Heat Bulbs
 

A discussion on another forum has made me curious about this. Andy Highfield has yet again presented his theory on heat lamps being too concentrated in their beam, and as a result unnaturally heating the carapace. The theory is that this extreme, constant humidity compensates for this. I have to say, he has presented some very good evidence for this.
Anyway, I am not trying to start a debate on the merits of heat bulbs etc., what I am trying to know is what bulbs people use which have a broader beam? Or other heating options which seem to work? Just interested.

I use mainly halogen lamps for heat. A lamp like a Par38 sylvania has quite a big face on it and if the tortoises are small then I think this works quite well. But a small, narrow and hot beam on a larger tortoise means the heat is too localised.

Some lamps are offered in different widths of beam and I reckon we mostly want the wider ones.

Don't quite get our point about humidity though!

Oh my god :shock: Andy has invented the wheel :razz:

I don't see why I didn't see that sooner :lol:

The Sun---Naturally heating the carapace

A Bulb---Unnaturally heating the carapace

I'm just blown away :mrgreen:


Danny

I don't like the mercury vapor lamps because they require a very narrow power source. Any deviation from the current... they go off... quit. If you have a clean power source... they are the best.

In the last couple of years the T5 flourescent bulb has made its way onto the market. There is also the T8 but I believe it is less powerful. These bulbs look really cool.

Andy doesn't really do research... he trys to provide evidence for what he believes.

:lol:
I am using T5s at the moment for light, but would like to provide a heat source as well. I will look into the halogen bulbs.

Out of all the lamps I have tried, the one I most prefer using is the outdoor halogen lamps. They provide a much larger area of heat than a spot lamp.

Yes the outdoor halogen lamps can be great and are not expensive at all. But they are only suitable for really huge enclosures.

The halogens I use are not spots but they don't have the footprint of the lamps designed with outside in mind.

How huge is really huge?

I think we should ask Ross! I didn't use the 'outdoors' halogens which I had bought because it was very tricky to find a way of mounting them indoors. And the only way to find out how far away from the tortoise the lamp should be was trial and error.

Now that my indoors set-up is a large triple bunk bed type thing, there wouldn't be any way for me to mount those lamps far enough away from the tortoises.

I think Kirkie used these in his roofspace enclosure but he doesn't come on here a lot these days.

Haven't had a problem of using them indoor to be honest. They are controlled by thermostats though. I think they work just as well indoors as they do out.