It is much more complicated than that. What I am saying is that if something is a billion lumens, it tells you nothing about how "much" UV is in it. Lumens are not a measure of UV. If you want to start discussing UV values in sunlight, you need to be talking about UV measurements.
Unless you know the exact spectral distribution of sunlight (which changes based on a million factors btw) there is no way to accurately calculate or estimate the amount of UV in the light based on its luminosity.
I was never trying to do what you are thinking I am trying to do.
I think because I was addressing someone else who commented that we should not try to make our lights as bright in our cages as sunlight earlier in this thread. My comments about lumens and lux were only intended to address that point and had nothing to do with my comments about UVB. My point was that we aren't even coming close to doing that. Had nothing to do with UVB content.
I think its funny you consider this lucky. These calculations are pretty basic engineering calculations
I think it is funny how you believe everything I write is aimed specifically at what is going on in your brain at the time you read what I wrote rather than trying to understand what I am trying to communicate. Maybe it is a result of my inability to communicate effectively to you...
I don't think the calculations are lucky- I think the fact that marijuana growers need to know this same information (intensity and spectrum) and have made the information that we need to understand if we wish to understand artificial lighting and sunlight for our lizards available on the web a lucky coincidence.
This is probably "technically" true, but what is your point exactly...? Do you have evidence that shows the current light intensity used in tanks, although lower than "outside", is too low to properly dilate the eyes? I have never heard of this before.
Maybe I misunderstood, but I thought that is the whole reason UVB 10.0s are discouraged here on the forums. I've never had problems personally from the use of full spectrum lighting from vita-lites on up to 10.0 tubes but this is the reason I have read given from time to time here on the forums. It is also the reason I see the new lighting manufacturer's advertising in Reptiles Magazine that they now have more brightness to close the pupils and prevent eye damage from the UV. Enlighten me then why else they are discouraged. Because as I already pointed out, it can't be the idea that the body would manufacture too much d3...
Why do we need to match sunlight intensity? Growhouses easily beat natural sunlight but their goal is to ...well grow. Why do we need to match? I'm missing your point
Where did I say we need to match sunlight intensity? Never said it.
I simply said that we do not match it, nor do 99% of us come even close to matching it, unless our lizards are kept outdoors (like mine during the summer months).
But that doesn't mean that bright light (which isn't the same as outdoor intensity) is not good for our lizards...
ABSOLUTELY WRONG - You are making so many assumptions... (that are incorrect)...
You are completely ignoring ALL other UV related aspects as well. How about the most basic...UV damage? AKA Sunburn
Don't throw that out there without proving it. Show me a sunburned lizard from a 10.0 light.
And are you saying anyway that if 10.0s put off less UVB than shade (And I am talking UVB here- not lumens- a lot of UVB is bouncing around in the shade outdoors) that our lizards are going to sunburn? What the heck do they do in nature then if the shade does not allow adequate protection?
Also, take into account- in a properly set up terrarium, you shouldn't be forcing the lizard to expose itself to the UV any longer than it wants to be. Just like heat- the lizard needs to be able to self regulate. They have been shown to do this.
Who are these "authors" ? Generalizing the care of all lizards into one lump category is a glaring mistake...
I don't remember all for sure- goes back a few decades. I think some would include mailloux, schmidt, tamm, wallikewitz and another source cited in their book, leberre, devosjolli and others. The fact that bright light has significant effects on sun basking lizards including appetite, reproductive success, coloration, growth rate and activity level is so universally understood that there have been many authors saying this same thing for a long time now. My own experience is in agreement.
I rarely post anything that doesn't come from something I have read and/or isn't from my own actual experience, and often both. When I do or when it is my experience only I usually point it out.
At the same time, I'm not a walking reference guide. I remember important facts and ideas because I use them for breeding success. I don't store exact references away in my brain so I can recall them for people who wish to disbelieve me for their own foolish reasons. I often have an idea of where things come from and if I need to look something up for my own use I take the time to go back through my stacks of books and boxes of reptile related magazines and published papers and dig. But I don't see a great need to do this just to make rude people happy.
Feel free to take any idea I have and use a search engine or read some books or articles and determine their validity. Not my obligation to do all the work for you. I got mine from hours and years of reading, searching and experience. You want to demand that for free from me after being very rude? When people ask nicely I am always happy to point them in the direction I got my info from as best I remember. I'm not here to prove anything to you or anyone. I was only here to share.
And as for generalizing- generalizing care isn't so big a mistake as you seem to believe.
On one level, yes you are correct- specific species have specific needs. On another level once you begin to understand the big picture, you begin to see very general needs in common and ways of providing those needs.
I've cycled and bred dozens of species of lizards (Been a while since I counted, but probably 40 or 50 species) including a pretty fair number of chameleons (I mention cycling because I am not counting those that reproduced by dumb luck or dropped eggs after arrival here) over a few decades. I feel very comfortable generalizing care and tweaking those generalizations as necessary to meet specific needs.
When I was a relative beginner, I did not see generalization this way. I remember very clearly having a mindset very similar to yours as well as wanting everything very exact and specific. It is easy to only see the little picture if you only know a little bit, and easier to see the big picture and generalizations if you know more and have more experience so patterns appear and relevant connections form.
And yes, chameleons aren't very different from other lizards when it comes down to their basic biology and biological needs. The same basic needs for a chameleon to thrive are the same basic needs for other diurnal insectivorous lizards to thrive.
As a general note to all, if you are going to make any kind of scientific "claims" please support your claim with a SCIENTIFIC source. Conjecture and anecdotes just confuse and waste everyone's time.
Do the same favor for the rest of us.
Please give me some sources of 10.0 lighting damaging chameleons in some way other than eye damage (which you seem to not recognize as probable anyway). A bonus would be your claim of "sunburn" from these bulbs.
And while you are at it, try doing it while holding the "conjecture and anecdotes to a minimum" as you say. Please serve us up some scientific papers showing "sunburn" or other non-eye damage from the use of 10.0 bulbs in a terrarium.
