I would not use it with a tortoise that is not small and its positioning could bring it or its eyes closer to the bulb.

At the 12' height it does give a nice broad pattern of UVI in the 2-3 range that is quite useful in an enclosure with limited height. This is great for plants as you can light a larger area, especially when not dealing with UVB output. It is designed to fan the light into a broader pattern without the focus of the Arcadia. You can immediately see the Sun Blaze is not made for reptile basking, but for Plant lighting. Thanks to a reminder from Will, I got the data out and did the plotting and graphics and can now post the results in an easy to see format commonly used in comparing bulbs. Unfortunately translating that to a easily interpreted chart takes a bit of work and it got shoved and lost on the back burner for a while. So Will sent me a Sun Blaze and I did a plotting of the UVI output at both 12' and 18' exactly from sensor to bottom of bulb. I replied I did not but would gladly do a test comparison with the Arcadia brand I use as a standard. Will had come across some Sun Blaze fixtures that looked promising, so he asked me if I had experience with them. My reptile show partner, Will - Farms and I were looking at various options for sources of fixtures for UVB lights. But even the better brands vary tremendously. I am not even discussing the less expensive hardware brands of T5 fixtures as they are not at all reliable in my opinion. A different fixture with the identical bulb will give totally different reading and require different mounting heights. One variable is the type of fixture the bulb will be used in. They are somewhat pricey so many go without, However, advice then given may or may not be accurate at all. The problem is there are so many variables it is only solved by the use of a Solarmeter 6.5. People often ask how high they should mount their UV bulbs.

Sun blaze t5 ho 44