The Great UVB Upgrade

So while the tortoises were sleeping and snoozing throughout the winter I scoured my favourite etherial shopping mall aka Ebay, for a bargain double T5 Light controller. To my joy I found the very thing.. only arcadia will do for me. Once the spring emerged and so did the Tortoises.. It was time to fit this state of the art kit. It had horrified me towards the end of last summer when I had replaced my usual T8 tubes with their promise of 12% UVB and Vit D3. The shocking readings of less than 60 on My solar meter from a brand new tube was just ridiculous .

On a bright sunny day in the UK you can expect to get a reading of around 300 or just above .. so a reading of less than 100 is just not adequate to try and replicate the mediterranean Sun!

This reading was taken at the same level as the top of the carapace. It is commonly said that a distance of 12 inches should be between the tube and the tortoise.. Bumkum I say! this reading was taken at a much nearer distance .. probably 9 inches

So the day came when the glorious T5 got installed and the T8 went into the bin.

The reflectors were recycled and re attached using a bracket so they were off the wall and much nearer the basking lamps.. Their glorious, slinky stream lined selves give out stunning readings more like on a par with a nice cloudless sunny UK day