Now that it is winter time I need to get a more powerful bulb to get the basking temps that I need. I was thinking of getting a mercury vapor bulb to do that. I already have a linear florescent that works fine, but am curious if having a bulb that heats and gives UVB would be even better, since I would have two UVB sources. Or, should I just stick with a regular UVA basking light and save the money? What do you guys think?
I have a Bearded Dragon.
Well theres not many bulbs that produce uvb and heat at the same time. So i would just use a uva bulb for basking and a normal florescent bulb for uvb. But for more heat you can buy a ceramic heater. hope i helped
Mercury vapor bulbs are really nice, but they are expensive and still need to be replaced every 6-12 months as they do lose UVB potency over time. I use a regular 100 watt incandescent light bulb in a dome fixture and have no problem getting my basking temp to 100F. Use a digital probe thermometer to measure this so you know where it's at. Certainly much less expensive. Always use a good 10.0 UVB tube light such as Reptisun or Reptiglo.
I would use the UVB bulb, I use that one on my reptile and there healthy, The UVB bulb produces some heat but not very much. Though either one you should chang every 6 months regardless of whether they go out
pets question and answers,www.5d2d.com Also every vet I've ever talked to says use UVB
