Urgent Care :: eyes?!

[rayzherup]

hmmm.... ok i had the light on all day at 17 inches away. no sign of irritation. yay!!!

[DavidY]

That's a good sign, rayzherup. You're not out of the woods yet. Keep checking on your turtle's eyes for the next day or two to be sure.

Adam, the horizontal strip light for the compact flourescents provides the optimum orientation of the bulbs for the highest output. This is beneficial for much larger enclosures and for the reptiles that require very strong UV radiation (such as chameleons, tortoises, bearded dragons, etc.). The tube flourescents just don't put out the same amount of UV as the CF bulbs do.

[SpotsMama]

Sounding good rayzherup! 17" sounds like such a huge distance.

[steve]

It is... I doubt any UVB is making it to the basking area. UVB output drops considerably from fluorecent lamps.

[DavidY]

Not the compact flourescents. They emit further than the regular tube bulbs. The instructions from zoo med instructions say to place the bulb 15" to 17" away during burn in when using an aluminum reflector with no screen cover. I figured since the turtles had already burned their eyes that the bulb should be placed the furthest away during the rest of the burn in.

[SpotsMama]

You know, that's just a very odd way to design a bulb isn't it. Why would anyone think to keep a bulb that far away for several weeks? And then what are you supposed to do? Frankly, those instructions from zoo med sort of irritate me.

[xsavingsaturdayx]

You know..when I called zoo med they told me to keep the reptisun 24 inches away from the turtles and to use a screen. How do you know that the Reptisun's dont go that for, steve? You have a UVB meter right? Maybe you could see if it gives, or doesnt give UVB that far away.

[DavidY]

good idea. I gotta' get me one of those!

Actually all of the special bulbs require a burn in period. It's pretty common in the reef hobby where we use metal halide lighting with special electronic ballasts to produce artificial sunlight required for good coral growth. Those things are like $250 a piece for a 250 watt bulb/ballast/reflector. I've got 2 of those over my 5ft long reef tank. But when you're dealing with corals under water you just can't get too much light!

To me that just shows that they've created a very potent product. I'm sure this is in an attempt to provide herp keepers with an affordable means to provide our reptiles with a decent source of UV and low energy consumption and low cost. Zoo Med is always trying to keep up with the needs of the hobby by providing state of the art products that work without charging an arm and a leg for them. Hopefully this is something that they can tweak some more so it doesn't have so much potential to cause harm.

[steve]

Right, the UV barely registers from that distance. Also check the graphs here: http://www.uvguide.co.uk/compactlamps.htm (I measured a new bulb in a non-reflective lamp)

I also agree with Spotsmama... something irritates me too. The bulb I sent her also has a slightly different design (at the base), so their production or some part of the manufacturing process has changed.

[DavidY]

Steve, did you check the levels of one of their new bulbs at that distance? I think they did reformulate their CF bulbs. I vaguely remember reading somewhere that they had redesignated their CF bulbs with the "Desert", "Tropical", etc. labels. I thought it also said something about a new design. But when i asked them in the email i sent, they replied that they did not make any changes to their linear fluorescent bulbs. I wonder if they were trying to sidestep my question.

[steve]

Yes, I measured both. The box mentions UVB Desert. Those PDFs also appear to have a date 12-06 on the bottom right.

[xsavingsaturdayx]

Any update on how these turtles are doing?

[rayzherup]

they are still doin great! when should i move the uvb a little closer?

[DavidY]

You could probably move the bulb to the closer recommended distance of 15" for the remainder of the burn-in period. Once the bulb is 3 weeks old, you could move it to the distance specified for your particular setup as recommended in the instructions from Zoo Med.

[rayzherup]

ok great!