hi. i haven't posted any questions in quite some time, but i am pretty stumped on 2 fairly important items that i need help on figuring out and would appreciate your input.....
my first questions have to do with basking....i had a two bulb setup with a 100w incandescent bulb and a 5w uvb bulb in the basking area until the dual lamp (i think it was a zoo med mini-dome) got a short in it and i decided to replace it with a single fluker lamp and a 100w mercury vapor bulb for some reason i don't recall at the moment. i was fine with this set up until i bought one of those thermometers that you just point and shoot and when i pointed it at mr. turtle's basking area, i was horrified to get a reading of 80 degrees...being that my intended basking temp was about 90-95 degrees, ii thought maybe it was the bulb i was using, did more research and bit the bullet and ordered the mega-ray 100w bulb at a whopping price (to me) that arrived today. i swapped bulbs, waited about 30 minutes, point and shot and got a reading of 80 degrees again....as i had never checked the basking temp when i was using the 100w incandescent bulb and a zoo med reptisun 5.0 bulb, i am unsure what the basking temp was then....
before i overreact and revert back to the old system, does anyone out there use ONLY a mercury vapor that keeps the basking temperature in the 90-95 degree range?
i purchased a uvb card that verifies whether your uvb bulb is emitting uvb or not..silly me thought that it would let you know a measurable amount of uvb...i mean, just because it lets you know whether the bulb is emitting uvb or not doesn't mean that the emitted amount of uvb is enough for your turtle's health or not....which led to my realization that i haven't the foggiest idea of what the uvb emission for a res is recommended for turtles...it just makes sense to me at least that the levels of uvb lessen over time so just because i can detect uvb emissions, how can i tell when it is time to replace the uvb bulb or mercury vapor bulb? i really want to have peace of mind that i am giving the turtle what she needs, but can't seem to be able to find a reliable way to be able to go about this....
any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.