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I just bought a mini combo deep dome, and An Exo terra 5.0 26 watt bulb. The bulb hangs out a little bit past the edge of the dome...is that ok? I got the lamp stand so it will hang over the basking area (vs. the current fixture sitting on the screen).

Also, I needed to replace the basking bulb, which I thought was 60 watts, and I wanted to get a 75 watt bulb. With all of the changes to incandescent bulbs, the one I found says 75 watt incandescent modified replacement- uses 53 watts. It's the same thing but uses less energy. Looking at all of the lightbulbs led me to wonder if I can use a regular fluorescent bulb for basking, instead of the incandescent, and if so, how many watts, and which type of light (soft white, daylight, bright white, cool white)?

One last thing, I found that the bulb I thought was 60 watts was actually only 40... This could account for some of the problems she's having lately...although she was still basking with it, so I dunno.

The UVB light hanging past the dome likely won't have an affect on your turtle, but the UVB it puts out could harm your eyes. It comes down to how much it extends past the dome and how you usually view the tank.

As to replacing the incandescent with a fluorescent, you can't. The point of the incandescent is heat. The light is a nice side effect. For your turtle to benefit from basking you need heat and UVB. A CFL uvb provides no heat. A CFL regular bulb provides no heat. In fact, that's part of the point for them. An incandescent produces light by heating a metal filament so hot that it glows white. It gives us light, but most of the energy is wasted as heat. CFLs give us light without wasting anywhere near the amount of energy as heat.

That's great for lighting our homes, but it's not great for our basking platforms. Your turtle needs heat to encourage basking. It needs heat and UVB to metabolize calcium. We've been taking advantage of the fact that an incandescent produces heat. But, in the US, the phase out of incandescents mean we can't anymore.

Unless you have a stockpile of 60+ watt incadescents, I think most of us are going to ultimately be buying more expensive reptile heat bulbs or a mercury vapor reptile bulb that combines heat and UVB.

Thanks. I'll take a picture of the dome and bulb tomorrow.

You can also use halogen bulbs for heat. That's what some reptile heat bulbs are but you can buy them at Walmart Home depot etc at a fraction of the cost of a reptile bulb.As for myself I have a stockpile of 65w 75w and 100w incandescent bulbs.