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Now to answer the question: No you cannot use d3 supliment as an alternative to uvb lighting. The d3 in the calcium is there because the reptiles use it to help form calcium, and uvb rays are needed to do this.
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Short of messing around at the atomic level, NO living animal nor plant can
form calcium. It is a mineral, an element, part of what was formed back in the days when the earth was formed. If you think that Vitamin D3 and UVB are needed to
form calcium, you really need to stop and rethink it. UVB rays 'excite' certain receptors in the skin which starts a chain reaction in the body resulting in it making vitamin D3. There are several steps along the way, each one changing an existing chemical combination ultimately reaching Vitamin D3 once the liver and kidneys do their magic with it. This vitamin is what prompts the body to absorb calcium (Ca), without it the Ca would just pass out and not be absorbed. Again, the actual breakdown of how the D3 'prompts' the body is a multi-stage deal, no need to get all chemistry major here. (D3 is also needed to absorb other minerals and vitamins but we're just dealing with Ca here).
If you have UVB as your source for initiating D3 manufacture in the body, you're using the safest method. It's got built-in safeguards. As long as your animal has a well balanced diet, it's got all the 'ingredients' needed to make it's own D3 when exposed to UVB. It can not make an overdose, the body only makes as much D3 as it needs to keep the reserve stock topped up, no excess is made.
A balanced diet supplying D3 is unlikely to cause an overdose. However, if you supply D3 via supplements, you can easily overdose. Supplements usually have way more D3 than you'd find in a diet, they supply a 'supersized serving' all at once. Vitamin D3 will be absorbed as long as it's in the supplements and as long as there is calcium available. Calcium is needed to absorb D3 just as D3 is needed to absorb Ca. By using supplements to supply D3 you are 'forcing' the body to absorb it whether or not it needs it. Unlike UVB which has built in safeguards, this method can lead to overdosing. Vitamin D toxicity can cause nausea, vomiting, poor appetite, constipation, weakness, and weight loss, raise blood levels of calcium. High blood levels of calcium also can cause heart rhythm abnormalities. Calcinosis, the deposition of calcium and phosphate in the body's soft tissues such as the kidney, can also be caused by vitamin D toxicity. Calcified soft tissue will eventually lead to death, heart rhythm abnormalities can as well. Excess D3 can actually lead to MBD the same way that not enough D3 and Ca can cause it.
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And as far as the woman not using any special lighting for her reptiles i think thats a crock. If she really isnt then shes either breeding strickly nocturnal reptiles or else all of her reptiles have some form of MBD one way or anouther.
So Yes calcium with d3 and full spectrum lighting is needed for durnial reptiles.
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It's not 'a crock'. Not by any means. You can raise diurnal reptiles without special lighting. Diurnal reptiles bask in sunlight to raise body temperature and at the same time get their UVB exposure. They get their day/night cycle from the sunlight. "Special lighting" means what? I assume you are thinking of UVB, UVA and even UVC producing light - be if from incandescent or fluorescent lights? Mercury vapor? Which ever you consider "special", you can do without them all and still not have your animals suffer from MBD.
If you use any light, even just daylight coming through a window, you can still raise diurnal reptiles. You can 'replace' what they get from sunlight with proper supplementation and diet. I know several people who have raised many generations of Phelsuma laticauda (a known sun loving day gecko) with just regular daylight and incandescent basking lights - the typical home light bulbs - for heat. They ate a balanced diet and regularly produced fertile eggs which went on to hatch into healthy geckos. The advantage of using 'special lighting' is only for the profit of the manufacturer and vendor. I'm not saying you have to go this bare bones method but it does work.
(This 'Robyn' is male, BTW.
http://www.proexotics.com/who_we_are.html)
Pro Exotics is a well known, well respected and trusted breeding operation. Why would you outright state that 'she' is causing her animals to live substandard lives with MBD if you haven't the seen the animals, and you have the wrong idea of what's needed to form what in the body?
Get your facts straight first, then post.
To really answer the original question: Yes, full spectrum lights can be replaced with CAREFUL supplementation of Vitamin D3.
"Full spectrum lighting" is another misunderstood term, but for our purposes it is generally considered to include UVB in the output range. Full spectrum light are supposed to emit light in the complete range of the spectrum, UV to visible light to IR but mostly it's visible light and only touching on UV and IR. That's enough to legally qualify for the full spectrum label.
Any light will supply the day/night cycle, heat from an incandescent can supply heat, careful supplementation will take care of the D3. Any light will do if you're careful about the other details.
It doesn't matter whether or not I recommend taking this route, but at least you have some info to work with.
Hybrid Mode
