Basking and UV lamp placement

bsanborn

New Member
Joined
Jul 20, 2020
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2
Location (City and/or State)
Albuquerque, NM
I recently got a baby greek tortoise and set it up with an incandescent flood basking lamp, ZooMed 10.0 T5 bulb, and LED lights for ambient lighting. I have the basking temp dialed in to the recommended 90-95 F range, and the UVB lamp provides a UVI of about 5 directly under the lamp. I currently run the UVB lamp for 4 hours a day based on recommendations on the forum.

I find that the tortoise likes to hang out by the fake aloe plant as shown in the attached picture. I measured the UVI where he likes to sit at about 1.0. This could be due to either the basking light blocking the UVB lamp a little or just that the UVB has dropped due it being off the end of the lamp.

The Ferguson zone range for testudo greaca is only a 3-4, but I like the idea of only leaving the light on for a few hours at a higher level to reduce electricity. I also do not understand if the UVI level needs to be different for babies vs. adults.

Should I try to reposition the UVB lamp so that he gets higher UVI than the current value of 1.0 in the corner where he likes to sit? Or I suppose he could just be positioning himself wherever the UV feels right to him. He could also sit on the other side of the rock to achieve the same basking temp and higher UVI, but has not chosen to so far.

I do plan on putting together a secure outdoor enclosure for a few hours of natural sunlight a week, but was curious about the current indoor light setup.
 

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