Help with MVB for Sulcata indoor enclosure

[Chloe93]

Hi all! I am new to this forum (based in UK), and am expecting my sulcata baby to be delivered on Monday. I have brought a large ceramic dome clamp lamp with 100w MVB, but there seems to be a lot of contradiction around MVBs on here and other pages especially with regards to pyramiding? Please can someone advise if I need to return what I have brought and get replacements before Monday!

Thank you!

Chloe

 

[wellington]

The MVB used fo be the best bulb out there. It has been found to cause pyramiding even in a closed chamber high humidity enclosure. They are no longer recommended specially for babies. Use a flood bulb for basking, floursecnt tube light for uvb and ceramic heat emitters or reptile heat panels for heat.
Follow the caresheet in the sulcata section and the closed chamber threads.

 

[Tom]

Hi all! I am new to this forum (based in UK), and am expecting my sulcata baby to be delivered on Monday. I have brought a large ceramic dome clamp lamp with 100w MVB, but there seems to be a lot of contradiction around MVBs on here and other pages especially with regards to pyramiding? Please can someone advise if I need to return what I have brought and get replacements before Monday!

Thank you!

Chloe

The Best Way To Raise A Sulcata, Leopard, Or Star Tortoise

I chose the title of this care sheet very carefully. Are there other ways to raise babies? Yes. Yes there are, but those ways are not as good. What follows is the BEST way, according to 30 years of research and experimentation with hundreds of babies of many species. Babies hatch during the...

tortoiseforum.org

There are four elements to heating and lighting:

1. Basking bulb. I use 65 watt incandescent floods from the hardware store. Some people will need bigger, or smaller wattage bulbs. Let your thermometer be your guide. I run them on a timer for about 12 hours and adjust the height to get the correct basking temp under them. I also like to use a flat rock of some sort directly under the bulb. You need to check the temp with a thermometer directly under the bulb and get it to around 95-100F (36-37C).
2. Ambient heat maintenance. I use ceramic heating elements or radiant heat panels set on thermostats to maintain ambient above 80 degrees day and night for tropical species. In most cases you'd only need day heat for a temperate species like Testudo or DT, as long as your house stays above 60F (15-16C) at night. Some people in colder climates or with larger enclosures will need multiple CHEs or RHPs to spread out enough heat.
3. Ambient light. I use LEDs for this purpose. Something in the 5000-6500K color range will look the best. Most bulbs at the store are in the 2500K range and they look yellowish. Strip or screw-in LED bulb types are both fine.
4. UV. If you can get your tortoise outside for an hour 2 or 3 times a week, you won't need indoor UV. In colder climates, get one of the newer HO type fluorescent tubes. Which type will depend on mounting height. 5.0 bulbs make almost no UV. I like the 12% HO bulbs from Arcadia. You need a meter to check this: https://www.solarmeter.com/model65.html A good UV bulb only needs to run for 2-3 hours mid day. You need the basking bulb and the ambient lighting to be on at least 12 hours a day.