bearded dragon lighting and heating

Question
Hi! My older brother bought a bearded dragon and he doesn't
quite know how to take care of it properly. I have been
doing some reading and I can't figure out if they are
supposed to have a light on during the night. We have a
small heating thing that goes under a corner of the tank and
we have a very bright warm light that we set on top of the
tank. We also have a long light that gives off uv and stuff
like that. My question is: Do I turn off both lights during
the night? or do I leave the heating light on? because the
heating device that goes under the tank does not give off
very much heat at all.

Answer
Hi Trisha,

You can turn both the heat lamp and the long UV light off at night. That will give him a normal photo-period or day/night cycle to allow proper sleep. It is quite normal for them to have a temperature drop at night; that is exactly what would happen in the wild. You can even turn off the heat pad although it is often simpler to just leave it on and they don't use much wattage. The rule of thumb is to only provide night time heat if the ambient room temperature drops below 18 celsius and a heat pad or red light is preferable for that.

Bearded care is a bit more complicated then that of many other reptiles but it sounds like you are figuring it out just fine!