moonglow bulbs

I was wondering does anyone use these for their scorpions and does it bother them?

There's lots of mixed opinions about whether these bulbs are suitable to use with scorpions. I can't remember whether there has been a conclusion on if these are safe to use yet, but you'll find plenty of heated debate about them on various forums.

Anyway, what's wrong with the good old red bulb or a normal bulb for heating/lighting during the day?

I just really liked the moonglows i used them lots for my reptiles makes it nice to watch them cruise around a night,if there's debate on if they are good or not though i think ill use a ceramic or IR thanks for the reply

After the last huge debate, I did a separate study myself. I took a UV emitting LED and a moonglow bulb, measured the resistance of a photo-sensitive resistor and used a friends UV blocking camera lens. I found out that bulbs that say there's no UV output did show results similar to the UV LED. I will see IF I can find the stats I wrote down. But from conclusion, I'd say they do emit UV, so use sparingly at most.

How do you measure UV if you're blocking it? Wouldn't you be measuring everything but UV?

shebeen wrote:

How do you measure UV if you're blocking it? Wouldn't you be measuring everything but UV?

Take measurements with and without the filter, results showed an increase in resistance with both lights when the filter was in place.

I also used a regular household bulb (tungsten filament or whatever the edison bulbs have) and a blue LED for control tests.

AaronCo2 wrote:

After the last huge debate, I did a separate study myself. I took a UV emitting LED and a moonglow bulb, measured the resistance of a photo-sensitive resistor and used a friends UV blocking camera lens. I found out that bulbs that say there's no UV output did show results similar to the UV LED. I will see IF I can find the stats I wrote down. But from conclusion, I'd say they do emit UV, so use sparingly at most.

Ok these are my thoughts.

The Exo Terra moonglow produces UV light, but though thanks to the neodymium coating on the glass it is very low.

I use the exo terra sunglo 25 watts in all my scorp tanks and have had no problems with them.
And it does contain UVA in low levels. As do most commercially available incandescent bulbs.
I have asked several dealers, and spoken to several sources that keep invertebrates and they neither have had any problems with it.

Here's the point I am trying to make.

The Sun contains both UVB and UVA, scorpions in the wild don't go up in smoke when they are exposed to it.


However, in an artificially created environment such as a terrarium, the scorpions must always have the ability to display it's Natural behavior, in this case I mean, HIDING. It's in it's nature to hide from bright lights, to possibly, prevent desiccation or some other biological imperative.

Prolonged exposure to UV can harm the exoskeleton of the scorpion, such as overexposure to UVB blacklight etc.

As long as it has the ability to get away from the light, and it's not constantly exposed to it, I see no problem with using this. Nor do I have ever heard of or seen any cases which report scorpion problems due to these bulbs.

These are my opinions and experiences.




Joey

I was always under the impression since the purples and red are out of their colour spectrum for vision that this is what poses a problem. If it was a white light emitting UV, they would hide, but since it's not visible with the moonglow, they have no visual cue that they're standing in the light.

I think that if you want to use moonglow that's fine, but I wouldn't use it all the time, maybe just when guests are over?

The easiest parallel I could come up with for example; would be if you go outside and its mostly cloudy, but still get a sun burn from all the refracted light/UV. That's what I compare it to in my mind, but maybe someone with better understanding could chime in?

With regard to scorpions' reaction to different wavelengths, research by Doug Gaffin suggests that there's more going on than just visual recption.

Light wavelength biases of scorpions

"Previous physiological studies have indicated that scorpion eyes are maximally sensitive to green wavelengths with a lesser, although pronounced sensitivity to UV wavelengths (Machan 1968; Fleissner & Fleissner 2001). Response to red and IR was negligible. In our first two experiments, peak behavioural activity occurred under UV, followed by green wavelengths. Sensitivity to red light appeared low and similar to activity in IR. Red light and IR light sensitivity may amount to essentially the same stimulus level as ‘no light’ to these animals. This apparent inversion of sensitivity to UV and green wavelengths in behavioural trials compared to retina physiological tests warrants further investigation. If this holds consistent, it suggests that scorpions have a method beyond retinal sensitivities for discriminating spectral wavelengths."

Awesome article find Shebeen, and more interesting when I have time to read the whole thing.

Very nice info guys i went ahead and got a red IR bulb but so far none of my critters has been cruising while im awake i think they know im spying on them constantly lol

Has anyone used blue LED lights? Not the blacklight LEDs used in hunting torches, but just blue colored lights often used in fish aquariums. I have some for night viewing, but I don't want to use them if blue light is stressful.