SapphireTigress wrote:I'm not against UV necessarily, and I DONT plan on keeping my blueys at the "bare minimum". However, I dont want to risk the problems that I've been seeing with recalled bulbs, horrible eye trauma, irritation, and blindness. I'm waiting for more information to come out about UV and it to become safer before I decide to make a change to a system that DOES work.
UVB lights have been in manufacture and used since the early 90s, at least - tube fluorescents, at least those by ZooMed and Arcadia, have excellent reputations because they've been used for such a long time. When used properly, I can't think of a single time I've heard of or seen someone with an animal that had eye trauma, irritation, or blindness. When they get too close, the bulb is old, or it's an off brand or a lesser quality brand, yes, you do run that risk. I work with hundreds of UVB bulbs a day for all the cages at my store, in combination with thousands of them sold - I know of a handful of eye issues that were due to UVB lights, and in all of them the lights were not being used correctly. Pointing them any direction but straight down, using expired bulbs, even one person who just had the bare bulb wired down into the cage - it shouldn't be that much of a surprise that the animal had issues.
But in a hood on top of the cage, replaced yearly, at the appropriate distance from the animal with the appropriate bulb (2.0, 5.0, 10.0) used? You won't see a single problem.
When it comes to mercury vapor bulbs, I can see your hesitancy. Those have only been around for reptiles a short time. I'm confident in them though, and I love them, not only because I use them for just about everything at home but I see several dozen in use at work daily, and I can see the effects they have on the animals over even just a short period of time. My perspective is a little different I guess.
-Jen
