Everything you need before your dragon comes home, grouped by priority. Buy the “before day one” items first. Your enclosure should be fully set up and holding correct temperatures for at least 24 hours before your dragon arrives.
Before day one: non-negotiable
These are the items your dragon cannot safely go without. Nothing on this list is optional, and none of it can wait until “next payday.”
- Enclosure: 120 gallon / 4′ x 2′ x 2′ minimum for an adult. A hatchling can start in something smaller, but you will be re-buying within months. Buy adult-sized once and save the money.
- Linear T5 HO UVB fixture, 22″–34″. Arcadia 12% or Zoo Med Reptisun 10.0. This is the single most important purchase you will make. Coil and compact bulbs do not produce adequate UVB and are a leading cause of metabolic bone disease.
- Basking bulb: plain halogen flood, 50–100W. Regular household halogen works. Avoid coloured, “night-time,” and ceramic bulbs for daytime basking.
- Digital probe thermometer, two of them. One probe at basking surface, one at the cool end. Stick-on dial gauges are inaccurate and should not be trusted.
- Infrared temperature gun. The only reliable way to read the actual basking surface temperature your dragon lies on.
- Dimming thermostat or lamp dimmer. Ambient room temperature changes through the year; your basking spot needs to be adjustable.
- Substrate. For a new keeper: kraft paper, newsprint, or paper towel. Skip loose natural substrates until you are confident in husbandry and dragons are bigger in size.
- Basking platform. Slate, flagstone, or sturdy branch that puts your dragon 8–12″ below the basking bulb.
- Two hides: one warm, one cool. A dragon with nowhere to retreat is a stressed dragon.
- Shallow water dish and a food dish. Shallow enough that your dragon can step out unassisted.
Target numbers to hit
| Zone | Temperature/Humidity | |
|---|---|---|
| Basking surface | 100–105°F | |
| Cool end | 75–85°F | |
| Night-time | 65–75°F | |
| Humidity | 30–40% | |
| Light cycle | 12–14 hours on, full darkness overnight | |
Food and supplements
- Calcium powder without D3, for dusting most feedings when a good UVB bulb is in use.
- Calcium powder with D3, used sparingly; follow the schedule on your care sheet.
- Multivitamin, roughly once weekly.
- Live feeders: crickets, or black soldier fly larvae. Feeders should be no wider than the space between your dragon’s eyes. We feed superworms once dragons are sub-adults
- Fresh greens: collard, mustard, turnip greens, dandelion, escarole. Not spinach, not kale as a staple, never iceberg lettuce.
Nice to have: first few months
- Kitchen scale reading in grams, for weekly weigh-ins
- Feeding tongs
- Reptile-safe enclosure cleaner or dilute F10
- Feeder bin with ventilation and egg-crate flats
- Extra branches, and climbing decor for enrichment
- Spare basking bulbs
- A travel or quarantine tub for vet trips and enclosure deep-cleans
Skip these
- Coil / compact UVB bulbs: inadequate output, and a known cause of eye problems.
- Heat rocks: a genuine burn risk. Dragons do not sense belly heat well enough to move away.
- Calcium sand and other loose particulate substrates: impaction risk, particularly for young dragons.
- Coloured/red night bulbs: dragons need genuine darkness to sleep.
- Stick-on dial thermometers and hygrometers: routinely off by 10°F or more.
Questions about any of this, or unsure whether a piece of kit you already own will work? Get in touch. We would much rather answer a question up front than sort out a husbandry problem later.