New UVB lamp research.

[IguanaKing]

Understood, Marie. I just wanted everybody to understand that I, myself, am not doing this to sell a bulb. I know that UV Guide UK is a group of objective scientists, but I can't really afford to donate new bulbs to them.

[IguanaKing]

Well...my Mystics went up to 107uW, but that was about a week ago. I'm such a doofus, I lost my UVB meter on Monday. I took Audrey to work with me, and at the end of the day I had to put her into my Jeep and let her climb onto her favorite spot (the vertical spare tire in the cargo area.). In doing so, I had to set my UVB meter on the roof. I remember telling myself "DON'T FORGET THIS IS HERE!!!". But, I did, and didn't think about it until 04:00 Wednesday morning. Oh well...its only money.

Marie, per your suggestion, since my financial situation is better these days, I will be sending a pair of Mystics to Uvguide UK for testing. I have been in contact with Frances about doing this for several days. She's a very nice lady, very easy to talk to (well...ok...e-mail with, we haven't actually "spoken" to each other yet. )

Hopefully this will put another great UVB lighting source on the map and give us all more options. I'll be continuing my own research, but its not reasonable for me to expect everybody to take my word for it, so I'll go to a known, objective source. Thanks for the suggestion.

[Marie]

That is very nice of you. She does seem like a nice person from the posts at the UVB meters group. I've learned a lot from her posts.

Sorry about your meter. I loaned mine out since Patrick was just upstairs and was willing to share. I ended up letting the person keep it because she also had an MBD iguana and can not take her iguana out year round--Canada. So I bought another one at the recent group buy at the UVB meter owners group.

Well one concern I had was the eye swelling that was occurring in animals but you have mentioned using supplemental light that will make the animals not look into the UVB lights. I'm not sure where you mentioned it. Also went to Big Apple and saw that now they do recommend using supplemental lighting. So I'm not as wary but I do think the mercury vapors are more simple to use with my ceiling heat panel.

[IguanaKing]

I've learned a lot from exchanging e-mails with her too. We've discussed the conditions of her tests, and it actually made my job easier in trying to find suitable fixtures to send with the tubes. Currently, the Mystics are US only, so they need a US fixture to run in. The voltage isn't a problem, since she has a step-down transformer, and the frequency issue will be compensated for by the electronic ballast. I mentioned the supplemental lighting in the original incarnation of this thread, but forgot to put that in again. I'll do that directly, since it is very important. I designed and built my cage before MV lighting became as good as it is today, so my cage design really didn't have an extra, safe place for a screw-in type of lamp. Actually, my UVB lighting was quite inadequate for years...luckily my igs got to go outside fairly regularly. We have extremely cold winters here, but 90% of those winter days are actually sunny and quite warm.

[prism_wolf]

Have you seen the latest post on the Mystics on the UV_meter_owner group?

[IguanaKing]

I read those posts just now. Bob's concerns are definitely justified, and supplemental lighting is absolutely essential when using this type of lamp...which Big Apple mentions on their site, BTW. What I have a problem with is that he links an article to support his concerns about a spectrograph he had done on them, stating that they produced results which are "different" from anything used for reptiles, yet that article makes absolutely no mention of the Mystic, nor does it include the Mystic in any of the data charts.

I'll need to get back into contact with Frances again after her trip down under. I expected to have 24" mystics and a fixture ready to ship at this point, but my order got lost somehow. Now that I'm sure I'm not going to get billed for it, I'll try ordering again.

[prism_wolf]

I'm really looking forward to the results...:-) And as for the supplemental lighting...this should be true for all flourescent bulbs. Adding the bright light will help adjust the pupils to the lgihts keeping the UVB from causing such damage.

[IguanaKing]

Yeah, its especially needed with the Mystics though. They produce very little visible light. When I first got them, I didn't even think of it in terms of the pupils properly constricting...I just turned them on, went "Holy cow what a great amount of UVB!!!...but they sure are dark. I guess I'll keep my old fluorescent fixture along with the ordinary lamps in them."