My Uromastyx Grimlock

Question
Hi there.

My uromastyx Grimlock seems a happy active and quite friendly little fellow. He's eating well (using T-rex uro dust on his food every other day and leave a tutti fruity bird feeding stick, which he loves, in for him to nibble on# and seems quite contempt in his cage but I'm the issue i keep seeing other uromastyx in various pets store locally to me and they aal seem to be set up in all kind's of different ways and now I'm panicking I've had him for about a month and he's #well i was told he was# about 10 months old i have a 150w exo terra heat glow basking bulb with temps upto 120f and a an ambient gradient temp of 103.2f-89.5f I'm using 2x exo terra Repti Glo 2.0 Compact Full spectrum bulbs and 2x exo terra Repti Glo 10.0 Compact Desert Terrarium Lamp is this ok he seems fine am i just being an idiot and worrying about nothing?

Any help on this would put me right at ease
Thanks for your time
Peace

Answer
Hello David,

Well, first off, everything appears fine, based on your initial description of your setup.  
What type of thermometer are you using to measure the temperatures with?  A stick on type, a digital probe or a temp gun?  The temperatures of 120 basking are fine, if you are measuring them with a digital probe or temp gun.  There does need to be a cooler end of around 80 or so, just so he can cool off if needed.

The basking light is a bright white basking light, correct?
The only thing that I see that needs to be changed is the UVB source.  Uromastyx are reptiles that have high requirements for UVB.  The compact/coil lights are not strong enough & a lot of them do tend to cause eye issues as well.  Some have reported through UVB meter testing to emit low wavelength frequency of UVB which is hazardous.  They also are not strong enough to encourage D3 synthesis which in the long run will increase the chances of metabolic bone disease because he wont be able to properly absorb his calcium.

You have several choices of UVB lighting.  You can use a fluorescent tube bulb in combination with the basking light that you have.  The best one is the Reptisun 10 which you can get from here:
http://www.petmountain.com/product/reptile-fluorescent-bulbs/504983/zoo-med-rept...

Or, you can look to getting a mercury vapor bulb which gives off heat & UVB all in one bulb.  There are a couple of brands that are good right now, the Megaray or the Solar Glo.  Since you already have a basking bulb, it might be easier to get the tube bulb.  

One other thing you might consider altering a little bit.  The supplementation is fine, but, with giving a supplement that is both a vitamin & calcium together, a lot of times they don't quite get enough calcium.  So, I would suggest getting a plain calcium powder to use 5 times a week, & use the T-rex dust 2 times per week.  You can stick with this supplement plan until he reaches around 1 year.  Once he turns a year or 14 months, roughly you can decrease the calcium to 3 times per week, & the vitamins 1 time per week.

You can also add some other things to his diet such as some greens, lentils & other beans except NO kidney beans, bean sprouts, squash, & pieces of fruit if you want.  That would give more balance to his diet.  

Let me know how he is doing.  

Tracie