I was told by my vet that it is better to provide my monitor with UVB light. She gave me an example of Vietnamese leaf turtle that suffer from softshell in someone's care because of the lack of UVB light. She said that there is nothing in the care of these turtle that said to provide them with UVB light, but the turtle develop softshell after awhile. Then that person installed UVB flourescent light fixture about 12 inches away from the turtle and withing a week the shell started to firm up and within several weeks after that its shell began to harden again and was back to normal. She said Komodo dragons in captivity who aren't expose to UVB light do develop MBD. She said that's why zoos intall the UVB light for their Komodo dragon and expose them to real sunlight when the whether permits. I ask her, well, doesn't the tube decay over time and isn't it too weak to have any real benefits since the sun at the equator at noon time is much stronger than the UVB tube? She said, yes, that is true the real sun is stronger, especially at noon time at the equator, but she said that the lizard do not expose themselves directly to the sun all the time and at only certain time of the day when the UVB is not as strong. She gave me an example like in the morning where the UVB ray from the sun is weak she said lizards bask in the morning and sometime late during the day...not necessary at noon when the sun is at its strongest. She said, during the hottest part of the day most lizards would seek shelter, in the shade, and even in the shade there is UVB ray. It's true while some lizard do spend there time basking in the hottest part of the day, they do seek the shade to thermoregulate so they don't over heat. So she concluded that, yes, the UVB ray from the sun is stronger, but the lizards don't spend time out in the sun when the UVB is at their strongest, so the argument that the UVB light is not strong enough doesn't hold up, since the lizard don't spend all day in the sun, and even the sun worshipers like bearded dragons and uromastyxs don't stay out in the sun all the time when the ray is at its strogest. What do you think?

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