We had a great time yesterday (though our friends think we are mad
) testing UV lights. A friend of ours, Frances, who we know through Dom (thanks hun!), who is testing bulbs for Bob Mac of
http://www.reptileuv.com travelled up to visit us and we spent the day testing our various UV bulbs, with the intention of writing an article about them, particularly the new megarays, which are a MAC INDUSTRIES/WESTRON LIGHTING product.
The results were certainly surprising and extremely interesting! We were shocked at how good the compact bulbs we use for the smaller lizards are! - in fact, where one of our bearded dragons could sit she was getting too much UV!! -at this finding we were shocked at the lack of warnings with these bulbs. Everyone knows that with the traditional bulbs the animal should be able to get within 12" of it to be able to get the maximum benefits, and one would assume that closer was better, but with the newest compact bulb the UV was too strong at 0-2", and too much UV can be bad for the animal.
It was also interesting to note how much the bulb depleated over the first couple of months, but then the reduction in UVB slowed dramatically over the next few months, and one of the tubes we have that is 7 months old is still giving off more than enough,. just imagine how much money we have thrown away when we have replaced bulbs at 6 months old, which may have been perfectly good!
We also discovered that reflectors actually do almost double the output of UVB. Also, new bulbs vary dramatically when it comes to output, so although we will now be able to guess what our bulbs are giving off, we won't know for definate. These gadgits are brilliant!! We even discussed the possibility of buying in bulk and being UK distributors of the readers, since in a year or two someone will probably be making a nice profit from selling them over here. They are costly, but in the long run would probably save a lot of money, as you could test that 6month old bulb, that you were about to throw away, and see if it is still giving off enough UV! Over here, makers won't publish results of their UVB readings, but with this devise they would have to! And more than that, it is so much fun!!
I got hooked on going around testing how much UV the lizards were getting from wherever they were sitting throughout the day
We didn't get to test the powersun, which we would really like to, but Frances is hoping to get hold of one. We even tested a reptiglo 2.0 which supposedly gives off hardly any UV, and is often used for leo geckos by some people. Our bulb is approx 18months old, and was still giving off very small amounts of UV at 0-2"! Not enough to be used for lizards that require UV, but imagine what a new one might give off??
Anyway, I'll stop boring you all now
(Never thought I would be so intrigued by science!!
) ..here's a couple of graphs that we did, just to give you an idea of our readings - the first is of three arcadia compact UV bulbs, one at 1 month old, one at 2 months old, and the third at 6 months old, all taken from 2" - 24" in distance. The second is of the two megarays we have, both approx 1-2 months old. Units measured in mw/cm2. We are hoping to use these graphs and other charts in our article.
I could do with one of them thingymajigs 
