Best and Worst Coils??

[Coliosis]

Hey guys, so I'll be selling my baby bearded dragons soonish and I'm looking for good coil UVB bulbs to recommend to people. I will ALWAYS recommend the reptisun10.0 TUBE bulb to them, as these are what I use, but many people want the coils as they already have the fixtures or w.e. reasons (also the reptisun 10.0's are REALLY hard to find around here.....). SO, if they refuse to get the reptisun, or aren't able to get it right away, I'd at least like to be able to recommend a "decent" coil and tell them which ones to definitely stay away from. Any advise or suggestions?

 

[diamc]

Unfortunately, there aren't any good coil bulbs at all.

 

[Coliosis]

How about decent? lol I used coil bulbs on my beardie for the first 2 years I had him with no issues. Not sure which bulbs though unfortunately...

 

[BotanicalStig]

Buy yourself some ReptiSun bulbs off Petmountain for $25.00 a piece. Add $35.00 to the price of your dragons and give each customer a reptisun bulb for free. Tell them to come back to you and buy a new one in 6 months. Problem solved. 8)

 

[kjinxx2]

The problem with the coils is the physical design of the bulbs themselves, it releases lights in a concentration (at the core of the bulb) at a concentration that is much too high for a bearded dragon to safely look at. This ends up causing eye infections which will end up costing your customers way more in vet fees than the cost of a new fixture ($10). Simply put, there are no safe compact coil UVB bulbs - you're doing your customers an injustice by even telling them that any brand (even ReptiSun) is decent. I'd take the recommendation of Botanical and buy a bunch of bulbs and build the price into your dragons (or offer to sell them separately - you could even buy the fixtures from walmart for your customer's convenience). In the end, it's going to be up to you what you do, but suggesting and compact coil should be out of the question.

 

[Coliosis]

Okay guys, thanks for the info. I figured these would be the answers I would get but I was hoping that maybe somewhere out there a good coil existed I guess not. I'll only recommend the tube then. Unfortunately Petmountain doesn't ship to Canada and the bulbs are about twice the price up here. Best deal I've found is in Guelph (40 min drive away) for $40 a bulb, and any online place I've found up here the price ends up being about the same after shipping and packaging charges. But I do want the lil guys to be under a reptisun tube, especially since that is what they are currently used to. Oh and then finding a fixture is a whole other story... lol But possible!

So just to clarify, it's not that the coils don't give off enough UVB, they give off TOO much in a concentrated area making them dangerous? Are coils suitable for any animal/reptile then? :s

 

[Coliosis]

What about good mercury vapour bulbs? Or are these exactly the same as the coils?

 

[kjinxx2]

There are a few different good MVBs out there, I'm not sure which ones are considered safe but I'm sure somebody will chime in about that.