UVB Lighting...Needed?

[Kymiie]

Just read a thread about how often a UVB should be changed, now i know that its 6-12 months!

Here in the UK we are having some really good weather, not hot enough yet but will be in the summer.

Now my question is, how long can a tortoise not have UVB?

I read on the thread someone osted not to buy a UVB is weather is nice.

So If i in the summer let crush go outside and turn his UVB off inside, but one day in the summer it rains would he be ok a few days without UVB?
I know i have UVB but just pretend it broke lol!

Hope you understand this, didnt know how to word it!

xx

 

[tortoisenerd]

If Crush is getting out at least 5 days a week on average for a couple hours (a few days without is fine; in nature it gets cloudy too!), I think that will be just fine. As long as you can maintain the proper temperature gradient without the UVB bulb, you can turn it off.

 

[Tom]

I agree with Kate. Its hard to put an exact time on it because it depends on the over all picture. In SoCal and Florida its warm and sunny most of the year so its much less critical. They get sunshine year round. In the UK I would think having artificial UV year round would be much more critical. If you use a T-Rex bulb and natural sunshine whenever possible, you'll never have too much UV. But if you skimp on the indoor UV, you might not have enough.

 

[Kymiie]

He got some sun last year, but only maybe 2 weeks worth as didnt have a good summer!
This year hoping to let him get a few months worth xx

 

[Tom]

He got some sun last year, but only maybe 2 weeks worth as didnt have a good summer!
This year hoping to let him get a few months worth xx

I think you need a good quality UV bulb year round. Even if you have twice as good a summer and get 4 weeks of sun, that's still 48 weeks that you didn't get any. Proper UV is critical to tortoises and a few other reptiles.

 

[Kymiie]

Crush has a very expensive UVB lol and has that year round, but in summer I try to get him out and about as much as possible for ''proper'' uvb!

xxx

 

[Ozric]

Outdoors there can be good levels of UVB in the summer including on days when its not very sunny. But the UVB level falls off very quickly after about 3.30 pm (in the UK at least, probably different in the states). This can be surprising when its nice and sunny at 4pm and warm. But the fact is there is very little UVB at that time of day at our latitude. In the UK, most of the worthwhile UVB is between 11 and 3.

At this time of year (and again I'm talking of UK conditions) UVB levels are not very good even at midday when its sunny.
This improves a lot over the next few months.

A few days without UVB isn't going to make any difference but in the uK we typically have a lot of days in the summer when the weather isn't very good for a mediterranean tortoise. Apart from the UVB issue, you won't want your tortoise outside day after day if it is cool and rainy. He just won't get active enough to eat. Yes this does happen in the mediterranean countries but not for weeks at a time in the height of summer like it does here.