Screw in UVB vs Tube UVB

[funkycox]

I went to the local non chain petstore yeterday looking for a bearded dragon and got into an interesting discussion with the owner of the place. He used to be a zoologist and currently breeds all kinds of snakes and reptiles and used to breed veiled chameleons. I currently thanks to this forum's help, have a jackson's chameleon in a screen enclosure with the recomended reptisun 5.0 bulb that chameleon owners seem to love so much. So here is the interesting part of the conversation. According to the petstore owner the screw in UVB bulbs (the ones that fit in regular light sockets) put out a better depth of UVB light in the cage. The long tube bulbs UVB rays ,he said only reach about a foot deep in the cage, whereas the screw in bulbs can reach a depth of 3 feet. Im curious to hear what everyone has to say about this because I seem to remember scepticism of those screw in bulbs. I currently have the screw in UVB bulb on the beardies cage.



P.s. thanks to all you guys that helped me out with pee wee, he is doing Great.

 

[Heika]

Here is an excellent site that will tell you more than you ever wanted to know about all sorts of UVB lighting: http://www.uvguide.co.uk/

You will see that they have sections for both fluorescent tubes and compacts on the left hand side.

In a nutshell.. UVB light penetrates clear down to 20" or so from the tube, and probably further, but the amount of UVB decreases with distance. If I am reading the charts correctly, it looks like the tubes actually have a higher level of UVB at a distance than the compacts.

This site also looks at the use of reflectors, the impact of the lights going through screen, etc. Very interesting stuff.

Heika