Dave Weldon
Avid Member
Howdy All,
I'm also a member of another site; The UVB Meter Owners Group, and this post came in this morning. It contains updated info as well as some summary info on the discussions revolving around Compact Fluorescent UVB lamps as well as some of the rather notorious linear tubes. It is by no means a complete report yet but since there are so many posts regarding UVB sources, I thought it would be useful to share it. The post is by Dr. Frances Baines who is a major contributor to the http://www.uvguide.co.uk/ site. Much of what is in her post will turn into data on the UK site when this round of testing is complete.
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/UVB_Meter_Owners/message/6685
I agree with Dr. Baines that not all CF UVB units are bad. What I still think is that for the average chameleon keeper and especially true for the very new keeper, the likelihood of getting a CF UVB source that is actually beneficial has odds that are poor enough that it is still safer to stay with the Reptisun 5.0 linear tube for now mainly because of its acceptable, long-term track record. They have good spectral content (nice UVB spectrum with no non-terrestrial output), acceptable uW/cm2 levels (~20uW/cm2 at ~12"), last a long time (~1yr), come in a variety of lengths (15"-48"), and can be found as cheap as $14 to $20 (usually LLLReptile) with a little shopping .
I'm also a member of another site; The UVB Meter Owners Group, and this post came in this morning. It contains updated info as well as some summary info on the discussions revolving around Compact Fluorescent UVB lamps as well as some of the rather notorious linear tubes. It is by no means a complete report yet but since there are so many posts regarding UVB sources, I thought it would be useful to share it. The post is by Dr. Frances Baines who is a major contributor to the http://www.uvguide.co.uk/ site. Much of what is in her post will turn into data on the UK site when this round of testing is complete.
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/UVB_Meter_Owners/message/6685
I agree with Dr. Baines that not all CF UVB units are bad. What I still think is that for the average chameleon keeper and especially true for the very new keeper, the likelihood of getting a CF UVB source that is actually beneficial has odds that are poor enough that it is still safer to stay with the Reptisun 5.0 linear tube for now mainly because of its acceptable, long-term track record. They have good spectral content (nice UVB spectrum with no non-terrestrial output), acceptable uW/cm2 levels (~20uW/cm2 at ~12"), last a long time (~1yr), come in a variety of lengths (15"-48"), and can be found as cheap as $14 to $20 (usually LLLReptile) with a little shopping .