UVB lighting Fire bellied toads!!!

[privet01]

I also discovered, by using the meter around the house, that a few of my "white" spiral fluorescent bulbs put out rather a lot of UVB. Most do not put out any. Some do a little bit. One puts out a lot: 30uW at a distance of a few inches.

It's the phosphor coating of the fluorescent bulb that determines the amount of UV or any other spectrum to come out of the bulb. In fact if the bulbs didn't have a phosphor coating, then it would give off mostly light that is invisible to us including UVa, b and I suppose c. However the phosphor coating is able to convert the invisible light to the visible spectrum.

The lighting manufacturers used to make it easy to find the spectral analysis graphs on their website for the different coatings on their bulbs, but in the last few years it's gotten very difficult to find them. But surprisingly many bulbs marketed for home and office use do give off UVb in as decent amounts as the specialty bulbs. But without knowing which you are getting you just can't be sure because some coatings block the UV entirely. You'd think that for home and office use you'd want the UV blocked, but evidently there is some reason they don't. But they sure don't disclose that in their advertising either.

The top of my viv is screen which I estimate blocks 50 to 60 percent of the light, so I just doubled up on the bulbs awhile back when I became more concerned about it. And the plants do better too from the extra light.

[Pop Alexandra]

You could also try fire rated pot lights. They work great for bellied toads inclosures.