What type of light and how many watts should I consider buying for my bearded dragon?

Question

Recently adopted a two year old beardie, and he's in a 55g tank. He came with two 75W zoo-med infrared heat lights which kept the hot side at about 75-80 degrees. I know the hot side has to be around 95-100, we went & got a 10", 250W clamp-lamp with a 100W zoo-med bulb. It is now only heating up to 72deg. So what should I do? I do not want to have 2 or 3 different bulbs going at once. Should I shoot up to a 200W since I have to get the temp up another 30deg? We (work at petstore) don't sell anything higher than 100W for the zoo-med infrared, what is another good type of light that I can buy?

What do you suggest?

Answer 1

iok i just checked the bulb i got and i was wrong. i got a 250 watt bulb with a clamp lamp that holds up to 300 watts. are you sure you dont want to borrow mine???? because your tank is a 55, its taller so its gonna be harder to heat. i would borrow my **** and work on gettin u a 40 breeder.

Answer 2

One other thing you can try is an Undertank heater.  That will help to heat from the bottom and should help.