Reptile Light

Reptile Lights for Your Pet Reptile Setup

Setting up housing for your pet reptile requires the vivarium, heater, thermometer, humidity equipment, lighting, food dishes, and much more. Choosing the right equipment for your reptile terrarium or vivarium will take a bit of thought. You want to ensure your reptile will be content, healthy, and have a long life. Reptile lights are a feature of terrariums you need to put a lot of thought into.

A reptile light will serve several purposes. First of all, reptile lights are like any light- they produce light from a light bulb attached to some style lamp with electricity. The next thing you probably need to know is why you would need reptile lights or one light for your reptile vivarium. Typically the reptiles light will provide a source of heat, natural lighting cycle, and help you see inside the vivarium. Helping you see is of course important, but your room should have a light, so this is really secondary to the other purposes for having reptile lights.

Your reptile if kept in a room without windows or in a darker room will need to be given a natural daily cycle. They need to have 12 hours of sun and 12 hours of darkness or what most closely resembles their natural habitat. The sun rises and then the moon rises, and during the calendar month there are no moons and full moons. Your reptile lighting needs to signify this natural cycle if you cannot offer the true sun and moon.

Heat is also another very important reason for having reptile lights. Consider your reptile’s natural habitat for a moment. Is your reptile used to sunning themselves on a rock in direct sunlight and then moving off to go under a rock or dig into the sand? Most reptiles are. By offering a heat lamp for your reptile they can migrate to the rock, get some sun and leave when they have had enough heat. As you might imagine there are various styles of reptile lights to offer your pet and some of these lights will affect the reptile heating setup as they also give off various amounts of heat. We will examine the various options here for you.

Basking Lamps:

Under basking lamps you have a variety of choices. First you might choose the typical basking lamp, which is a round bulb with high heat output. This lamp offers white light much like the sun. Halogen lights can also be heat lamps for basking. Halogen lights are very bright, but offer a lower heating element to maintain proper temperature in the tank.

The two most common basking lamps are ceramic and infrared. Ceramic heating lamps will provide a great amount of heat, without becoming too hot during the day. It is also just another type of material used and one that holds up to thousands of hours of use. Infrared heating lamps are much different. They are designed as basking lamps only. Infrared heating lamps will not give off any light. Instead, they just provide invisible waves of heat to your reptile for basking. Infrared and UV lamps come in round bulbs and canopy style lights that run the entire length of the terrarium or vivarium top.

Terrarium Canopies:

Terrarium canopies can be infrared or UV, but they are also regular reptile lights. The canopy runs along the top of the enclosure with a fluorescent bulb. The fluorescent bulbs give off less heat, but can be hooked up to a day and night controller to provide the sun and moon effects your reptile might require. The lower wattage still offers enough light, without using a lot of power. You may still require a basking lamp for your pet, though.

Within the canopy style lighting you have the Arcadia and ZooMed UV lighting options. Both of these lights are tubes slightly different than the fluorescent bulbs. They provide more heat at a lower wattage, and still have a long life. In fact UV tends to have the longest life next to the infrared options.

You have a choice in which style of lighting you prefer, but remember it is more important to choose lighting your reptile will enjoy. They need their natural habitat to be healthy and happy. For this very reason when you buy reptile lights you should make sure they will work with the day and night controllers. You have the option of purchasing nocturnal lighting, but then you have to switch out the lights or have another set of lights. The controllers make it easy to switch from day to night and back again with the least amount of work from you.

Reptile Lighting

Reptile Light Products and Information

Offering your pet reptile the proper lighting is imperative to their survival. Reptiles are cold blooded creatures. They are very susceptible to temperature changes. For example a little heat can have the reptile become very warm, but too cool and your reptile could become sick. It probably won’t surprise you to learn there are different types of reptile light products on the market. To help you choose the right one for your reptile enclosure we will offer a little information.

One style of reptile light products is the heat lamps. Heat lamps are used for basking by reptiles. They offer a nice warm place for the reptiles to lay and get a little warmth. These lamps will help the digestion of your reptile also. Not all reptiles require heat lamps. Most of the desert reptiles tend to bask in the warm desert sun. Reptiles in the rainforest have trees and more rain, though the light rarely makes it to the bottom of the forest floor. Heat lamps have different types of bulbs, from red heat bulbs that offer UV lighting to those that are more like the sun in their brightness. Your pet reptile will determine which heat lamp is best.

Of course the bulb is just part of the heat lamp. You will also need reptile light fittings. The fittings can vary almost as much as the light bulb. Some of the heat lamps will attach to the side of the cage at the roof. Others can be placed in a sitting position on the floor of the tank.

Another option for lighting inside the reptile cage will be the UV or fluorescent bulbs. These can run the entire length of the tank. This style of lighting is meant more for seeing into the cage and to act as the sun. These lights can be on or off whenever you wish. Part of the lighting products is the controller. You may want to regulate your reptile’s schedule by creating day and night. The controller allows you to set the light so that it is on during the day and off at night. This is especially helpful if you have a darker room that you keep your reptile in. If a controller is not something you wish to have there are also timers that can help you regulate the lighting a little better.

Reptiles are very easily stressed. You could throw off your reptile very easily by not providing the right lighting. It is very important that you research your pet reptile to determine which lighting is better. There are reptile care guides which will explain everything from housing needs to vivarium lighting requirements. These guides are meant to give you all the information possible, stating which light on the market will be better than the other. Consider for a moment that there are diurnal species of reptiles that need to burrow. They will require a lower lighting option and heat lamp as opposed to other reptiles that might do well with fluorescent lamps.