Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi,

Our beardie is now going on 2 years old and is ready for a larger cage. He's always been pretty lethargic and just came out of brummation a couple of weeks ago. He seems to be eager to come out of his cage now and really enjoys it when we let him roam around the house. We are also thinking about getting him a playmate.

Haven't decided whether to build or buy (cagesbydesign?), but what would you recommend for the height of the cage? We were initially make it 24" tall (and 72"l x 24"d), but he seems to like to climb. Now we're kind of leaning towards 36" or 48" tall, but then you have to deal with heat/UV light issues. Basking shelves and a large climbing rock could help compensate, but it may make it more difficult for 2 beardies (and 1 log).

Any thoughts? If we go with the taller setup, can we reduce the length to 60" or even 48"?

Thx,
Frank

np
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0.1 "Tremper" looking Albino Leopard gecko (Lex)
0.0.1 tiger crested gecko (peachs)
1.1 Feral cats that we adopted (Fuzzy, and Bear)

np

these bulbs are great. produce a full spectrum of uva/uvb rays, produce heat, and project UV up to 6' i believe, depending on wattage. they're basically designed for large enclosures like you're talking about. many companies make them, if you search the forums there's a link to a site that does a study about UV penetration at certain depths. i've only used the T-Rex Active UV/Heat bulb, but i love it, i can't say for other brands but i'm sure other people have opinions on the matter too. should be a decent amount of information in this forum. at least now you know what you're looking for.

Thx! Here are the choices under consideration (for one or potentially two beardies):

cubic square
dimensions inches inches price
a. 72"l x 24"d x 24"h 41472 1728 $350

b. 48"l x 24"d x 48"h 55296 1152 $370

c. 60"l x 30"d x 36"h 64800 1800 $522

If you had to pick either a. or b., which one? Obviously, c. appears to be the best choice in terms of space as it maximizes volume and floor space, but is it worth the premium?

Frank

Hi Frank,

I would go with the shorter and longer cage for a Bearded Dragon. My reasoning is due to heat and light issues. Depending on the amount and placement of the ventilation in the cages you described you'll likely end up with dramatic vertical temp. gradiants in the taller cages. This is fine for many species but I'm not sure it is ideal for Bearded Dragons.

More importantly is the "inverse square law". In a nutshell, light intensity will decrease dramatically as artificial light sources are moved farther away.

There is much debate over the benefit of different light wavelengths to Bearded Dragons and other reptile species. What is not under debate is that diurnal lizards species benefit from light intensity. By having a taller cage you are taking away a lot of visible light from a species that may benefit from it most.

I'd do the math for you but I did not copy the dimensions into my reply.

I can do an easy demonstration. If you have two cages with identical light sources but one cage is twice as tall, the light in the taller cage will by *2* times farther away that the shorter one.

The inverse of *2* is one half. The square of 1/2 is 1/4.

So the taller cage will have one fourth the light intesity of the shorter cage even though they have identical light sources.

The same will hold true for wavelengths of light in the UVA and UVB range and not just the "visible" light. If Bearded Dragons benefit from these frequencies, as they likely do, the UV light would also be reduced 4 times in the taller cage.

Not ideal for a Bearded Dragon that will naturally spend a lot of time on the floor of it's cage.

I hope this helps.