Florescent UV or MVB ?

[Soulwind]

So, I can't seem to find a solid answer anywhere.

Which should I use: a reptisun 10 and a flood lamp for basking, or one of the mercury vapor bulbs that do both?

If I go to the MVB bulb sellers, they say that the MVB is the best; and the reptisun sellers say that's the best.

I see the various threads that talk about eyesight issues (although both MVB and Florescents seem to have had issues at one point or another),
but all of those are several years old...things might have changed?

With the costs of bulbs and fixtures included, there's really very little price difference between the 2 setups.

But which is better for my beardie?

 

[snazzyglasses]

Hmm. I think this one might be a matter of personal preference. I personally prefer a fluorescent UVB and a separate basking bulb. The basking bulb is on a dimmer so I can control the temps, since the air temps of the room my dragon is in tend to fluctuate a bit.

I'm not sure if you can use an MVB with a dimmer, and if you can, does it also decrease the UVB output as well as heat/light when you turn it down using the dimmer switch? I couldn't seem to find a clear answer on those, so I stuck with my ReptiSun 10.0 tube and a basking lamp (actually the fiance and I are considering switching to Arcadia 12% tubes for our dragons intead; they're a bit higher quality and only need to be replaced every 12 months instead of every 6 months like the ReptiSuns. So far I haven't read anything bad about ReptiSun 10.0 tubes or Arcadia 12% tubes, but maybe I just need to keep looking! :wink: Definitely seen some bad things happen with the ReptiSun 10.0 coil and compact shaped bulbs though. Yikes.)

If you do decide to go with an MVB, I believe the most dragon-safe one currently out there is the PowerSun, made by Zoo Med.

 

[ju5t1n]

I'm kinda old school I guess I just use a 10.0 36" tube and a basking bulb. It works for me. I've never tried an MVB bulb before and probably never will. I was to nervous on which bulbs were safe and aren't like the coil uvb bulbs. I'm sure a lot of people here have different setups that could help you more. This is just how I have my set up.

 

[YBS0502]

I use the Arcadia Hi output linear fluorescent bulb T5 12 percent I got my bulbs from lightyourreptiles .com Todd is awesome to deal with he even has the Arcadia UVB Bulbs with converters to use in US socket send him an email or call and I'm pretty sure he can answer any question that you got