What brand is the best UVB bulb

[Armand]

I'll be using it for my pet turtles and caiman crocs:confused:

[Double J]

Teh Zoo-med Repti-Sun 5.0 and Zoo-med Iguana Light 5.0 are the best bar none!!!! Don;t be fooled by those silly exo-terra bulbus that say 8.0 UVB. They are crap.... and they may put out 8.0 percent UVB, but they put out far less light, so the 8.0 bulba put out less UVB than the Zoo-med 5.0
The Zoo-med bulbs are tried, tested and true.

[Kev_Mc]

I heard that European brands are better.

[lostwithin]

Hey, I don’t have many animals that require uv, and for the ones that do I have a few zoo med bulbs that a friend gave me after his iguana died. But recently at a farm supply store where I purchase my heat lamps I noticed they have Mercury vapor bulbs I can’t remember what UVB rating they were but I remember it was high and they are durable long lasting and MUCH cheaper then reptile bulbs. So I would suggest seeing if you can find a farm supply store for bulbs of any kind, you end up with longer lasting cheaper bulbs.

Devon

[Linds]

The only bulb that is the least bit worthy of money IMHO is the Powersun bulbs. If you can find other MVB bulbs, like Devon mentioned for cheaper, definitely go that way, but I wouldn't bother with tube lights.

[lostwithin]

The ones in the farm place are only ten bucks a piece, and they are supposed to pump out the UVB, I'll try to get a friend of mine to stop by the shop and check them out , to give get the name of them , I would do it myself, but the store is in Moncton I now live 2 hours away. I also agree tube lights are a waste of time.

Devon

[Armand]

How about this basking lamp by zoomed

http://reptiledirect.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=452

Are they okay:confused: Will it give enough UVA ray benificials:confused:

[Double J]

UVA is not the important one.
UVB is what is most important!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
UVB is necessary in the production of vitamin D3. Vitamin D3 is necessary as it allows calcium to be absorbed into the bones. Without UVB, many animals do very poorly and die. Don;t let anyone at a petstore tell you that those silly lttle basking bulbs provide enough UV of any sort. Plus, those little things are wayyy over priced. Head down to canadian tire for basking bulbs, they are between 2 and 5 dollars and are the same thing. As for a UVB producing bulbn, you cannot get those at a hardware store, so you are stuck buyng them at petstores. Go with a Zoo-med REpti-Sun 5.0, a Zoo-Med Iguana light 5.0, or as many have said above3, a Powersun. These are the only bulbs that crank out the UVB in any decent amounts in my opinion.

Good luck

[Jawz]

actually the NEW repti glo bulbs are made by the same company as the zoo med bulbs are contracted for and ive heard people testing the 8.0s and apparently they last longer than the zoomeds with respect to UVB production levels.

[Thrush]

You should remember that UVB light is out of our range of vision, being in the UVB 320 nm - 290 nm range, while visible light ends at ~400nm....

That said, maybe the 8.0 bulbs look dimmer because we can't see that kind of light?

[Linds]

Originally posted by Jawz
actually the NEW repti glo bulbs are made by the same company as the zoo med bulbs are contracted for and ive heard people testing the 8.0s and apparently they last longer than the zoomeds with respect to UVB production levels.

How long have this been supposedly happening for? I know at my old work we only carried the repti-glo bulbs because they were cheaper (hence more people were asking for them), but we never used them because they were always burning out, and basically just didn't work.

Either way, I recommend going with MVB bulbs if you can. FAR more effective. Especially for turtles and caimans, as they provide both a basking spot (heat) as well as UV :cool: