UTHs or Lights

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue Sep 27, 2005 10:26 am

Which one costs less? Which one is more effective? Which one do you suggest? I have a 30 gallon tank, with and aquarium hood that can hold one of those long lights. What watt, and what type of bulb do you suggest getting if I decide on using a light? Also, if my hermit crabs are molting in a tank with a UTH and they go all the way to the bottem, will they get burned?

Willow · Post by **Willow** » Tue Sep 27, 2005 10:58 am

The crabs can overheat if they bury over the UTH. I believe the risk is minimal if you keep the UTH on all the time, but if you turn it on and off, a crab might bury over it while it's off and then overheat when you turn it back on. As I said, the risk is minimal, but it's still a very real risk. I've had a few crab deaths I think may have been caused by the UTH, so I'm not using one now. Instead, I have a 60 watt heat bulb for them (it's a 75g tank). It sounds like the fixture you have is for a flourescent light, they don't emit much heat. If you want to use a bulb for heating, you'll need to get an incandescent light fixture. For a 30g tank, I'd recommend trying a 25 watt bulb first, if that doesn't heat enough, you might be able to go to a 40 watt. But nothing higher, you don't want to cook the little crabbies.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue Sep 27, 2005 11:21 am

Thank you Julia, I will have to start saving my allowance, do you think Petco would carry something like that? And, about how much would one cost?

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue Sep 27, 2005 5:53 pm

just go to any electrical store and buy a lamp kit which icludes the cable and fixture...i doubt pet shops will hold stuff like that, and if they do, it would probably retail for a lot more than you could get it at an electronics/eletrical store. I'm from Australia, so I can't really recommend any store names

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 1:22 am

Pet stores do carry fixtures made to be used with heating lamps, around here they retail for $15-20, depending on what extra bells and whistles you get on them. You might check petdiscounters.com, you'd probably find an even better price there. I use a combination of lights and a small UTH on my 40 gal tank, with the UTH on the lower part of the glass near one corner, so that the substrate there is piled up higher than the UTH covers. I also have 2 25 watt daylight lamps that are on during the day, and one 40 watt moonglow light that's on at night. My temp seems to stay pretty steady right around 75 degrees or so, with the corner that has the UTH being slightly warmer for anyone that prefers it. I found a power strip with a built in timer that I'm using for my lights, when the daytime lights go off, the night time light comes on. It's also got several outlets that aren't connected to the timer, for things like the UTH, and humidifiers and what not. The power strip I got at K-Mart, and it was around $15. Worth every penny, too.