There's an article about the Chester zoo in the UK exposing their frogs for only 20 minutes of uv-b light each month. It's based on research that demonstrates Vitamin D3; synthesized epidermally, has a half life of 15 days and 20 minutes a month is all that's needed. So far it's seems to be working for them i.e. healthy frogs, breeding etc etc. Anyway..could this be a practical way to extend the life dramatically of uv-b bulbs? Unless of course being 'on' doesn't contribute solely to their deterioration and the bulbs just wear out anyway (as quickly) even when not in use..which I doubt. Also the uv-b boosting took place in a separate enclosure where the frogs had no hiding area and were fully expose for the whole 20 minutes. If a Reptisun 5.0 is expected to be effective for up to 2000 hours, then this method would make it useful for 500 years.
