Lessons Learned #1 - Lighting

After purchasing Norbert, we felt pretty comfortable taking care of him. The owner of the pet store told us some basic care info and gave us a care sheet to take home. For the first week or so it's best to leave your dragon in his new home without handling him so he can get used to it. So for the first week we just watched him explore his new terrarium. This post is mostly about our lighting lessons.

Timer set 7am-7pm

DO NOT remove the third prong like pictured

We were told that we need to keep the lamps on for 12 hours and off for 12 hours. Instead of worrying about remembering to turn them on and off, we went out and bought a timer. Since the closest Walmart is 30 miles
away, we had to go on base to the exchange to pick one up. They only had one kind with room for one plug but we thought that was fine because we had a 3-way adapter, so we could plug in both lamps to the one timer. Well when we got home we realized that our adapter had the ground plug, while the timer did not (have the slot for it). So what happens? Husband pulls out the ground plug from the adapter and forces it to fit. DO NOT do that at home. Since our apartment has limited number of outlets, we used a power strip with a surge protector (the ONLY surge protector in the place is in the bathroom). We end up setting the
timer so that it turns on at 7am and off at 7pm.

A couple days later, Husband was fiddling with the lamps and the UVB bulb went out. There are three theories why this could have happened.

1. The 3-way adapter pooped out (the third prong was removed remember)
2. Husband touched the UVB bulb with his hands
3. It was just a bad bulb (we are learning that not everything from the pet shop was great)

Whatever the reason, we needed a new UVB bulb ASAP. He ordered one online (he gets everything on eBay) so we were without a UVB bulb for a while, but Norbert's got one now.

Since Husband thinks it burnt out because he touched it with his bare hands I tried to do a little research and I couldn't find anything right away to support his claim. I just think it was because of the adapter. In any case, we went and bought a second timer. They do make timers with two plugs however since we already had one, we only needed one more.

UVB light is important for the dragons to synthesis vitamin D. Like us, dragons get their vitamin D from the sun but since they are kept in captivity they need an extra "sun" source and that's where the UVB bulb comes into play. Bearded dragons are very susceptible to Metabolic Bone Disease if they do not receive the proper amounts of D3 and Calcium (these can be supplemented as powders you shake on their food). 

Lessons learned? Do not alter electrical plugs and be very careful with your UVB bulbs