Coloured night lights.

Klaire · 12-19-15, 05:06 PM

There is always a massive discussion and different opinions on this as to what coloured lights won't disrupt sleep of our reptiles or which ones can be turned on but the snake won't see the colour. If i WERE to buy a coloured lamp for night warmth for my Python which colour would be best? Red, blue, purple or black? Thanks guys

**EL Ziggy** · 12-19-15, 05:17 PM

I use the red heat bulbs and they don't seem to bother the snakes at all.

Tiny Boidae · 12-19-15, 05:21 PM

Honestly speaking? If it produces a color, it produces light, and if it produces light than chances are it shouldn't stay on 24/7. They also do have the parts that allows animals to see in color, the cones, it's just to what extent can they see. Even if it wasn't anything extravagant, they'd STILL be able to see, say, a red light as a different shade of whatever color(s) of what they can see. To sum it up, it isn't about what color a lamp produces- it's how much light it produces. That's what matters.

For night time heating, a cermaic heat emitter is an excellent choice. It goes into a lamp as a heat bulb would, and then produces no light- only heat. Although a heat pad would more closely mimic the way a snake thermoregulates at night, a ceramic heat emitter probably won't upset the day/night cycle of a snake.

Ah forgot to add a source. My mistake:
Reptile Vision

Klaire · 12-19-15, 05:30 PM

Cool

yeah I've already gone and invested in a ceramic heat emitter a while ago. But was curious to see what coloured bulbs people use and what their opinions are on the colours. Thanks for the link interesting read

Tiny Boidae · 12-19-15, 05:44 PM

Here's another article I found that has to do with the topic directly:
Colored Lights & Reptiles

Granted, ive never used colored lights as the only basking species I have is diurnal and wouldn't benefit from night-time heating. I still wouldn't trust them though, considering that no matter what color you make it or no matter what marketing ploy you print on the box, it's still a light bulb. There's no getting around that fact. And that means it will disturb an animal's day/night cycles.

**EL Ziggy** · 12-19-15, 10:33 PM

I guess I'll have to reevaluate the heat bulbs. I just found it harder to control the temps with CHEs and the heat bulb helps with night viewing.

Klaire · 12-20-15, 12:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EL-Ziggy

I guess I'll have to reevaluate the heat bulbs. I just found it harder to control the temps with CHEs and the heat bulb helps with night viewing.

Not necessarily, if it works for you and it has never bothered your snakes then just keep it the way it is

And your spot on about controlling the temp with the CHE's ive had trouble in the past with them.

**EL Ziggy** · 12-21-15, 09:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Klaire

Not necessarily, if it works for you and it has never bothered your snakes then just keep it the way it is

And your spot on about controlling the temp with the CHE's ive had trouble in the past with them.

I've decided to try an experiment Klaire. My carpets are in a divided T8. They both have red heat bulbs on a dimmer to help boost the ambient temps. The lights are on 24/7 but I sometimes turn them down at night. I've only turned them off once and my ambient temps dropped to 68F which I think is too cold. I'm going to switch one to a CHE and see if I notice any changes in behavior. I'll switch it up and try it both ways with both snakes for 2 weeks. I'll keep you posted on the results.

Klaire · 12-21-15, 04:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EL-Ziggy

I've decided to try an experiment Klaire. My carpets are in a divided T8. They both have red heat bulbs on a dimmer to help boost the ambient temps. The lights are on 24/7 but I sometimes turn them down at night. I've only turned them off once and my ambient temps dropped to 68F which I think is too cold. I'm going to switch one to a CHE and see if I notice any changes in behavior. I'll switch it up and try it both ways with both snakes for 2 weeks. I'll keep you posted on the results.

Ok cool

, yeah keep me posted this will be an interesting experiment

**EL Ziggy** · 12-21-15, 05:40 PM

And so it begins. My initial thoughts are I don't like not being able to see inside the tank with the CHE at night. The temps are holding steady on both sides.

Humble308 · 12-21-15, 06:07 PM

I'm excited to see how this experienment turns out.

prairiepanda · 12-21-15, 06:19 PM

For heating, I'd go with a ceramic heat emitter. As Tiny said, even if the snake can't see the colour they can still see the light produced. Granted, the amount of light emitted by night view bulbs is much less than a typical basking bulb.

For viewing purposes, though, I like a red light. I use a red-filtered flashlight to check on all my animals at night. Because red has a longer wavelength, it's gentler on the eyes in general and appears less intense than blue(for this same reason I built my PC with red lighting rather than blue or green to make it easier on my eyes at night) Most of my animals don't respond to it in any way, whereas a white or blue light would make them flinch. My geckos are a bit bothered by it, though. They're nocturnal, so more light-sensitive to begin with, and also have their pupils fully dilated at night, so any light bothers them. With the red light, however, they do carry on with their business as usual even though they stop at first until their eyes adjust. Blue or white light makes them run and hide.

A lot of people have found that blue light doesn't usually bother their animals either, but personally I would stick with red, especially with nocturnal species. Since nocturnal species are equipped to see better at night, when most natural light is towards the blue end of the spectrum, I'd expect them to be extra sensitive to blue wavelengths so the blue would likely be too harsh for them.

**EL Ziggy** · 12-21-15, 07:19 PM

@ Panda- So for heating purposes only you'd go with a CHE but for heating and viewing combined you'd go with a red heat bulb and you don't believe the red heat bulb causes any issues? I wish I had ordered the red led strips instead of the blue one for this enclosure

. I'm definitely gonna get rhps and the red leds when they get new enclosures next year.

yeloowtang · 12-22-15, 09:33 AM

my experience is no where near an experiment but a while ago, I took in a few extra emerald tree boas that came with exo terra cages..
while I got pvc cages built for them to match my other ones, i set them up in their cages that all came with red heat lamps..
I kept them that way and modified the tops in order to keep humidity in.. and for the few weeks they were set up that way, they would not act like my others would..

which is to start hunting and exploring their cages when the lights go out, they would always remain in the resting position. They would still eat since the smell of food would get their attention.
BUT
as soon as i removed the red lights from the cages and started either using heat panels or 3 pieces of 12x12 heat tape up in the rear corner, it took 2 nights and they were all acting normal !!!! I had read that a red light will still produce enough light to make it seem like dusk, so night really never gets dark enough... when i did this at first, it wasn't because i had read about that , but because with my arborial snakes heat panels are better, light bulbs will dry out the enclosure.. then reading about it made sense as to why the snakes started acting like they should.. I then tested this with another aquisition and got the same results..
this is by far nothing to compare as an experiment, but my experience so far using red lamps did indeed make a diference.

like Prairiepanda, i use a red flashlight and also use a red heat lamp as a room night light when i'm in the room feeding so i can see better..the light does attract the attention of a few snakes but it doesn't seem to bother them while it's on.

**EL Ziggy** · 01-06-16, 09:27 AM

OK ladies and gents. I've concluded my 2 week comparison of CHE vs. red heat bulbs. I had a harder time dialing in the CHE temps with just a dimmer. When the temps would fluctuate a bit it was harder to get them to move up or down just a few degrees. If they were on a thermostat it may have been different. It was much easier to adjust temps with the heat bulb. The brightness of the bulb helped as a visual indicator of where the temps were. I'd turn the bulb up a little during the day and down a bit at night. I check my temps daily with an IR temp gun. The light from the red heat bulb also didn't seem to bother the snakes at all. My jungle is more usually active than my coastal and I saw no change in either snake's day/night activity levels with the CHE or heat bulb. The biggest issue for me was viewing my snakes at night. I'm a bit of a night owl and watching the snakes at night is one of my favorite activities

. The red heat bulb is perfect and the CHE provides no light. I have an blue led strip inside the enclosure but didn't want to use it in conjunction with the red bulb because I thought that might be disturbing to the snakes. I also like the look of the red light better. There were no humidity issues with either heat source. The jungle had a perfect on 12/17/15 and the coastal had a perfect shed on 1/4/16. The humidity ranged from 38-55% in both sides of the enclosure.
My final analysis is until I get my enclosures with RHP's and red led strips I'll continue to use my UTH to provide a hot spot and a low wattage heat bulb to boost my ambient temps and help with night viewing.