Regular compact fluorescent bulbs.

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Pravius

Juvie Member
Anyone have any issues with using regular compact fluorescent bulbs? I want to increase the light in a few of my enclosures and was going to use this only for light.. using Mega Ray for UV and heat on one side and a halogen on the other but wanting to increase light levels in their enclosures to see if it stimulates them at all.. kind of conducting an experiment on light levels and stimulation.

Thanks for any replies!
 

Pravius

Juvie Member
Original Poster
ahhh Vallone

Your infinite wisdom and general knowledge never fails to amaze me. The reason why I am asking is because:

1. I highly respect this community and their opinions.
2. There are some issues known with the Compact fluorescent UV bulbs and wanted to see if these issues may still be present with the regular bulbs.. highly unlikely however if you don't ask you never know.
3. I care very highly of my animals and want the best for them.

Looking through your previous posts it seems that you like to slam people and make them feel inferior. Let me be the first to say that making posts like that will not get you respected in this community or any other and I am sure the people and the mods will not be tolerant of it.

Take a second and do yourself a favor and before trying to slam someone on an internet forum do some research and read and maybe that will shed some insight on why I am asking this question.

http://www.uvguide.co.uk/compactlamps.htm
 

GoFast

Gray-bearded Member
Pravius":1c538 said:
ahhh Vallone

Your infinite wisdom and general knowledge never fails to amaze me. The reason why I am asking is because:

1. I highly respect this community and their opinions.
2. There are some issues known with the Compact fluorescent UV bulbs and wanted to see if these issues may still be present with the regular bulbs.. highly unlikely however if you don't ask you never know.
3. I care very highly of my animals and want the best for them.

Looking through your previous posts it seems that you like to slam people and make them feel inferior. Let me be the first to say that making posts like that will not get you respected in this community or any other and I am sure the people and the mods will not be tolerant of it.

Take a second and do yourself a favor and before trying to slam someone on an internet forum do some research and read and maybe that will shed some insight on why I am asking this question.

http://www.uvguide.co.uk/compactlamps.htm

I must say that I agree with your thoughts on vallone. His posts are typically rude, wrong, ignorant, and just reek of e-thuggishness.

To answer your question, I had sent Frances an email on this very subject and I don't have a copy of his response on my laptop but, if I remember correctly, they aren't "bad" for your dragon but he made a few good points. One was about poor color output. Another point of his was that they tend to bother peoples eyes, I know they do mine, so imagine your dragon having to be in such close proximity to one day in and day out.

So ultimately if you are looking for extra light or better color balance, just use a low watt incandescent light bulb instead.
 

Pravius

Juvie Member
Original Poster
Thanks gofast much appreciated. Only reasons why I wanted to use the compacts are because I picked up a few exo terra fixtures at a garage sale for like $5 and they only use the compacts (wattage requirements) even a 40 watt incandescent gets really hot. I can and probably will go to the depot or something and pick up some cheap lamp lights though.

Thanks again.
 

GoFast

Gray-bearded Member
Now that I am back here in the office here is the email from Frances about this...


What I mean is this, I know that the coil UVB bulbs are a “do not use” light, and to an extent I understand why but what about a typical compact, energy saving, coil bulb in place of the incandescent or in addition to. Do those bulbs carry the same negative associations as the coil UVB bulbs?
Hi, Nick.


Compact, energy-saving so-called "full spectrum" bulbs (like the ones people buy for SAD, for example; the so-called "Daylight" lamps like the Sylvania Activa; and of course the ones sold as "Daylight" bulbs for reptiles, like the Reptisun 2.0 lamps) are not in the least hazardous to reptiles.
The glass they use, and the phosphors they use, don't emit any "bad" short-wavelength UVB. In fact, no UVB at all, in most cases, although they all emit a bit of UVA because of the mercury vapor "spikes" of radiation, especially the big one at 365nm.
Yes, some of them do also have quite nice visible-light spectra with a range across most of the colors in the spectrum.
But they are SO dim!
Compared to the sunlight, anything (except a good Daylight metal halide lamp) is dim.
But there's dim, and...well, very dim...

If you measure the visible light with a lux meter, typical readings are:
Sunlight (clear day - 21 June 06, here in UK): 5 mins after sunrise: 3,300 lux. 7.00am: 90,000 lux. 1pm: 164,100 lux
During rainstorm at 7pm the same day: 4,900 lux. 2 mins before sunset (sky clear again): 1,060 lux.

Here are some lamp readings:
480 lux : UVB fluorescent tube - new 5% UVB (ZooMed Reptisun 5.0) at 12”
1,600 lux: fluorescent compact lamp - new ExoTerra ReptiGlo 2.0 "full spectrum" daylight lamp at 12"
3,500 – 12,500 lux - various tungsten 60watt spot lamps at 12”
12,200 - 15,800 lux - mercury vapour: 100w ReptileUV MegaRay at 12”
49,000 - 143,000 lux – various 70watt metal halide lamps at 12”

Of course the most obvious reason for using an incandescent rather than an energy-saving lamp is that we actually want the heat. Because incandescents are dimmable, they are ideal for adding controllable heat and light to a merc vapour lamp.
I personally use some fluorescent tubes of the "Daylight" type for brightening up dark corners of a vivarium, I think they are great for lighting up the cool end without generating heat.
The reason I prefer the Daylight tubes to the Daylight compact lamps is more personal preference.... because compact lamps are such very large physical objects, and here in the UK, at least, people hang them down inside the vivarium from the roof, so they stick right out into the airspace, almost hanging down to the reptile's eye level in some cases. Have you ever sat with one in your line of sight? The glare is horrible. They don't light up the area very well at all, but they sure are nasty on the eye. Of course if they are in a dome, over a screen top, that solves the glare issue. There's no reason why you couldn't use one like that. Just get the brightest one you can find, with the best color rendering.

Hope that helps!

Frances
 

Pravius

Juvie Member
Original Poster
That is the exact answer I was looking for, that is also my exact purpose for using these just for "lighting dark corners of the viv". Thanks for taking the time to email.
 
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