OK UV,S in the pet trade are much like religion or politics, there are die hard believers in them that will tear you up every time you talk about theme.

And trust me I get hate mails every time I do!

However this doesn’t change a simple fact, I have been breeding all kinds of reptiles from nocturnal to desert species without UVs for decades. They have grown and reproduced faster then any care sheets iv read, not only that but some are almost 20 years old and still doing excellent.

So if your question is are UVs needed for my dragons to be healthy, the answer is absolutely not!!!

If your question is are UV’s good for the pet trade? The answer is absolutely yes!

UV bulbs technology was initially developed for fish hobbyist, they allow for extraordinary color rendition of corals and fish.

The biological benefits of these bulbs are from the heat they emit more then the light spectrum, reptiles use light as photoperiod (light time cycle) its doesn’t matter to them how many lumens or what spectrum the light emits.

Heat is what allows metabolism to function, if heated your lizard will show amazing colors even in total darkness, in the 80s I was working with alligators, the study was about accelerated growth by temp and food manipulation, gators where housed in completely closed and dark pens, the pens where heated evenly without basking spots and no lights, in these conditions gators grew to 6 feet in 12 months, the funny thing is they showed the best colors you could ever see in gators.

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