Equipment Review and Discussion :: UVB Lights

[megcornell]

I was wondering what your experiences were with UVB lights. I have a few reptile owning friends on campus and we were talking about the longevity of UVB lights, and apparently the effectiveness of the UVB lights peak after about 5 days to a week. So I was wondering if anyone else had this happen or had good experiences with their lighting? I know in the winter i'll probably have to resort to a UVB bulb regardless as I live in NY but for now I've been relying on getting my turtle sunlight a few hours a week...

[steve]

Are you getting your turtle unobstructed sunlight (not through glass or a screen)? Glass will block UVB and a window screen would block a significant amount of it.

UVB bulbs are specially coated and will lose effectiveness after about 6 months. The fluorescent light would still work, but there will be very little UVB emitted.

[marisa]

For regular UVB lights, Reptisuns are good, especially the tubes. The 10.0 compact flourescents have a rather high decay rate (and are more fragile according to users, I've had some bad experiences with them as well)--but I don't know if their strength peaks as fast as you mentioned. After I use the compact flourescents I have, I plan to switch to tubes. I take my turtles out in the summer as well and even if the UVB light I have is 6 months or more, I wait and replace them in the fall.

Mercury vapor bulbs are another story. I use them as well, but only for larger enclosures.

[zuse]

How good are the flourescent bulbs that are about the size of a regular lightbult... they just have the tube kind of twisted around like those new energy saving lightbulbs for regular light fixtures?

[steve]

Those are what Marisa means when she says "compact flourescent". I've had what appears to be good success with them (though my turts also get sunlight in the summer), but they are fairly new to the market and there may not be much information on them.

[marisa]

Those are the ESU compact flourescents; the regular ones emit 3% UVB (which is low) and the ones for desert reptiles emit 7% UVB. I actually had good luck with the regular ones in terms of longevity, but if you use them they should be about 6 inches from your basking turtle and you do need to replace them every 6 months at least because the UVB they give off is so low to begin with.

The Reptisun compact flourescents are not twisted like the ESU ones (the light is a series of 3 U-shaped tubes). They can be bought as 5% UVB or 10% UVB lights. I'm using up a few 10% ones right now. Like I said, I've had longevity problems with some I've bought (they have all been replaced, one by the store I bought it from and two by the mfgr.). In tests, as I noted above, they have had disappointing decay rates (the amount of UVB emitted lessens fairly quickly). This problem has not been noted with the tubes from what I've read.

[zuse]

How does this light compare to the UVHeat lights?

http://www.petdiscounters.com/product.p ... t=0&page=1

[marisa]

I've never used them and can't recall anybody who has. There didn't seem to be an indication of how much UVB was emitted in the description (unless I missed it). I also don't know what an industrial fitting is...

[zuse]

http://www.reptilerooms.com/Sections+in ... age-1.html

What does this tell? (I don't know what the numbers mean).

I think the only one with a special fitting is the largest one.