Practical Lighting for Tortoise Keepers - discussion

[Tom]

***Moderator Note***

This thread contains discussion pertaining to the article Practical Lighting for Tortoise Keepers written by forum member Balboa. Please click the above link to read the article in its entirety.

******************

My goodness. All good info. No arguments here, but I think you fell wayyyyy short of your goal of avoiding all the "blah blah blah..." for newbies.

Funny, you said we are "still on the forefront of understanding UVB and D3 production." This is the same forefront we were on two full decades ago. If you take out the info about MVBs, this is the same kind of stuff I was reading in the late 80's, early 90's. Don't get me wrong, its good stuff and worth reading.

I like that you mentioned that nothing beats sunlight. No matter how much we understand, spend, or rig up, NOTHING beats good, old-fashioned, FREE sunlight.

 

[Balboa]

RE: Practical Lighting for Tortoise Keepers

LOL yah, lots of blah blah blah... I should have delineated that better. Was I writing a true paper, I would have ended with the part about the T-12 Daylight Lamps, as those are the end result after everything is considered, but I knew many wouldn't make it through the blah blah blah to get there, so the whole thing is kind of turned around.

You'd think we'd know more after two decades, huh? Obviously, its a tough nut to crack.

 

[Madkins007]

RE: Practical Lighting for Tortoise Keepers

So, should this get moved to the Articles section?

 

[PeanutbuttER]

RE: Practical Lighting for Tortoise Keepers

I vote for making this an article.

Sorry, I didn't respond and say good job earlier. I read this about 3 or 4 times as it was getting posted and stopped checking it when update #4 was about to happen. I figured I would wait until the entire thing was down before I finished it.

However, I think it's a good article and would be a nice addition to the articles.

 

[Balboa]

RE: Practical Lighting for Tortoise Keepers

LOL thanks Peanut, I'm not so worried about attaboys, but figured it would have more reads and someone would have questions.

 

[ALDABRAMAN]

RE: Practical Lighting for Tortoise Keepers

WOW, great thread.

 

[Yvonne G]

RE: Practical Lighting for Tortoise Keepers

I thought it should be an article, however, a lot of the info went right over my head and I don't know if it true or not. So my vote is...if it is good info it should be in the article section.


(Great idea showing the computer discs with the different lights shining on them. That got the point across well)

 

[John]

RE: Practical Lighting for Tortoise Keepers

Excellent thread Brett, As usual you spent the time to cover all the angles in depth, this should really be an article.

 

[Neal]

Can one of the moderators go through Balboa's original thread and fix some of the text? Maybe it's just my computer, but all throughout the article some words have been replaced with weird looking symbols. I can guess what word is supposed to be there, but for someone who can't stay focused for very long and trying to go through a detailed article it gets annoying seeing these things all over. Is anyone else seeing this?

Here's the direct link to the article:
http://www.tortoiseforum.org/Thread...rs?highlight=practical+lighting#axzz1YVbxHVIT

 

[dmarcus]

I see it also, words replaced by symbols...

 

[Neal]

Balboa's a really smart guy...maybe he meant to put the symbols in there. You know, like tortoise code or something.

 

[jaizei]

It looks like apostophes and quotation marks arent showing up right. But it is a great article and well worth the effort.

 

[Yvonne G]

I hope I've made the right corrections. It was the apostrophies and quotation marks that were auto corrected. If anyone finds something I've missed or corrected wrong, please let me know.

 

[Neal]

Thanks Yvonne. Looks OK to me.

 

[Neal]

So, after almost a year, I finally sat down and intentionally read Balboa's article. In all honesty, this needs a lot more attention by us and tortoise keepers in general. I would suggest reading the glossary section first, then read the article so you have a better understanding of the terms used. With the onset of cooler temperatures and indoor housing, I've been researching better ways to provide adequate indoor lighting for my tortoises and I really think Balboa has hit the nail right on the head here.

Question Balboa - have you tried your "Lighting Schedule Idea"? If so, can you give us some info on how it is working? and if not, do you mind if I adopt it and post about it here?

As I've discussed with you, I recently set up a new lighting system with a T8 - Reptisun 10.0 and a T8 full spectrum "daylight" bulb, which are on 12 hours a day. Then my MVB is on for two hours in the morning, and two in the evening. Almost instantly I noticed an increase in activity level and apatite with my hatchlings. I'm curious to take it even further with the lighting schedule idea you proposed, and adding an actinic light to come on at the same time my MVB's are on.

 

[stephiiberrybean]

I came onto this thread and was like "What the hell?!.... Tom have you lost your mind? Why are you talking to someone whos not there?"
Then scrolled down and found the link Neal posted. So i put the phone down and refrained calling the men in white coats to come take you all to the nice padded rooms

I'm off to go read now. I'll update my post when i'm done

 

[Kristina]

The reason Tom has the first post is that these comments were split off from the original article when it was moved to the articles section. I'll see if I can make it easier to understand...

---

I added a note to the first post. Hopefully that will help avoid confusion

 

[stephiiberrybean]

Thank you Kristina.

 

[Balboa]

So, after almost a year, I finally sat down and intentionally read Balboa's article. In all honesty, this needs a lot more attention by us and tortoise keepers in general. I would suggest reading the glossary section first, then read the article so you have a better understanding of the terms used. With the onset of cooler temperatures and indoor housing, I've been researching better ways to provide adequate indoor lighting for my tortoises and I really think Balboa has hit the nail right on the head here.

Question Balboa - have you tried your "Lighting Schedule Idea"? If so, can you give us some info on how it is working? and if not, do you mind if I adopt it and post about it here?

As I've discussed with you, I recently set up a new lighting system with a T8 - Reptisun 10.0 and a T8 full spectrum "daylight" bulb, which are on 12 hours a day. Then my MVB is on for two hours in the morning, and two in the evening. Almost instantly I noticed an increase in activity level and apatite with my hatchlings. I'm curious to take it even further with the lighting schedule idea you proposed, and adding an actinic light to come on at the same time my MVB's are on.

Actually, you're giving me a little nudge here. Once upon a time my redfoots were on a "staggered timer" dimmer lights first and last, brighter in the middle of the day. Then one of the timers died a while back, and all lights went onto one. I need to get around to replacing it.

The staggered timers thing is just a "common sense" idea to me, but I think it would be tough to determine how beneficial it may, or may not be.

You're not the first person I've seen that has echoed exactly what I've seen, and that's improved activity levels from improved lighting. Dim lighting means winter, winter means hibernation, or at least reduced activity. Its instinctive in most creatures, even us.

 

[pi01]

So, after almost a year, I finally sat down and intentionally read Balboa's article. In all honesty, this needs a lot more attention by us and tortoise keepers in general. I would suggest reading the glossary section first, then read the article so you have a better understanding of the terms used. With the onset of cooler temperatures and indoor housing, I've been researching better ways to provide adequate indoor lighting for my tortoises and I really think Balboa has hit the nail right on the head here.

Question Balboa - have you tried your "Lighting Schedule Idea"? If so, can you give us some info on how it is working? and if not, do you mind if I adopt it and post about it here?

As I've discussed with you, I recently set up a new lighting system with a T8 - Reptisun 10.0 and a T8 full spectrum "daylight" bulb, which are on 12 hours a day. Then my MVB is on for two hours in the morning, and two in the evening. Almost instantly I noticed an increase in activity level and apatite with my hatchlings. I'm curious to take it even further with the lighting schedule idea you proposed, and adding an actinic light to come on at the same time my MVB's are on.

Actually, you're giving me a little nudge here. Once upon a time my redfoots were on a "staggered timer" dimmer lights first and last, brighter in the middle of the day. Then one of the timers died a while back, and all lights went onto one. I need to get around to replacing it.

The staggered timers thing is just a "common sense" idea to me, but I think it would be tough to determine how beneficial it may, or may not be.

You're not the first person I've seen that has echoed exactly what I've seen, and that's improved activity levels from improved lighting. Dim lighting means winter, winter means hibernation, or at least reduced activity. Its instinctive in most creatures, even us.

Great article! Thanks for taking the time to write this. If anyone wants to take this one step further and expand their knowledge on lighting without having to read technical manuals, I recommend you spend some additional time on some of the Reef forums (reefcental.org, reefs.org). Coral requires a LOT of light and there are some great reads there. There are several articles from some well renowned researchers included.

Balboa - Have you looked in to VHO lighting (110w/tube @ 48"). Connected to an electronic ballast (like IceCap) you can wire them to controllers that will dim the tubes to simulate dusk, dawn, cloudy days, seasonal changes...