UVB help needed. Coil or T5

[bradles73au]

Hi all. I apologise in advance if this has been posted elsewhere. I am in the process of building a new enclosure, been a bit time consuming at present, so in the meantime, I plan on moving my baby Beardie into an enclosure while not full size, will certainly suit his needs better than his current setup that was aimed more at aboreal species. The new enclosure I wish to put him in is around 800L x 500mmW x 500mmH. I have installed a Philips 100w floodlight which maintains a basking temp of 42 on a hide sitting directly on the base of the enclosure and 30cm clearance between basking and bottom of light. Yemp on the cooler end is reading around 28. I was also using a coil 26w Exo Terra compact 150 10.0 bulb over his current enclosure in a dome fixture on top of mesh. I was wanting to install the bulb in the same manner as the philips, through the mesh with no obstruction and gaining full us of the UVB bulb. My dilemna is, I am not sure of the minimum distance to have the bulb from anything my beardie may be on to prevent injury. I well respected person in the reptile world gave me the advice of still going above mesh and running branches up which is a good idea too only, there is a 45mm strip of mesh running length ways along the top with glass either side. I would assume then that over the top may not be an option. I was tossing the idea of mounting some sort of T5 system internally to cover 2/3 of enclosure but not sure if that would be too strong either. Thoughts and help greatly appreciated. Also, if someone can decipher the mumbo jumbo on the exo terra bulb desciption, will relieve my headache. At the top it rates 5star which refers to beardies and distances being 4 inches which I think would be way too close lol

 

[dragonlover1]

First up I would advise you to get rid of the glass enclosure.
They don't hold heat and you will be using bigger globes and more power than you need just to maintain heat as heat rises and just goes straight out the roof
His forever home should be at least 120x60x60, beardies are big lizards, I keep mine in that size with 75W heat lamps.
Back to the UV, anyone who tells you to put the UV on top of the mesh has no idea what they are talking about. Mesh cuts up to 90% of the UV depending on the size of the mesh so should always be mounted inside. I've also heard people say their beardy basks near the window and gets the UV this way, but this is another fallacy as glass cuts UV as well.
UV lamps should be a maximum of 30cm from your dragon, you mention 4" (10cm) as the minimum. This is acceptable if you have the branches running up at angle which is almost compulsory so your scaly friend can choose his basking spot.
T5 is a good option but you need to mount them higher as they are more efficient so your 50cm enclosure is too low

 

[bradles73au]

First up I would advise you to get rid of the glass enclosure.
They don't hold heat and you will be using bigger globes and more power than you need just to maintain heat as heat rises and just goes straight out the roof
His forever home should be at least 120x60x60, beardies are big lizards, I keep mine in that size with 75W heat lamps.
Back to the UV, anyone who tells you to put the UV on top of the mesh has no idea what they are talking about. Mesh cuts up to 90% of the UV depending on the size of the mesh so should always be mounted inside. I've also heard people say their beardy basks near the window and gets the UV this way, but this is another fallacy as glass cuts UV as well.
UV lamps should be a maximum of 30cm from your dragon, you mention 4" (10cm) as the minimum. This is acceptable if you have the branches running up at angle which is almost compulsory so your scaly friend can choose his basking spot.
T5 is a good option but you need to mount them higher as they are more efficient so your 50cm enclosure is too low

Cheers for the reply. Am in the process of building a formply enclosure in those dimensions. Just wanting him in something sustainable until complete