Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was wondering does anyone here use only a halogen bulb and dusts their uros food?I was wondering because those basking bulbs break alot and I don't use a uvb light so I was wondering if I used only halogen lights if my uro would be fine.Because I was not sure if halogens gave off uva or whether or not he needs it.

thanks

does your uro get natural sunlight? uvb is a must. dusting will not help a bit if they dont have uvb. there body needs the uvb to use the calcium. there is no way of getting around it. i know its exspensive. but not as exspensive as vet bills. and you will have vet bills if your uro does not have uvb. i know the fustration with them braking. i have spent so much money on bulbs that broke within a week. but its all worth it for a healthy uro.
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brandy

>>I was wondering does anyone here use only a halogen bulb and dusts their uros food?I was wondering because those basking bulbs break alot and I don't use a uvb light so I was wondering if I used only halogen lights if my uro would be fine.Because I was not sure if halogens gave off uva or whether or not he needs it.
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Halogens are a good choice for heating and lighting but have virtually no uva and no uvb at all. I prefer the outdoor halogen floods as they have thick glass faceplates so I do not have to worry about them breaking. So feel free to replace those expensive reptile basking bulbs with cheap halogens they work just as good. Just monitor your temps as they can heat an area up more than you expect.

Where you may be getting confused is that I know that some reptile basking bulb makers claim that the incandescent bulbs they sell put out significant quantities of uva. Forget it, even if the bulb claims to be a special neodymium super rare earth coated bulb it puts out the exact same spectral radiation in the shorter wavelengths (uva/uvb) as every other incandescent bulb on the planet. What these special coated bulbs do is absorb some of the redder light making the actual output slightly bluer and a bit closer to the visible output of sunlight. If you want to use them because you like the look of the light great... but don't use them for uva/uvb production.

As to whether your uro needs uva is another question. I personally believe in using both strong uva and uvb lighting. There are others that use none at all and supplement with d3. I personally think it is trickier to get it right via the supplementation route.

My suggestion to you is to stop using the expensive reptile basking bulbs and to use the money saved to buy a good fluorescent uva/uvb light. They need to be replaced every 6 months but you can find reptisun 5.0's online for 15-20 dollars or there are a couple of fairly good compact fluorescent lights out in the 25 dollar range. So if you can budget 30-50 dollars a year you can provide good uva/uvb lighting for your uro.

Hope that helps answer your question.

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Mike Wilson
mwilson@fuu.net

What wattage would you recommend on the outdoor flood halogen light for basking? It would be for a 55 gallon tank.
Thanks!

>>What wattage would you recommend on the outdoor flood halogen light for basking? It would be for a 55 gallon tank.
>>Thanks!

Probably a 45 watt. There are a ton of variables. A 55 gal would be I think 21 inches tall. I currently run a 45 watt flood at about 18-19 inches and it raises the temp at the center to about 130-135 degrees. Now that may be a touch hot but it cools off rapidly away from the center (yep even floods have a hot center spot) to about 120-130. Of course my enclosure is insulated on 4 sides by 1 1/2 inch of foam so it retains heat well.

I think 45 watt is the lowest you can get in outdoor floods but I believe you can get indoor floods even lower wattage than that. I just happen to like the outdoors because they are almost impossible to break under normal circumstances but the indoor ones are just as safe or safer than reptile basking bulbs.

Just about any incandescent bulb you find in the home improvement store can be used for heat and ambient light. Pick up a couple of cheap ones you think will work for you and test them out and see how wide the light is and how hot it is.

I probably have 20-30 bulbs sitting in a closet that I have played with at some point or other. Everything from little spot halogens to big infrared monsters. Currently I have a 4 foot piece of track lighting track set up in my test rig (a large ceramic tile, and an infrared thermometer ) and I am playing around with all the funky little track lights you can find.

Ok... so I am a bit of a geek

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Mike Wilson
mwilson@fuu.net