turtles ????????????

Question

i have a painted turtle and i just got a new light for him at the pet store and they sold me a repti glo 5.0 with a uva 30% and a uvb 5% of vitamin D3 how loing shold i run the light a day and my book seed that u have to be shure you not giveing a D3 overdosage the lighe i have is aone for a high uv requrement is this ok ?

Answer 1

You will NEVER overdose vitamin D3 from a an aritificial UV light. Turtles bask all day in the wild and the sun is 100s of times stronger than the best artificail UV light. No worries about overdosing D3 via lighting. However, if D3 is given orally, you need to be careful.

I know ReptiGlo and I have used it before. The best is keep the lamp as close as possible to the turtle, since most UV lights are very poor and do not give off very much UV light. Most breeders and keepers doubt the amount of UV emitted from the tubes/bulbs from using a UV metre, and so we do not rely on artificial UV to provide the D3 content, instead we rely on food and supplentation. With that said, artifical UV does provide psychological benefits and it should be kept on duirng daylight hours; longer in the summer and shorter in winter. Turtles need regular daylight or else they'll go stir crazy. How you woud you like your light on all day and night.

One more thing about artificial UV light... it does not penetrate water very well, no more than couple of inches. It also does not penetrat glass very well either, especially our doble or triple paned windows. Keep the lamp as close a possible and also use a heat lamp as well. The RetiGlo is only UV and turt still needs heat. They do sell a combined heat and UV lamp, but they are very costly.

Anyway feed your turtle quality pellets, which will contain ALL the necessary calciun and vitamin D3. Bring your turtle outside once a week for 30 minutes, that is more UV than any UV light will provide.

Answer 2

Well, i'm not going to go into real depth so i'll summarize it:

You should leave the bulb on 12-24 hours a day (12 should be fine). When reptiles are exposed to sunlight their bodies start producing D3 on their own, which is basically made so the reptile can digest (also called synthesize, etc.) calcium. So by adding lighting you give them all the D3 they need, if you give them anymore in form of a calcium supplement, etc. with D3 added into it you can possibly poison your turtle. Too much D3 turns toxic. If your going to use a calcium supplement use jurassi cal, cheap, easy to find, and provides enough calcium WITHOUT D3.

Other then that read up some more and make sure you keep the water clean and scrub the outside of it's shell once a week!