Lighting a Russian Tortoise

"Welcome to Regal Reptiles. We are going to talk about the lighting needs of our Russian tortoise or tortoises. Russian tortoises, all tortoises and all turtles have very important light requirements. It is important that they have a lamp that contains UVA as well as UVB. The best source for that I find a self mercury vapor bulb. You have to read the fine print to find out where it says that but somewhere around there it will say self mercury vapor bulb. The other kinds of bulbs that you will find are incandescent bulbs these guys here are incandescent and you are going to notice a big difference in price. The incandescent bulbs are anywhere from $4-$11 and they are not going to provide the vitamins that you need; these are only for extra heat. Our Russian tortoise is going to have a pad for his extra heat and he's going to have this light during the day which gives off UVA as well as UVB. You have to put that in a nice big clamp fixture, the bulb is going to screw into here and the fixture is going to clamp onto the enclosure. That will keep him a nice warm area with a full spectrum light that gives him the required UVA or UVB and he can get away from the heat and still can get the UVA and UVB."