i have had my two 5.0 4' florecent bulbs for about 6-7 months, can i use them till the go out or will i have to change them soon.
-----
1.0. Vield Chameleon(Jessy James)
1.1.3 Sugar gliders(Bonnie & Clyde)
2.0 Ferrets(Butch & Sundance)
1.1.3 Parakeets(Prettyboy,Sassy)
1.0 Doberman (Aries)
1.1 Cats(Riley, Zoe)
Reptile & Amphibian Forums
Welcome to kingsnake.com's message board system. Here you may share and discuss information with others about your favorite reptile and amphibian related topics such as care and feeding, caging requirements, permits and licenses, and more. Launched in 1997, the kingsnake.com message board system is one of the oldest and largest systems on the internet.
How often is it neccessary to change florecent light bulbs?
John_Smith
Mar 05, 2004 08:30 PM
Replies (4)
chunks_89
Mar 06, 2004 10:47 AM
You MUST change them every 6 months, the UV coating on the bulb wears out after that and the bulb doesn't put out any UVB.
epollak
Mar 07, 2004 09:15 AM
Chunks is correct.... although. After 6 months they start going downhill and by 12 months they're completely useless.
Ed
grnbasilisk
Mar 08, 2004 08:40 AM
buy a mercury vapor bulb. they are hands down 1,000 times better than flourescent bulbs. many more times the uv output, a flourescent only puts out uv rays for 1-2 ft whereas a mercury vapor goes 5-6 ft. and you get uv and heat in one bulb. oh yeah, not to mention they last for up to 2 years on avg. use.
epollak
Mar 08, 2004 09:07 AM
Let me preface this by saying I also use MV bulbs. However, it isn't quite that simple for the following reasons:
1)Accoring to a recent paper by Gary Fergusin in Zoo Biology, they likely put out too much UVB and that can have deleterious effects on reproduction. His study looked at pardalis and used bulbs that put out less UVB than the MVs.
2)This bulbs were made for use with animals such as desert tortoises and are meant to be placed several feet above the cage/pen. At that distance they give off negligible heat. To provide both heat & UVB they need to be with about 12-18" of the basking spot and that results in a huge amount of UVB.
3)While they say that they last 2 years, I've never hd one go that long. They're very delicate and any rough handling will contribute to their early demise. This problem seems to have been worse when they first came out. That seems to happen less to me in recent months. Maybe they improved the bulb or maybe, now that I'm not doing as much experimenting, I'm handling the bulbs less.
As I said, I use them but I'm not at all certain they haven't reduce my chams' reproductive rates. I try to deal with the problems noted above by having the cages heavily planted to provide lots of shade and I cover most of the cage top with clear Plexiglas. This means that only a small basking spot gets the UVB. The rest of the cage is shaded from the UVB (but not the visible wavelengths).
Bottom line: they're by no means perfect for chams but they might be good if used properly. Frankly, the jury's still out.
