UV bulbs or tubes

tamzsturg

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Hi there,
my tortoise Tarquin lives indoors, in a room in our house that has its own thermostat. He has a basking lamp and night lamp, and we are currently building him a hide to burrow in at night time with the orchid bark substrate. We have recently discovered our old Heat and UV bulb (two in one type thing) wasn’t very good, it wasnt getting hot enough and we don’t think it was producing enough UV. As Tarquin is living in this room and doesn’t have a vivarium or tortoise table, we can’t really hang the tube lights anywhere, and I was just wondering if we can use a bulb of some sort? I heard something about certain bulbs hurting their eyes, if anyone could post some links to bulbs instead of tubes that would be great.
Thank u!
 

wellington

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For uv the tube is the best the bulbs either cause eye problems or cause pyramiding/not good for the shell.
If its only for basking without uv then get an incandescents spot bulb from hardware store or home depot type stores.
 

KarenSoCal

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If you get the T5 HO strip fluorescent, you could hang it from the ceiling. Or maybe you could make a stand for it and secure the stand to the floor, or have an 'arm' come out from a wall to hang it from.
 

Cora B

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Not sure what you mean by regular lamp with uvb.
Post pic of lamp and bulb

i couldnt upload the picture of the bulb but it is a UVB bulb for reptiles. The lamp is also a reptile lamp but I don’t think it was ever specifically listed as a UVB lamp. It was originally supposed to be a heat lamp. I didn’t think that would be a problem.
image.jpg
 

wellington

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If it's a murcery vapor bulb I wouldn't use it, they are to hot and drying and causes pyramiding even in a high humid closed chamber.
Tube florescent are best for uvb and either che's for heat or radiant heat panels.
 

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