Arcadia D3 6% HO bulb w/ fixture- a review

Psychobunny

Avid Member
So I received my order from Todd of LightYourReptiles, 2 22'' T5 HO high output fixtures w/ the Arcadia D3 6% bulb package deal.

First of all, I have talked to Todd on the phone and he is really a great guy ;)

My package was SUPER well packed. I know it must have taken 20 minutes to unpack.

The tubes were already mounted into the fixtures which are made of metal, not plastic. The have a slim and low profile look, only 3 1/2'' deep. The bulb lenght extends the whole lenght of the fixture, so there is no overlapping.

Fixture has a very nice reflector which goes all the way across.
The bulbs are those skinny T5 style.

When I turned it on (it has a rocker style switch inline) the bulb (on both units) fired up without pause, there was no flickering.

Very first impression, I could see this was quite a bit brighter then my Reptisun 18'' T5 and fixture.

I did some testing using a Solarmeter 6.5;

Both Arcadia units put out the same %UV, between 8 and 11.
When I repeated the measurement with cage screen between the lamp and the meter, the reading did not go down as you may expect.

When I measured the ZooMed Reptisun (2 brand new bulbs and fixtures) the UV reading was between 4 and 6.
However, when I placed them on top of my screen cage and repeated the reading with the light passing through screen, the % UV was noticably lower, 3 to 3.5%.

The Arcadia is a bit more money, but this is what I am going to buy from now on (untill something better comes along that is affordable), and I will buy from Todd at LightYourReptiles ;)

Thanks 4 reading, I was so impressed myself I just had to shout out :)
 
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