UVB penetrate through acrylic Plexiglass or glass?

CurtB

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May 13, 2020
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San Jose, CA
I was just curious, I have a dome light with 2 Zoomed UVB bulbs attached to it that sit above thin glass over my tortoise box. There is no hole cut through the glass,

Is this a bad thing? Will my little baby be getting UVB/UVA passing through or should I cut through it
 

Hamiltondood

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Mar 8, 2019
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Richmond, Texas
the glass filters the uvb so that no UVB is passing through, so no, they tortoise is not getting any uvb. not sure whether or not you should cut through it so maybe wait for another member to answer. you could also take the tortoise outside for a few hours a week instead of using a uvb bulb.
 

KarenSoCal

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Low desert 50 mi SE of Palm Springs CA
As Hamilton said, UVB does not pass through glass or plexiglass.

Your UVB lights are not the best. The screw-in bulbs are unreliable...some put out no UVB straight out of the box. Other members have measured this using a Solarmeter.

The best UVB lights are fluorescent tube types. Many of us like the Arcadia brand ones, and the members with meters say they are reliable and put out what they are supposed to.

If you continue with the lights you have, you are going to have to cut holes in your glass or plexiglass. You then line the edges of the holes with foil, and sit your domes over the holes. You will not be able to upgrade your UVB lights, because you don't have space in a 12" height to mount it the proper distance from the tort. You also have no way to adjust your basking light height if you need to fine tune the temp under it.

Ideally, you want to be able to hang all of the lights at the perfect height. You don't have space in 12" to do that.

What I would suggest is buying, or building, something like this. It has a bar at the top to hang your lights from. You could switch to a tube UVB, and hang it. You wouldn't have holes, so it would keep your heat and humidity in, and you wouldn't have the nuisance of a sheet of glass or plexi to remove every time you service the box.

It's just a suggestion...if you're interested, search "portable greenhouses" on Amazon. They come in many different sizes.

20200524_162330.jpg
 

CurtB

Member
Joined
May 13, 2020
Messages
30
Location (City and/or State)
San Jose, CA
Thank you @KarenSoCal ! Your tips are really helpful! I’m actually going to look up the things you suggested because that humidity thing has just been my longest enemy!

I’m glad I asked about the uvb penetrating glass/plexiglass before things got out of hand!
 
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