Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Is it absolutely necesary for BTs to have UVB/UVA lighting? All my monitors have em but my BT´s suddenlly had a dead electric flow, so its without any UV light, until i get to someone to fix it, which will probably take long (grrr). He does have a heating light that is right on top of a piece of rock from outside. And he seems to be excrementing and digesting fine without the UV. But just wondering if its very important to have it like NOW?
Cheers,
Sheri

No reptile needs UV bulbs, proven fact, they need the correct heat and cool spots. This was answered by FR, dont you believe the man who has almost single handedly revolutionized our hobby and brought it out of the dark ages of reptile husbandry? Just because he offends people who dont get the answers they want doesnt mean hes wrong. Think of it this way, he has the oldest, longest lived, must reproductive monitors anywhere, but hes not an author, he actually keeps monitors.
No, those UV bulbs are a huge waste of money. I dont keep them on any reptiles period. They are perely a money making scam for the reptile industry.

np
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Do you have a link or an article about this topic? And who's FR?

FR=Frank Retes

Frank is a n00b when it comes to monitors and he has no idea what he's talking about.

=P

No, really, he's one of the best advice givers on here because he has so much experiance with monitors and proper husbandary technqiues. He's one of the foremost pioneers of breeding and when he speaks, listen up and absorb what he says.
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Sorry, if I did, didn't mean to sound like a smart ass. But I seriously haven't heard of FR before.

Real reptiles are the proof for this. As well their behavior when exposed to UV demonstrates this. UV lights have caused captive reptiles to go blind.
The problem with UV bulbs for reptiles is that the pet industry developed them for making a consistant income from customers, you see animals do not make much money, drygoods pay the bills and make money, so when the reptile industry convinced people that they needed those way overpriced bulbs they gained many customers who buy new $20-$100 bulbs every 3-6 months like clockwork. Now consider that those bulbs cost the industry $2-$20 each, thats a huge profit, so you ask why do they continue to scam and lie to the public, that $18-$80 profit per sale per bulb makes alot of those people very happy.
On top of that, the average customer spent $20-$50 on a reptile, and many products that go with it. They wont tell you that you could build a good cage, put real useful substrate in it for next to nothing, use $2-$5 lightbulbs from a hardware store, and buy bulk frozen food etc when you could be spending thousands in extra cash in the petstores.
Good husbandry is needed with reptiles not magic bulbs that can do more harm than good. You see if you really wanted to use UV bulbs you must use them in such a way that they are an option, not forced on them, they must be mounted up and away but easily acessible to the animal, yet the ability to escape it at any and all times and not to have heat from said light to effect the overall temperature range in the cage. You can by all means use them, but you need to realize that they are not needed, and that they must be used carefully.

I don't use UV bulbs. I used to use them at first for my lizards, when I could get them as cheap as a regular bulb. But I kinda stopped using them and with no change in behaviour or health in any of my lizards, I just kept going with regular bulbs. Except the few exceptions I use plant bulbs for my live plants....

Just wondering if there were any documented studies on the topic.

There are articles about UV and Reptiles = see any article by Gerhmann on this - look in "Vivarium" back issues/early 'Reptiles' articles too. UV does cause blindness in animals - that is a fact...and the reptile pet industry like all other industries upgrades things to make profit = which is what they are in business to do; what is unnatural is getting the monopoly on things and then people think they know all about it from a source whose job is to sell you things you do not need - go to the source and ask questions!

Ass for what fr is - well that is his own opinion, shared by some, not I. All monitors are NOT the same, or should be treated same.

mbayless