Biolight? Help please

[Kellee]

Hi everyone! I introduced our bearded named Odin that we adopted from a couple that adopted him 2 years ago. Along with his enclosure and basking light, they gave us something called a Biolight.

A Biolight is a light system used for treatment of S.A.D. and is geared towards humans. It is artificial sunlight, apparently gives you all of the vitamins, minerals, etc that natural sunlight does, and helps people with winter depression. They told me he has been under it for the whole 2 years they have had him, and according to them it provided UVB light like natural sunlight and as such as regular UVB light wouldn't be needed.

My question is... is this okay for him to have? He has been under the light for 2 years. I'm pretty skeptical of it but if he's been under it for that long, would I notice some issues? He does have a calcium deficiency, I'm pretty sure, since his toes are curled badly.

 

[ruben0311]

As far as my research has brought up, therapy for SAD does not include UVB treatment, just light intensity comprable to a sunny day. with that in mind i would say the light set up is not sufficient in assisting in metabolizing calcium. you can use it as a regular light, since it will be plenty bright but as far as UVB production you are out of luck. do your best to either take him outside daily for a few hours a day if you are unable to afford a good bulb but get him started on some UVB pronto. Unless one of the tubes in the SAD setup is specifically a UVB you need to fix that issue

 

[Kellee]

Yeah we did already buy a UVB for him, I just wanted to confirm my thoughts that this Biolight isn't actually helping him at all. Would it be responsible for some sort of calcium deficiency for him? His toes are curled and I read that is related to calcium deficiency

 

[ruben0311]

yeah could be, i think the best way of helping him is to get him out into some good sunlight if you are able to, but if not the new UVB bulb will help him along, if not reverse it.