Vivarium heating is essential for bearded dragons to thermoregulate themselves naturally, but what temperature should your bearded dragon vivarium be?
Being too hot or too cold can both have serious consequences for your pet. They need heat to digest their food so if their vivarium is too cold, it will start to rot in their stomach. And if their tank is too hot, their bodies will overheat, which can make them extremely ill or kill them.
So what temperature do bearded dragons need?
Bearded dragons are cold-blooded reptiles who use their surroundings to regulate their own body temperature so their vivarium needs a thermal gradient – i.e. a hot end and a cool end.
This will allow your pet to move to a different area of the tank to warm up or cool down whenever they need to. We’d recommend the following temperatures for each end of your bearded dragon vivarium:
- Basking area temperature – up to 45℃ (113℉)
- Cool area temperature – down to 30℃ (86℉)
It’s very unlikely your house is warm enough to provide the kind of heat your bearded dragon needs, so you’ll need to purchase some vivarium heating.
We’d recommend putting a ceramic heater like this or a basking lamp like this at the hot end of the tank. However, we’d advise against using heat rocks as they can easily burn the underside of your lizard. Don’t put any heating at the cool end of the tank.
These heating accessories can be easily picked up on Amazon but if you’re not sure exactly what you need, take a look at our bearded dragon setup guide for further advice.
What temperature do bearded dragons need at night?
Whether your bearded dragon vivarium still needs a heat source at night time depends on how hot your house is. In the wild they spend their days basking in the heat of the sun but when the temperature drops at night, they prefer a colder temperature.
So you don’t need to worry about the temperature of your bearded dragon vivarium being colder at night but you need to be careful that it doesn’t get too cold. You should only concerned if the temperature drops below 18℃ and we’d recommend using a thermostat like this to monitor the temperature.
If you have a particularly cold house, you’ll probably need to use some sort of nighttime heating to keep your vivarium warm enough – we’d recommend a ceramic heater like this that is a non-light emitting bulb that won’t disturb your bearded dragon vivarium’s sleep.
Monitoring the temperature within your bearded dragon tank
To make sure your vivarium doesn’t get too hot or too cold, we’d highly recommend installing a thermostat to stop the tank exceeding 45℃ (113℉).
We’d also recommend having two different thermometers inside your bearded dragon vivarium (one at the hot end and one at the cool end) so you can keep an eye on the temperature at all times.
