White Puffy Eyes

smarch

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I read a piece about the type of bulb you have there a while back and I never could find it again, but it said that if you mount that light horizontally it doesn't cause the eye burning problem. Seems the harmful rays are concentrated out the end of that bulb, and horizontally they are dispersed rather than concentrated downward. I've never tested it, my tortoises' eyes are too precious.
Well if you'll take my experience versus this as evidence I'll say I never had bad experiences with my coil bulbs and used 2 different ones over 2 years, both mounted horizontal.
I didn't actually change to my MVB mostly because of the risks like these stories, I did because these cases made me think how much I hate working under fluorescents and they hurt my head, so why force Nank to live under one.
But in the small cases I agree with that theory, Nanks acted no different with either light.
 

Tom

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Well if you'll take my experience versus this as evidence I'll say I never had bad experiences with my coil bulbs and used 2 different ones over 2 years...

Right. That is part of the issue here. No one is saying (at least not me) that ALL coil bulbs are ALWAYS bad EVERY time. If that were the case, they would be promptly pulled from the market one way or another. Many people use them and have no issue. Distance from the tortoise, screen tops or glass tops, mounting orientation (horizontal or vertical), and just each individual bulb all seem to be factors in whether or not someone does, or does not, end up with burned tortoise eyes under one of these bulbs. The number of these cases that DO have an issue with cfl bulbs, is why I recommend against them. Even if the ratio is 1 to 100 of problem bulbs vs. non-problem bulbs, that is FAR too high to be acceptable to me. Think about that. If they sell 100,000 bulbs each month across the country, that would be 1,000 tortoises with burned eyes at that ratio. Simply not an acceptable risk, especially when you consider the very limited UV benefit from these weak bulbs. They make hardly any UVB anyway, so a person who chooses to use one of these bulbs is getting little or no benefit as far as the intended purpose (UV), and taking a huge risk of injuring their tortoises eyes.
 

smarch

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Right. That is part of the issue here. No one is saying (at least not me) that ALL coil bulbs are ALWAYS bad EVERY time. If that were the case, they would be promptly pulled from the market one way or another. Many people use them and have no issue. Distance from the tortoise, screen tops or glass tops, mounting orientation (horizontal or vertical), and just each individual bulb all seem to be factors in whether or not someone does, or does not, end up with burned tortoise eyes under one of these bulbs. The number of these cases that DO have an issue with cfl bulbs, is why I recommend against them. Even if the ratio is 1 to 100 of problem bulbs vs. non-problem bulbs, that is FAR too high to be acceptable to me. Think about that. If they sell 100,000 bulbs each month across the country, that would be 1,000 tortoises with burned eyes at that ratio. Simply not an acceptable risk, especially when you consider the very limited UV benefit from these weak bulbs. They make hardly any UVB anyway, so a person who chooses to use one of these bulbs is getting little or no benefit as far as the intended purpose (UV), and taking a huge risk of injuring their tortoises eyes.
I completely forgot to mention the screen top too! which I know blocks out a lot of rays- probably helped my case, I wonder if the OP had a screen or not? it would add more to the ideas. (with the new enclosure he's getting a thicker wire netting with bigger holes where the lights will be)
its always been intriguing to me that if problems keep arising why they don't change them, especially since they're not that much cheaper than a MVB and with a coil I always needed another light for heat as well so it evened out the cost.
 

AKRob424

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Dec 27, 2014
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its a wire screen on top, the holes are pretty open, plenty of heat getting in there, temps are 95 degrees
 
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