Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Does anyone use bulbs from home depot? Like the uvb strip bulbs? I think they are basically the same, they have the same color index and K temp, and cost on average $5-10 compared to 20. You can get cage carpet there too that is the exact same as the stuff they sell in the stores for 10-15 for a dollar and change and cut it yourself. Anyone got any ideas about this?

Its quite possible that these bulbs are not providing the range
of light that chameleons need....can't be sure without knowing
more details about the actual blubs. The following article might
help you figure out whether they are good enough or not.

Go to...
http://www.chameleonnews.com/
Click on "article reference" in the header at the top of the
page.
Go to "GENERAL HUSBANDRY (Housing, Lighting, Captive Management)"
under which you will find "Lighting form Chameleons - Part #1"
and click on it.

As for using carpet as a substrate....I'm not a big fan of
it...in fact with most chameleons, I don't use any substrate.
I would much rather place something under the cage to make it
look nice. (The floors of my cages are glass.) IMHO, carpet is
hard to keep clean and free of germs. Just my two cents worth.

Well, I only use carpet with my geckos, and as for the bulbs, they both have the same specs, just one is called repti-sun and the cheaper is called brilliant sunshine. Since its only like 7 0r 8 bucks Im able to change them a more often, and so far I havnt had any probs. Even the color lit up looks identical I compared two tanks side by side and you couldnt tell what bulb was zoomed and what bulb was GE. I know this doesnt matter when it comes to uvb but it just shows the similarities.