Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was wondering how everyone felt about using ceramic heat lamps. It's a lot better on cost but do bearded dragons need the light on during the day to seperate it from night. I used to use a lightin the day and a black light at night but if I could just use the ceramic all the time it would saveme ssssssssooooooo much money. All thoughts are apreciated.
Erin

You definitely need to set up a day/night photoperiod. Dragons like it bright!
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Diego & Tiffany's Zoo
SNAKES
4.4 Corn Snakes (Different morphs)
1.0.0 Boa Constrictor
0.1.0 Tangerine Honduran Milksnake
1.0.0 Honduran Milksnake
0.1.0 Mexican Black Kingsnake
1.1.0 Ball Pythons
0.0.1 Ribbon Snake
0.0.2 Rosy Boas (Coastal & Baja)
0.1.0 Pueblan Milksnake
1.2.0 Kenyan Sand Boas
1.0.0 Western Hognose
0.1.0 Solomon Island Boa
1.1.0 Gray Banded Kingsnakes (River Road)
0.0.1 Chinese Red-Bellied Water Snake
0.0.1 Desert Phase Kingsnake
LIZARDS
1.0.0 Frilled Dragon
3.1.0 Bearded Dragons (2 Normal, 1 RedXGold, 1 Citrus)
0.1.0 Eastern Collared Lizard
0.1.0 Merauke Blue Tongue Skink
1.0.0 Turquoise Sunburst Veiled Chameleon
0.0.3 Leopard Geckos

Diurnal basking lizards tend to use intensity of light as well as heat to find a basking spot, so I would put a twist-in flourescent (very bright and efficient) over the basking spot near the heat emitter to keep the basking spot bright.

I use halogen bulbs (from home depot) most of the time. You can get more heat from a 50 watt halogen then you'll ever get from a 100 watt reptile bulb. The lights go on in the morning, and at night they turn off. Never have a need for night time heat with my beardie, uromastyx, or russian tort. They seem to do fine with temps as low as low 60's during the night.

Conversly, I know some monitor keepers/breeders keep their lights and heat on all day and night. The monitors know when it's day, and when it's night time, they retreat to their burrows (most of the time) from what i understand. Doubt it would work with beardies though.

Light intensity is important for bearded dragons. With just a ceramic heat emitter the dragon won't know it's daytime and in the long run can cause health problems. Dragons are naturally geared towards climbing high in bright light to gain the heat they need to digest, and just a UVB light may not produce the light intensity they need.

To lower costs of bulbs for lighting and heat, don't buy the reptile basking bulbs at all. These are no more efficient than regular $.35 bulbs you can get at Walmart or any department store selling household lights. I have always used just regular household bulbs to produce heat for my bearded dragon and my other light heat needing reptiles. The really cheap household bulbs don't last very long but at $.33 Canadian (I can get four 60, 75 or 100 watt bulbs for a dollar at a Dollar store), buying 4-6 a year isn't very hard on the wallet. You can get slightly better quality bulbs at Walmart for about $.80 more and these do last longer so may be more worth it than the cheaper ones in the long run.

Halogen bulbs (or flood lights) are a bit more but do last much longer. When I still had my bearded dragon I paid about $5 for a 125 Watt halogen flood light (for outdoor use) and it lasted well over a year, most likely longer as I had to sell my dragon at that point and don't know if the person who bought her had to change it at any time since.

Unfortuntely the only big expense that occures with bearded dragon is purchasing new UVB bulbs/tubes every 6-9 months, to ensure the amount of UVB rays produced is still sufficient. Those the light from these tubes/bulbs are still fine, UVB ray production diminishes significantly after 6-9 months.
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PHLdyPayne