UVB bulb question

I was wondering why so many people online say the compact UVB are bad?

All the books on bearded dragons I have read suggest the compact UVB bulbs. But most people online are saying not to use them. I know the books I have read are a 5-10 years old so not the most up to date, is there some new information that has come out against the compact bulb and my books are out of date?

Your books are terribly out of date, reptile care improves quite rapidly as we learn more about them. Modern coils put out too much of the wrong wave length and can burn the retinas while not helping the animal utilize calcium.

Thanks for that info. I thought my info could be out of date.

Do you have a source for the new information?

This is a good place to learn about UVB, it looks like there hasn't been much updated since I visited last but its still great knowledge.
http://www.uvguide.co.uk/

Food chart
http://www.beautifuldragons.com/Nutrition.html

Lots of care info comes from this site and the members who post here. I guess you could call it trial and error but as time passes, we learn what works best and what doesn't.
I've never actually read a beardie book so I don't know what other info may be incorrect in the ones you have but if you ask on here, you will get good answers. The site is much slower now days but there are still a few of us oldtimers around to help
There are also a lot of great articles to be had here, take a look to your right.---->

Thanks for the link, it took a while to read thru the reports there is a lot of info. With that info being from 2007 it is more up to date than the books I have for sure. I use books for a base line of information and as I gain experience I adjust my methods. I have learned not to trust the "internet experts" and ask for proof on everything. I'm sure you understand once a myth gets started people repeat it until it becomes "fact" learned this when I started keeping tropical fish and again when I started keeping geckos. So I ask lots of questions.


It does look like from the site that Zoo Med and Zilla both redesigned their bulbs, so it is possible the problem has been corrected. It looks like they where testing the new lights but they didn't post the results. But I do agree it is a risk and we all have to decide on our own if we are going to risk the health of our pets. For me I like the longer bulbs because they light up my enclosures better, all my new enclosures get the long bulbs. But I do have to say I have used the compact bulbs when I started keeping bearded dragons (3 years ago).

Most of the compact bulbs are spectraly "safe" but are basically a very strong bulb in a very small package. The light gradient they generate is super steep - like a UVI of 3-10 in a matter of inches. This is exactly why the long bulbs are better for large lizards like dragons.

This group is run by the uv guide folks and has much more recent info and is a great resource : https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/UVB_Meter_Owners/info