How high should my uvb strip light be?

fergusaur

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I have a baby Hermann’s tortoise and my strip bulb fixture came arrived in the mail today, and I was wondering how exactly I should mount it on my cage. Should I just mount it straight across the middle, or put it on one specific side. And I was wondering how I should lay it on there, horizontally or vertically ? It emits 10% uvb so I want to know how high I should it be from the substrate as well.
 

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wellington

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Your baby should be in a closed chamber. Make a saw horse type frame to go over the whole enclosure and I would remove the top of the box. Then hang the lights from the frame of the saw horse.
I would put the basking bulb to one end and the uvb bulb in the middle going length wise on with the enclosure. You can rig that to also hang from the saw horse frame.
Others have bought portable pop up green houses and placex that over the enclosure.
 

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That's a 10.0 T8
A T8 doesn't broadcast useful UVB very well and can be no farther away than 8 or 10 inches from the tortoise. And just about 100% useless if it has to pass through a screen top.

A T5 is at least 3 times more powerful/efficient and a 10.0 can be about 20 to 24" away. Even passing through a screen top.
Neither of them transmit through glass and without a UVB meter, a lot of that will be guess work.
 

fergusaur

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That's a 10.0 T8
A T8 doesn't broadcast useful UVB very well and can be no farther away than 8 or 10 inches from the tortoise. And just about 100% useless if it has to pass through a screen top.

A T5 is at least 3 times more powerful/efficient and a 10.0 can be about 20 to 24" away. Even passing through a screen top.
Neither of them transmit through glass and without a UVB meter, a lot of that will be guess work.
My screen top isn’t wired mess or anything like that, it’s just spaced out wiring, so no uvb would get blocked. And the spacing between the substrate and the light would be about 8 inches, so I think that would mean that the light would be good for my tortoise then. I’m currently using an 80 watt Mercury vapor bulb for my tortoise, but wanted to switch over to a uvb strip light because I thought it would be better
 

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My screen top isn’t wired mess or anything like that, it’s just spaced out wiring, so no uvb would get blocked. And the spacing between the substrate and the light would be about 8 inches, so I think that would mean that the light would be good for my tortoise then. I’m currently using an 80 watt Mercury vapor bulb for my tortoise, but wanted to switch over to a uvb strip light because I thought it would be better
That height will work with that light.
Its not ideal. But a T8 is what MOST of us got started on....And they were the go to artificial UVB tubes for a very long time!

And yes. Get rid of that MVB.
 

fergusaur

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That height will work with that light.
Its not ideal. But a T8 is what MOST of us got started on....And they were the go to artificial UVB tubes for a very long time!

And yes. Get rid of that MVB.
Thank u, and I plan on doing so very soon. The box that my light fixture came in said that the light needed to be a minimum of 16 inches high, and I was assuming that was because of the built in reflector that it has, but I’ve been hearing that T8 works best being closer to the substrate so I wasn’t exactly sure on what distance it should be
 

Tom

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I have a baby Hermann’s tortoise and my strip bulb fixture came arrived in the mail today, and I was wondering how exactly I should mount it on my cage. Should I just mount it straight across the middle, or put it on one specific side. And I was wondering how I should lay it on there, horizontally or vertically ? It emits 10% uvb so I want to know how high I should it be from the substrate as well.
-The bulb you've got is not compatible with the fixture you've got. You can't run a T8 bulb in a T5 fixture, and you'll soon see that it doesn't fit.

-The T8 bulbs don't produce much UV. The wire top will block some UV, but at 8 inches away from the tortoise, he will still get enough. I would not run the UV more than a few hours a day.

-The only way to know how close to mount your tube, and how much UV it produces is with a UV meter. We are just guessing, and there are variations from bulb to bulb and with different fixtures.

-The UV tube is not a replacement for a basking bulb. You still need a basking area.


There are four elements to heating and lighting:
  1. Basking bulb. I use 65 watt incandescent floods from the hardware store. Some people will need bigger, or smaller wattage bulbs. Let your thermometer be your guide. I run them on a timer for about 12 hours and adjust the height to get the correct basking temp under them. I also like to use a flat rock of some sort directly under the bulb. You need to check the temp with a thermometer directly under the bulb and get it to around 95-100F (36-37C).
  2. Ambient heat maintenance. I use ceramic heating elements or radiant heat panels set on thermostats to maintain ambient above 80 degrees day and night for tropical species. You'd only need day heat for a temperate species like Testudo or DT, as long as your house stays above 60F (15-16C) at night.
  3. Light. I use LEDs for this purpose. Something in the 5000-6500K color range will look the best. Most bulbs at the store are in the 2500K range and they look yellowish. Strip or screw-in bulb types are both fine.
  4. UV. If you can get your tortoise outside for an hour 2 or 3 times a week, you won't need indoor UV. In the UK, get one of the newer HO type fluorescent tubes. Which type will depend on mounting height. 5.0 bulbs make almost no UV. I like the 12% HO bulbs from Arcadia. You need a meter to check this: https://www.solarmeter.com/model65.html
 

fergusaur

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-The bulb you've got is not compatible with the fixture you've got. You can't run a T8 bulb in a T5 fixture, and you'll soon see that it doesn't fit.

-The T8 bulbs don't produce much UV. The wire top will block some UV, but at 8 inches away from the tortoise, he will still get enough. I would not run the UV more than a few hours a day.

-The only way to know how close to mount your tube, and how much UV it produces is with a UV meter. We are just guessing, and there are variations from bulb to bulb and with different fixtures.

-The UV tube is not a replacement for a basking bulb. You still need a basking area.


There are four elements to heating and lighting:
  1. Basking bulb. I use 65 watt incandescent floods from the hardware store. Some people will need bigger, or smaller wattage bulbs. Let your thermometer be your guide. I run them on a timer for about 12 hours and adjust the height to get the correct basking temp under them. I also like to use a flat rock of some sort directly under the bulb. You need to check the temp with a thermometer directly under the bulb and get it to around 95-100F (36-37C).
  2. Ambient heat maintenance. I use ceramic heating elements or radiant heat panels set on thermostats to maintain ambient above 80 degrees day and night for tropical species. You'd only need day heat for a temperate species like Testudo or DT, as long as your house stays above 60F (15-16C) at night.
  3. Light. I use LEDs for this purpose. Something in the 5000-6500K color range will look the best. Most bulbs at the store are in the 2500K range and they look yellowish. Strip or screw-in bulb types are both fine.
  4. UV. If you can get your tortoise outside for an hour 2 or 3 times a week, you won't need indoor UV. In the UK, get one of the newer HO type fluorescent tubes. Which type will depend on mounting height. 5.0 bulbs make almost no UV. I like the 12% HO bulbs from Arcadia. You need a meter to check this: https://www.solarmeter.com/model65.html
No the bulb fit in the fixture, and lit up and everything. It works perfectly fine. And I already have a separate 100 watt basking bulb for him, but I haven’t set it up yet because I was waiting for uvb strip to come in. My only issue was understanding what height the light should be at because the T8 is a good bulb, but the uvb output is a little low so it needs to be closer to the substrate, but then my light fixture box said that it needed to be a minimum of 16 inches high (I’m assuming because of the built in reflector), so I was a little confused on what I should be listening to
 

fergusaur

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No the bulb fit in the fixture, and lit up and everything. It works perfectly fine. And I already have a separate 100 watt basking bulb for him, but I haven’t set it up yet because I was waiting for uvb strip to come in. My only issue was understanding what height the light should be at because the T8 is a good bulb, but the uvb output is a little low so it needs to be closer to the substrate, but then my light fixture box said that it needed to be a minimum of 16 inches high (I’m assuming because of the built in reflector), so I was a little confused on what I should be listening to
-The bulb you've got is not compatible with the fixture you've got. You can't run a T8 bulb in a T5 fixture, and you'll soon see that it doesn't fit.

-The T8 bulbs don't produce much UV. The wire top will block some UV, but at 8 inches away from the tortoise, he will still get enough. I would not run the UV more than a few hours a day.

-The only way to know how close to mount your tube, and how much UV it produces is with a UV meter. We are just guessing, and there are variations from bulb to bulb and with different fixtures.

-The UV tube is not a replacement for a basking bulb. You still need a basking area.


There are four elements to heating and lighting:
  1. Basking bulb. I use 65 watt incandescent floods from the hardware store. Some people will need bigger, or smaller wattage bulbs. Let your thermometer be your guide. I run them on a timer for about 12 hours and adjust the height to get the correct basking temp under them. I also like to use a flat rock of some sort directly under the bulb. You need to check the temp with a thermometer directly under the bulb and get it to around 95-100F (36-37C).
  2. Ambient heat maintenance. I use ceramic heating elements or radiant heat panels set on thermostats to maintain ambient above 80 degrees day and night for tropical species. You'd only need day heat for a temperate species like Testudo or DT, as long as your house stays above 60F (15-16C) at night.
  3. Light. I use LEDs for this purpose. Something in the 5000-6500K color range will look the best. Most bulbs at the store are in the 2500K range and they look yellowish. Strip or screw-in bulb types are both fine.
  4. UV. If you can get your tortoise outside for an hour 2 or 3 times a week, you won't need indoor UV. In the UK, get one of the newer HO type fluorescent tubes. Which type will depend on mounting height. 5.0 bulbs make almost no UV. I like the 12% HO bulbs from Arcadia. You need a meter to check this: https://www.solarmeter.com/model65.html
I think I should be fine just laying the light across the top of my enclosure, as my substrate is about 8 inches from the light
 

Tom

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No the bulb fit in the fixture, and lit up and everything. It works perfectly fine. And I already have a separate 100 watt basking bulb for him, but I haven’t set it up yet because I was waiting for uvb strip to come in. My only issue was understanding what height the light should be at because the T8 is a good bulb, but the uvb output is a little low so it needs to be closer to the substrate, but then my light fixture box said that it needed to be a minimum of 16 inches high (I’m assuming because of the built in reflector), so I was a little confused on what I should be listening to
If that tube fit in that fixture, then its a T5, not a T8. The T5 is a high output (HO) bulb and 8 inches will be much too close. The reptisun 10.0 bulbs come in T8 and T5 and we can't see the whole package in your pic.

If a strong bulb is used too close to the tortoise, it will burn their eyes.

Its possible that these are new products on the market that I have no experience with. If this is the case, then none of us can tell you what the probable UV output of that bulb in that fixture will be. You need a meter to set the height correctly. With out one you are just guessing. Too close and you'll burn your tortoises eyes. Too far and it won't be effective. For the time being, in the warmer months, your tortoise can get UV outside from the sun. An hour in a safe enclosure with shade available a couple of times per week will do the job. Feeding Mazuri, or a calcium supplement with D3 will also get it done. This will buy you time to get a meter and get the mounting height correct.
 

fergusaur

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If that tube fit in that fixture, then its a T5, not a T8. The T5 is a high output (HO) bulb and 8 inches will be much too close. The reptisun 10.0 bulbs come in T8 and T5 and we can't see the whole package in your pic.

If a strong bulb is used too close to the tortoise, it will burn their eyes.

Its possible that these are new products on the market that I have no experience with. If this is the case, then none of us can tell you what the probable UV output of that bulb in that fixture will be. You need a meter to set the height correctly. With out one you are just guessing. Too close and you'll burn your tortoises eyes. Too far and it won't be effective. For the time being, in the warmer months, your tortoise can get UV outside from the sun. An hour in a safe enclosure with shade available a couple of times per week will do the job. Feeding Mazuri, or a calcium supplement with D3 will also get it done. This will buy you time to get a meter and get the mounting height correct.
This is the bulb I have
 

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Tom

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This is the bulb I have
My bad. Its been a long day out in the hot sun. T8 bulb and T8 fixture. It would not have worked if they were mis matched, so that should have clued me in.

Those bulbs make weak UV, so it should be safe, but only a meter will tell you if it is effective in your enclosure.
 

fergusaur

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My bad. Its been a long day out in the hot sun. T8 bulb and T8 fixture. It would not have worked if they were mis matched, so that should have clued me in.

Those bulbs make weak UV, so it should be safe, but only a meter will tell you if it is effective in your enclosure.
Ok, thank u for helping me!
 

ZEROPILOT

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My bad. Its been a long day out in the hot sun. T8 bulb and T8 fixture. It would not have worked if they were mis matched, so that should have clued me in.

Those bulbs make weak UV, so it should be safe, but only a meter will tell you if it is effective in your enclosure.
I thought you saw something I didnt.
My eyes ain't what they used to be
 

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