5% UV light when supplementing with neutrobal ?

[geordie mark]

Is it right that I can use a 5% compact bulb if I supplement with neutrobal ? I know some people don't use it atall however I would like to

[Ozric Jonathan]

Hi Mark I think the compact bulbs were not thought to be very good and although they might have improved, 5% is not a great deal even when its working well. So I think you would be depending a lot on the neutrobal when the tortoises are indoors.

There are different views about providing a vit D supplement like neutrobal and if providing ones means that we don't need to use uvb lighting.

Personally I wouldn't like to depend soley on a supplement. During times when my tortoises are indoors I use quite powerful uvb lamps and use a supplement about twice a week.

It's very unusual for any keepers on here to have problems with their tortoises getting too much uvb when under uvb lamps and having a supplement on top.

[geordie mark]

I usually use 10.0 like

[yuna1971]

If you're going to go down the UVB path at all then either a UVB strip or a combined heat/UVB bulb is better, Mark. The compacts condense the UV to a small given area, condensing the spread. With a strip you'll get this spread throughout. And the combineds have the addition of the heat and a greater UV output performance. xx

[yuna1971]

If a strip - I suggest using with a reflector xx

[Arcadiajohn]

Hi all,

The problems are many!

Firstly can anyone tell you per brand how many grams per gram of body weight of a supplement is required? How long does the potency of a power last after initial mix? I understand D3 degrades extremely quickly after exposure to Ca and air. Can we be sure of just how much is actually getting into the animal? How much waste per feed?

We know that an overdose of synthetics can be fatal, but how long and how much??

For me supplements must always be just that! We simply cannot ride roughshod over a few

million years of evolution for wild requirement. Again man seems to think stuffing things full of chemicals must be the right way!

Suppliments should be there to make up the shortfall in the over all terrible diets that we offer our animals. This is because we still don't know what they eat in the wild and in how much % per plant. And how much mineral content is found from the earth as they eat wild plants....we can get really intricate if we open our minds.


One thing is for sure, reptiles have developed the ability to see the sun. This is the biggest source of "Free" energy in terms of heat, light and UV. I cannot believe that a tort would choose to use UVA for tetrachromacy but not UVB for the D3 cycle.

It is far easier to look at the wild Uvindex per species, per environment and take a view on the amount of exposure and simply re-create that. If we re-create the wild surely we are giving the animal the best poss going forward.

As indicated an E27 compact is very hard to reflect at present and as such is very underpowered. This will change later this year.

At the moment this is easily the best and most efficient in terms of light output in a true flood and in terms of energy costs. Just 24watts. It is as powerful as a 160w M.V but over a much more usuable area. http://www.arcadia-reptile.com/uv-flood-lamp/ worth a look I feel.

Just raise or lower the fitting to obtain the wild index that is required by your species in your height viv and match this with equal areas of shade as per the light and shade method.


John,

[geordie mark]

you make some very good point john, by the way i think the tube has burned in correctly now !