperatures are too hot in the basking area they may not even go near it (though if the floor temperature around the basking spot is in a good range, should be fine) and if the cool end is too hot as well, your dragon is at risk of dying from heat exhaustion or heat stroke. Thus why it is important to have an accurate thermometer to measure basking spot temperatures and cool end temperatures.

Three bulb wattages to try would be 75, 100 and 125 wattage bulbs. Unfortunately the more 'energy efficient' bulbs tend to not produce what you need, heat. Light is good but need it to give off heat as well. Thus the more energy efficient bulbs and the compact bulbs, are not good as a heat source, unless they are used in conjunction with a ceramic heat emitter. (also you do need good to high light intensity..these are animals used to living in relatively open semi arid to light forested areas in the wild with plenty of sun exposure)
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PHLdyPayne

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