Not sure what to do now

[VenusAndSaturn]

So a few weeks ago, i bought a new uvb tube for Neptune because hers is 6 months now. However that came broke, so i bought another and returned the other one. And then that came broke as well even with this one having good packaging so im not sure what to do and how to give her good uvb.
Her apatite has dropped a lot however shes still active. She used to eat perfectly, two times a day, crickets in the morning and calciworms and crickets that are dusted in the evening, however she doesnt even bother going after crickets in the morning now or eating from my hands in the evening, she even turns down calciworms which she loves. She also turns down superworms and mealworms most of the time. She still eats her salad but not as much as before.


I also have ran out of crickets, and an order just came but all of them were dead. However thats not too much of a problem because theres a local petstore down the road where we can easily get good feeders from.

 

[CooperDragon]

That's a run of bad luck =/. Are you using a T8? You might still be able to get some time out of the old one, it's just hard to say for sure without measuring with a Solarmeter. Where are you ordering the tubes from that they are arriving broken? They are pretty fragile so I can see how it happens but I haven't had issues with shipping before.

 

[VenusAndSaturn]

Usually i get the uvb tubes off amazon from Zany values. All the ones before this arrived completely fine. The uvb tube is a reptisun t5 HO 10.0.

My grandma that im currently staying with doesnt exactly want to help with the tube light situation but i can order another one, however im a bit scared it'll come broken again or by the time it comes Neptune would suffer too much from lack of uvb.

Im also unsure if i can mount it inside properly because i dont think we have wire to keep it up, but we may have string however im also worried about it falling on her.

 

[CooperDragon]

The T5 should last at least a year. That's a conservative estimate. My T5 Arcadia has lasted over 3 years now (I measure output with a Solarmeter). If it's only 6 months old it should still be going strong.

 

[VenusAndSaturn]

I guess this one just stopped producing enough uvb early then. Im hoping that this will be fine but i moved my blue tongue skinks uvb onto Neptunes tank since its less than a month old. Its the same strength and everything just not as old. So hopefully my blue tongue skink, Turtle will be fine with the other uvb since her tank is a lot shorter, only 10 inches from the substrate to the top of her enclosure. She rarely comes out anyway so i doubt this will be a problem for a few weeks at least.

Neptune already seems a lot happier now, she actually ate a few crickets that i threw in her enclosure and finally moved from the cool side to the warm side. Shes been over at the cool side since 12 pm, its now 6 pm so hopefully she'll eat a bit more with how the uvb lights are now.