...[N: damn, I got a sunburn from these lamps! Exposition was around 7-10 minutes and I get the back of my neck and right hand hot!...G: n terms of the Aquamedic, how close were you to the lamp when you were burned? I assume worse would happen if you placed your hand in front of a zoo UV-b lamp at the same distance. If you looked at a zoo lamp (within a certain distance) I bet you would go blind. At 20" the Osram emits more UV-b than would ever reach the face of the Earth. You would only find that irradiance (photons hitting a target, ie. you) if you were about 9k-10k feet (more than 3k meters) up a mountain in mid summer at noon near the equator. Repite.com (MegaRay) will not sell the zoo lamp unless one owns a UV-b meter, works at a zoo, or is trained in the lamps use.It seems like the Aquamedic lamp is more broad spectrum into UV-a and PAR, yes? That would be good to add to a grow, but I doubt it offers enough UV-b. Well, let me rephrase that. I doubt it will emit the 'ideal' level of UV-b: 375 uW/cm^2. But, the Aquamedic may emit over 140 uW/cm^2 which is what I consider to be the lowest level of UV-b irradiance one would want to use to supplement their garden. I would have to look at the lamp, but I doubt there are UV-b readings available. Do you know of any such readings?...N: About half a foot]....i have been doing lots of "research" on bulbs lately. i am really intrested in cmh's and believe they are very prommissing but, if we are going to b growing with something its our responsability to look into certain things and make sure we dont harm ourselves or others (power of suggestion)...if the ub-b levels on the aquamedic lights are so high and it took 7 to 10 min...well how much uv-b are these new cmh bulbs emitting?? something to look into....imho