Reptile & Amphibian Forums

How much exposure time and at what distance do you usually have the bulbs and what wattage? Thanks!

Wideglide

In a bearded dragon sized enclosure (40 - 75 gallons) I would recommend a 100 watt flood. They are plenty strong. The 160 watts produce more heat and UVB and get very hot. Most manufacturers recommend that the reptile be no closer than 12 inches to the 100 watt bulbs and I think it's at least 3 feet for the 160 watt spot bulbs. The spot bulbs produce a concentrated amount of heat and UVB in a small area - be very careful with those and don't get your beardie too close.

Veronica
Beautiful Dragons

Thanks Veronica. Do you leave them on the full 10-14 hrs of daylight?

As i posted earlier I received my mv uvb bulbs today. I bought one 100 watt flood for me and a 160watt flood for a friends tort enclosure. I was going to use my 100 watt to replace a 60 watt halogen spot 12 inches above the basking area in my cage. The 60 watt halogen gets the area on the rock up to around 112, so my thinking was that the 100 flood should be around the same as it was not as concentrated of a beam. Well the 100 watt was D.O.A. so I could not test it, however I pulled out the 160watt flood and popped it in. I was surprised to find out that at 12 inches the basking area is now only 110, but man the light is bright. I am now wondering if the 100 watt flood will be enough to heat the basking area. I am going to play around with the 160 watt for the weekend as my buddy will not have his new enclosure built until next week. I am now wondering if in order to use this bulb to heat the basking spot as well, will I be giving the dragons too massive of a dose of uva and uvb, any thoughts?
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If your using a glass tank you might have to use the larger 160 watt, because o. In my glass tanks I find the larger bulb is needed. My melamine enclosures are 4x2x2 and I use the 100 watt without a problem. With the large top ventilation of the glass tanks the larger bulb is needed.
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Mystical Dragons

I use a 160watt and need a 100w halogen on a dimmer to get my temps up. I just have a gut feeling the MV's shouldn't be on the whole 10-14 hrs. I could be way off base, though. I haven't found much info on the recommended duration.

I'm looking forward to the MV test results Veronica is working on. Hopefully that will shed some light on the situation.

I think the tests are great but they will not tell you how long you should keep your MV lights on, she is testing output over time to determine when to replace bulbs due to output falloff. As to how much UVB is needed or when it becomes too much, that would take years and be much more involved. As I said with the 160 at 12 inches I do not know if the levels are way too high or what. They certainly do not match the sun, but how long do beardeds bask in the wild? If there were a good study with some averages on basking times and overall time spent in the sun we could come up with some rough figures on UVB exposure in the wild. Perhaps a keeper that houses outside could give us an idea about how much time is spent each day in direct sunlight ect.
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so can they move off the basking area and away from the UVB there.

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