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Question about UVB - Product

mvanlone Nov 18, 2008 12:33 PM

Hello all. I am new here. I started off with Leopard Geckos and I got bored with them. I got a couple of bearded dragons (babies) and I have them in a 50 gal aquarium. I have a webcam on the aquarium that is running right now: http://www.mvanlone.publicvm.com username: temp password: temp

Now what did today was purchase this light fixture: http://www.zilla-rules.com/products/mini-reptile-fixture.htm

I did this so that I can put this in the middle of the tank and I have limited space. I have 2 other round fixtures. As you can see from the webcam. What I was going to do is keep the basking light on the left side of tank, than place the UVB 50 compact light in the middle and than a night light (Red 100 watt) on the far right (also there is a undertank heater that sits on the right side). I will have them on timers. The UVB and basking light will come on during the day around 7:00AM and they will go off at 8:00 PM and than the black light (red) will come on at 8:00 PM and go off at 7:00 AM. My questions are is this a good configuration? What about the light that I bought, supposed to give off 50 UVB....anyone use these? Is there anything else I should do? Ideas? I got that particular light cause I was limited in space and need something that did not take alot of hood space. The long type of lights would not fit correctly on the screen top.
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Replies (9)

PHLdyPayne Nov 18, 2008 05:01 PM

compact UVB bulbs are known to cause problems in reptiles so I don't recommend them either.

ALso there is no need for a red light or under tank heater at all unless your room temperature drops to below 65F at night. Bearded dragons need a night temp drop to sleep properly so night time drops between 65-75F is good.

You mentioned having several bearded dragons, are they all housed together in the one tank? If you are limited on space where are you going to put the adult cages? A 50 gal tank isn't really big enough for a single adult bearded dragon, which should be housed in a cage a least 4'x2' of floor space.

It will be a good idea for you to build stackable cages for your dragons where the fixtures are all mounted inside, so you don't have to worry about a hood at all. TO be honest, I find hoods are utterly useless for reptile cages, especially when there is a screen top. For a hood to be effective it needs to run the entire length of the cage and allow the long straight tubes for UVB light or Mercury vapor bulbs for high/deep cages. (MVBs should be at least 18" above the basking spot so don't always fit in cages under 2' high unless mounted outside the cage...)
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PHLdyPayne

mvanlone Nov 18, 2008 05:10 PM

No, I have only 2 baby bearded dragons. I think that is enough.

MimC85 Nov 18, 2008 06:07 PM

Compact fluorescents have shown to cause issues - its best to avoid them. I recomend using the repti-sun fluorescent tube, either 8.0 or 10.0.

As stated before - no need to use a Red light, it actually will upset your dragons night cycle and cause undue stress.

You would be better off separating those dragons now. There are many reasons why - (I have included them all below) but the bottom line is, your dragons will likely be healthier, happier and thrive much more if housed separately. Since these dragons are your first, i recomend separting them even more strongly.

If these are going to be your first beardies I would start keeping just one, or keeping two, but keeping them separately. There are a number of different reasons why this is a good idea...

1. Dominance Aggression/Stress: Many people make the mistake of assuming that aggression is displayed only through head bobbing, throat puffing, and physical attacks, but this is incorrect. While its true that these are SOME of the ways that dominance/aggression can be shown there are other, subtler, and probably more dangerous (because they can be harder to notice) ways. Usually when two beardies are housed together, even females, one of them will be more dominant than the other one, the more dominant one will usually take the best basking spots and the most food. Getting less food and taking second best basking spots chronically will become stressed; chronic stress will lead to failure to grow and thrive and parasite infections. Even if the more dominant beardie doesn't "take" the most food, their presence will often lead to the less dominant one not eating us much. A good analogy is to imagine you are back in school, you are sitting down, about to eat your lunch and the class bully plops down right next to you to eat his lunch...you are probably going to lose your appetite. Right? Now what if that happened every day? Sometimes if the two are together the more dominant one will bask sitting on top of the less dominant one, many people will mistake this as a sign of affection, and think that the BD's are friends, but its actually a sign of dominance. The biggest issue with dominance aggression is that it leads the other beardie to always be stressed, and over time this will cause his immune system to falter and will allow for parasites to multiply in the system. You will often hear people say they have had two beardies together for some time with no problems and then one of them grew much bigger while the other stayed smaller...this is typically what happens, if they are not separated and treated the smaller one will usually end up dying.

2. Physical Aggression: Not much needs to be said about this, physical aggression is when they actually fight. Chasing, biting, scratching etc. Obviously this leads to drastic problems such as stress, infections and lost limbs. Sometimes beardies will appear ok with each other for months or even years and then one day they begin finding.

3. Positive Sex Identification: This is a problem that frequently gets over looked when people consider putting two dragons together. Dragons cannot be sexed 100% until they are close to a year of age. Educated guesses can be made, but without probing there is no sure fire way to tell. There are a few problems that can arise from this. If you get two baby beardies and house them together and they turn out to be a male and a female and you don’t notice in time they will probably mate, and probably when they are two young. Mating when they are too young causes serious problems for the female, producing eggs takes a lot of nutrients and energy...energy that young dragons need to be using to grow. Young dragons that are bred are more likely to get sick or become egg bound or have other problems related to reproduction. If it turns out they are two males, the beardies may be able to tell before you do and you could come home one day to find they have been fighting. It’s possible that one may even kill the other.

3. Disease, spreading and identifying: Another issue when dragons are housed together is disease. First and most obvious, if one dragon gets sick, its housemate is going to get sick also and then you will have two dragons to treat, not just one. Also, say you come home one day to find a suspicious looking poo (smelly, runny, and nasty) or some vomit, there is no way to tell which dragon is having a problem, unless you can constantly observe them. Or, how do you tell if they are both defecating? If one dragon was to become impacted (or has another issue causing constipation) you may not be able to tell until it’s too late. You will still be seeing fecals, but will be unable to tell which dragon they belong to. Also, one early symptom of disease is lack of appetite, when beardies are housed together its harder to tell who is eating how much. This is especially true if you keep veggies in the tank constantly, or often. You may set out the salad, walk off, come back later and find it all eaten...but who has eaten it? There is no real way to tell, you may not notice one dragon isn't eating until you see significant weight loss.

5. Space: This is another big one. More than one beardie means you have to double or triple the space. For one adult beardie the minimum cage size would be a 55gallon (although 75-90 is ideal). If we are talking aquarium gallons, a 125g is the smallest I would ever consider housing two beardies in.

There are other reasons as well why its not such a good idea, but these are a few of the biggies. I am not saying that it cannot be done, but it presents a whole new world of issues to deal with. Keeping multiple beardies is best left to the experts, or at least those who have a bit more experience with beardies. People with more experience may be able to identify potential problems quicker and intervene before a problem becomes serious. If multiple beardies are housed together you should definitely wait until they are adults that are proven females, (or a male to two female group) if you buy two babies keep them separate until they are full grown and then maybe work on integrating them. And always, always, always have a second enclosure available should you need to separate them.

Congrats on your new babies! They are so much fun to own.
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1.1 Bearded Dragons
2.2 Leopard Geckos
1.0 Uromastyx (Mali)
1.1 Corn snakes
0.1 Mexican Black Kingsnake
1.0 Bairds Ratsnake
1.0 Rosy Boa
1.1 Green Anoles
1.1 House Geckos
0.0.2 Flying Geckos
0.0.1 Red Eye Tree Frog

kmartin311 Nov 19, 2008 10:10 AM

Good info Mim

mvanlone Nov 19, 2008 01:48 PM

Hello All,

I read what you people had stated and I was concerned and I wrote the company and this is their response. Pretty much they have stated there was a issue in the past with this product. It has been redesigned and it is safe. I purchased this product yesterday and I am pretty sure that this product is safe. The people that replied before, you still think it is not a safe product? What you think?

----- Forwarded Message ----
From: Brian Woodruff
To: Mark VanLone
Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2008 2:32:24 PM
Subject: RE: Product questions - Suggestions - Advice

Hi Mark,

That is correct that earlier versions of the desert 50 bulbs were causing conjunctivitis or snow blindness with some reptiles. The bulbs have been redesigned using different phosphors. As long as the product you purchased is one of the redesigned lights, you should have no problems. That light should be fine as long as the animal has a place it can bask under the light.

Thank You

Brian Woodruff

Central Aquatics

Product Lines Tech Support

1-800-255-4527 ext 1216

Fax 1-800-398-0396

email: bwoodruff@central.com

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Mark VanLone [mailto:mvanlone@yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2008 8:03 AM
To: Star Bull
Cc: Brian Woodruff
Subject: Product questions - Suggestions - Advice

Hello,

I have purchased this product yesterday (http://www.zilla-rules.com/products/mini-reptile-fixture.htm) for my 50 gal tank. I have (2) Baby Bearded Dragons in that tank. I have had people that were on some reptile forums tell me that I should not had purchased that type of light since these can cause my bearded dragons harm. I know that your earlier versions of this product from what I have read had some sort of issues and your company had resolved these. Is this product safe for my reptiles? I was hoping that since this gave out 50 UVB that this would be good for my bearded dragons as well as better than the 10.0 UVB lights. Can you please comment on this to reassure me that this product is safe for my reptiles. Also, since I have a 50 gal tank I have just one of these types of lights, is this not enough? Should I buy another one of these lights as well? If so, would that be too much UVB light for the bearded dragons? Sorry for so many questions. I just was concerned. Please email me back.

Thank You,

Mark VanLone

mvanlone@yahoo.com

PHLdyPayne Nov 19, 2008 02:18 PM

Its knowing if you have the newly designed bulb that can be tricky as pet stores may not have refreshed their stock (far as I know there hasn't been a recall on the bad bulbs so stores could still have plenty of them in stock).

Find out from the company (bulb) the date the new bulbs were available to wholesalers or distributors or just give the lot number (or serial number) that is on the bulb to see if its the newly designed kind or not.

Looking at the latest updates at the following site, I see that Zilla does have a list of old stock (the SKU's) and the letter was dated 2007 so stores should have them off their shelves by now. But never hurts to write to zilla and include the SKU of the bulb you bought to ensure it is the newer type.

www.uvguide.co.uk/phototherapyphosphor-summary.htm#responses

Original case study of the problem of compact bulbs (the whole website is actually chock full of great info about UVB and reptile needs for it)

www.uvguide.co.uk/phototherapyphosphor.htm
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PHLdyPayne

mvanlone Nov 19, 2008 02:33 PM

Yes thanks for the advise. I already have sent a email back to company asking how I can verify this. Once I find out I will post this information in here. I just think that a 50 UVB light is a great deal better than a 10.0 UVB. Trying to share with other people on here. Thanks for your imput.

PHLdyPayne Nov 19, 2008 02:55 PM

the higher UVB is better, no doubt about that, just more concerned the bulb is not the safe kind. If it is safe then your setup will be fine, but try and get the basking areas closer to the 'field' of effect of the UVB.
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PHLdyPayne

BDlvr Nov 19, 2008 03:23 PM

You're comparing apples to oranges. The Desert 50 stands for 50 microwatts per second/cm2 at the surface of the bulb. The Zoo Med 10.0 means that 10% of the light output is in the UVB range. Personally I feel the Zoo Med is a superior bulb.

Take some time to check out the UVB guide.

http://www.uvguide.co.uk

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