Hermann tortoise table & UV bar setup

Switching from a wooden vivarium to an open tortoise table is one of the best moves you can make for a Hermann tortoise — better airflow, easier temperature gradients, and far more space to roam. Reptile welfare is almost entirely determined by getting the environment right: temperature gradient, UV lighting, humidity, and substrate all need to match what they'd experience in the Mediterranean scrubland they come from. Get it wrong and you're looking at chronic stress, metabolic bone disease, and shell problems. To point you in the right direction — how old is your tortoise, what size table are you working with, and is the UV bar the main thing you're replacing, or are you building the whole setup fresh?

Good — you're right to ditch the compact. They produce a very narrow beam, the UV drops off fast with distance, and for a tortoise that roams the whole table you end up with a tiny patch of usable UV and everything else in the dark. A linear T5 HO tube covering most of the table length is what you want. For a Hermann at that age on a 120cm table, what's the approximate distance from the tube to the basking surface — are you mounting it flush on the underside of a mesh lid, or is it raised above on a bracket?

Perfect — at 25 to 30cm you want a UV Index of around 2.5 to 3.5 in the basking zone, which is Ferguson Zone 2 to 3 for Hermann tortoises. The Arcadia T5 HO 12% Forest UV Kit in 1100mm is my clear recommendation here. The 12% tube hits the right UV intensity at that mounting height without being too intense for a juvenile, and the 1100mm length will flood most of your 120cm table with usable UV rather than leaving cold spots at the ends. The kit comes with a reflector which is important — without it you lose roughly 50% of the UV output. Run it for 10 to 12 hours on a timer alongside your basking lamp and she'll be getting a proper Mediterranean photoperiod.

No — at that mounting height the 12% tube is well within safe range for her age. The concern with juveniles is more about making sure they can thermoregulate properly and move away from the UV if they want to, which an open table handles naturally. What you don't want is a compact bulb directly overhead in a confined vivarium where they can't escape it. With a linear tube and an open table, she'll self-regulate. Just make sure one end of the table is cooler — around 20 to 22°C — so she has a genuine temperature gradient to work with alongside the basking spot at 32 to 35°C.

Good choice. One last thing worth doing when it arrives — use a Solarmeter 6.5 or ask in a tortoise keeper group to check your actual UVI at basking depth once it's mounted. Tubes vary slightly and real-world readings are more reliable than estimates. But based on your setup the 12% at that height should land exactly where you want it. She'll be in much better shape in the table than she ever was in the vivarium.