Question about heat from Arcadia combined

[burnt toast]

I need to order a coupke of combined bulbs.

Would I be right in thinking that the Arcadia bulbs dont give off as much heat as their equivalents/competitors? & is 160 watt the biggest combined Arcadia do?

I fancy Arcadia as have heard good reports about their life & the UV they give off.

Its for some old hermans who like to lay under a 160watt bulb - have long term had powersun or occasionally solarglo but its just blown.

[Suze65]

Hi Lynn, I've got 100w for mine and my old Herman Sammy is going to spend the winter under one, he is certainly very warm under it, but I've never used another type so I can't say if they are warmer or cooler than others. I have found that they are too hot for the tiddlers so they have got a tube and an ordinary basking bulb. But for the adults they great,

[Dexieii]

My 160w Arcadias give off a lot of heat, in fact I think I'm going to replace them with 100w in the 2 smaller sheds. I didn't notice them being any cooler than the combined lamps I used previously.

[shellonia]

Hi Lynn, they don't give off anything like as much heat but you can lower them to 8" from top of shell if necessary. I have to use a low wattage ceramic alongside this time of year, but you could equally use a small spotlight/desklamp if you need it to be brighter. arcadias do give off a very 'blue' light to the human eye.

[Ozric Jonathan]

I have used the 160 Arcadia and think they are good. But to me the heat output seemed less than Megaray lamps that I used to get. The uv output of the arcadia seems very good and consistent. But in my set-up the lamp does not produce enough heat on it's own. I found it was good to have one of these and a lowish power halogen like 40 watt next to it. Then the tortoise can have a basking spot where there is uvb.

[burnt toast]

I have a 100watt & im really struggling to get any heat out of it. In fact at the weekend the torts in that area were lined up under their tubular heater which wasnt on, ignoring the basking light which was! I have ordered 3 x 160watts , so will see how they go.

[Alan1]

I find the heat from the 160 is only slightly more than the heat from a 120w megaray but a great lamp

[Alan1]

Originally Posted by burnt toast

I have a 100watt & im really struggling to get any heat out of it. In fact at the weekend the torts in that area were lined up under their tubular heater which wasnt on, ignoring the basking light which was! I have ordered 3 x 160watts , so will see how they go.

I think 8 inches is the min height for the 100w

[Lottey]

The 2 100w megarays that I have bought over the last couple of years have both given no heat although the UV has been ok, so I have always had to add a spot bulb. This is using it indoors, so with some back ground heat. So much for the combined bulbs . I am now trying a 100w Arcadia and it is definitely warmer and I have not needed the extra bulb, but again this is with background heat from the house.

[Arcadiajohn]

Hi all,

I am so concerned about uncontrollable lamps that we when designing the product which took 8 years!!!! We decided to use a phosphor coated, flood source rather than a spot. What is the point of having a lamp with a concentrated beam of light and energy a cm or so in width. It just bad science!!

Reptiles need to use the D3 cycle and a cycle is dependant on the cycle completeing. So miss out a point in that cycle and you may as well not have started in the first place. So if your emission zone is too hot and concentrated in a small area the animal will not be able to allow good exposure for long enough as the area could be too hot.

I would rather provide a balanced emission zone that is wide enough to be used by animal without poaching it from the inside out.

So with the Arcadia lamp you get a phosphor coasted, wide angle lamp. The heat is spread over a wider area so that the animal can actually use and benefit from the lamp.

Now having said that I have spent all this year researching tort lighting and have had to step up to the mark and shake a few thought processes.

Knowledge is power as they say and we simply know far too much about reptiles and their relationship with the sun to stand back and say "yeah put a lamp over the animal it will be fine" it really does not work like that.

We must take wild exposure levels in mind, the limitations of lamps (they all have them) and the height of the enclosure. When we know all these things we can provide a "solar re-creation system" that is effective.

Unless we understand UV and it's limitations we can never provide an environment that will cause the animal to thrive. It's kinda like a throwing darts with your eyes shut! Some will hit the board but many won't!!

So it's important to use a Uv source thatnis powerful and wide enough for the animal to use, fitted and reflected correctly and replaced in good time.

So a hybrid system of T5, a stat controlled heat source and M.V as a boosting zone is by far the most effective and energy efficient way of lighting reptiles.

John