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I'm going to a herp show this weekend and I want to get one one of those mercury vapor bulbs for my chuck (she's got a flourescent for UV and a regular basking light now). Any recomendations in terms of brand?

She's in a 20 right now so I'm going to look for a 60 watt bulb for that. She will shortly be moving into a 77, what wattage would be best for the big tank?

Thanks,
Alice

I wouldn't bother with the Mercury Vapor.
When you say 20 and 77 are speaking of gallons?
Mercury Vapors can get very hot very quickly! If you only have a 20 gallon you will fry your lizard very quickly!

Right now I'm using one of the ESU coil UV bulbs with a 60 watt basking light (the temps are good right now). We used a similar set up for the chuck I cared for while I was in college and he'd been doing well for 8 years. I read some aritcles online that said that mercury vapor bulbs most closely approximated the sun, so I thought that they might represent an improvement over flourescents.

From what I gather from your post, a 60 watt mercury vapor would get a lot hotter than a standard 60 watt spot. I just want to do what's best for my chuck. Is there a particular bulb / flourescent that you would recommend? The local petstores don't have much choice in terms of UV lights so I'd like to get this resolved so that I can pick up some good lights at the show this weekend.

The 77 gallon tank is just under 2 feet tall. When I switch her over to this tank, she won't be as close to the light and I was worried that the UV levels would drop too low with a flourescent.

Thanks,
Alice

These are great! Just change it every 6 months to maximize the UV out put. Also in the 77 add areas where they can bask under this light. I use an aloe plant with driftwood leaning against it. They climb up the driftwod to lounge in the Aloe vera plant. As long as they can get within 10 to 12 inches of the floresent they should be fine. Remember that chucks don't spend all day out in direct sun. They use it to warm up and bask a while, but spend the majority of the day in the shade among the rocks.

The flourescents don't produce much heat. So should I just get a regular basking light for the other side of the 77, or would it be best to go with a low wattage mercury vapor on the other side. The reason I'm so keen on these mercury vapor bulbs is that I talked to a guy with a desert ig and he said that although it had been doing fine with the flourescents he noticed major improvents when he got one of the mercury vapor bulbs in terms of color and behavior.

Thanks so much for all the help!
Alice

But I like the Zoo Med better and then just use a regular light bulb to produce the needed heat. I've read a lot about all of them. I'd say if you had a huge enclosure where the lights were several feet above the chucks (like 3-6 feet) I'd go with the mercury vapor like they do in zoo setups. However, the benefit you get from them in a small enclosure like most people have in their homes isn't noticable and you have to really make sure that you monitor the heat output from them. They cost a lot more than the Zoo Med.

I've also had a problem with the Mercury Vapor burning out early. I haven't been able to get one to last more than 6-8 months. (This is because they moved around on the top of my enclosure when I open and close it. They should really be in a fixed overhead sockets that you don't have to move to get into the enclosure. If you move the light fixtures it rattles the bulb ever so slightly and WILL cause them to burn out in the 6-8 month range.) SO in the long run it wasn't cost effective for me. A number of other people on the Pagona listserve complained of having the same problem with them, so I know it wasn't just a fluke.

The ZooMed bulb is superior to the ESU in all the test literature that I've read. The following is a good summation on the whole arguement on types of lighting.

Melissa Kaplan is the author of Iguana's for dummies series and her sight has more scientific information on general herp care than any other:
http://www.anapsid.org/mercuryvapor.html

She also offrt this Link on MBD, which we all want to avoid:
http://edcenter.med.cornell.edu/CUMC_PathNotes/Skeletal/Bone_04.html

The very best for you chuck and lighting would be to get him out in real sunlight for 15-20 minutes a day weather permiting.

NOTHING beats the real sunlight even in just small amounts. It is still the best and nothing fully duplicates its true benefits.

They had some mercury vapor 100 watt floods really cheap at the show so I picked one up (it's the t-rex brand) and I've got a temp gun on order so that I can check the temperatures when I set up the tank. I also got a zoomed 5.0 flourescent for the other side of the tank (I actually got 2 of these so that I have one as a backup in case the mercury vapor just raises the temp too much).

It's good to know about the dangers of jittering the mercury vapors. I may try to get some sort of stand so that I can avoid disturbing it.

-Alice

how it goes.
: )