Lighting Question

[BMXer1654]

I got a red spot light at the hardware store last night for my tokays' night time heat, in there new. big custom cage. But it is pretty bright and more of a pinkish color after its lit up. I always thought red lights dont bother tokays at night, but there eyes will dialate to it more than my other red light.

Is it possible that it could make it seem like day time to them?

If so, do you have any other lighting suggestions for a 3ft tall cage?

 

[Russ90]

Hi

I also used to use red bulbs for night time heating/viewing with some of my geckos as when i first started out many people told me that geckos can't see red light. However, my geckos showed a noticeable difference whenever the red light was on at night as they would generally come out in the open far less than usual. Maybe it was just the type of red bulb i used but i'm sure they can see it to some degree.

Since then i have stopped using red bulbs and now use the Moon-glo bulbs which, although not quite as bright as the red bulbs, seem to provide a more natural night time light level and all my geckos have been far more active when using these. (personally i think the tanks look alot nicer lit up in a moonlight blue colour aswell, but that's just my own preference!).

Alternatively, if it's only for nightime viewing purposes you could use LED's (these look really cool!)

Aquawave submersible any aquarium led light Blue 260 on eBay (end time 09-Nov-09 16:32:14 GMT)

I have seen these on someone's tanks and they really did look amazing. They didn't seem to bother the geckos, are waterproof, come in different size strips and different colours. Will be fitting some of these myself soon!

Hope that helps!

 

[NathanSoto]

Hmm...do you know if it was painted red glass or real red glass? as My geckos notice the painted ones and will hide but with the real red glass they didnt and their eyes did dilate a little but not as bad as the painted and they still came out at night.

 

[BMXer1654]

Yes, it is painted red glass, and i cant find a high enough watted moon glo bulb to heat a 3ft tall cage. I dont need about night time viewing, i need night time heat. I had an infra red bulb which was actuall red glass but it was only 50 watts and didnt heat the cage, i think today, i am going to head back to petco and get another infra red that is a higher wattage. There just so expensive

 

[aliceinwl]

If you don't need light, have you thought about one of the ceramic heat emitters? If it's a glass tank you could also look at putting some heat tape wired up to a thermostat or even a UTH on one of the sides.

 

[tokeh]

i use infrared heat lamps fot the night and they work verry well my cage is also 3 feet high and my temp is 20 degrees celsius at night.
they do come out a lot at night and not during the day.
during the day there are two of those heat lamps burning and one at night they are 60 watt. they also exist in 75 and 100 watt. its infra red light not painted glass.
they work verry well.
those moon light bulb almost don't give anyheat at all i tried them before.
look on the internet and search for infra red HEAT lamps. they are in a lot of different watts.
a regular infra red does not give much heat. you must really look for infra red HEAT lamps. they are especially made for reptiles.look at exo terra they do have them.

 

[Riverside Reptiles]

If you don't need light, have you thought about one of the ceramic heat emitters?

I agree that if you don't care about the lighting, a ceramic heat emitter is the way to go. It'll last you 10 times longer than any bulb. And it'll do a far superior job of heating. They come in different wattages just like a bulb would. This can take the place of your daytime AND nighttime heat. And since they don't put off any light, they don't disturb your geckos at night.

 

[ILoveMyTokay]

BMX-
Sounds like you're running into the problems I did when I got Samara her new tank! its a custom thats 3.5 ft. tall. Very nice set up for her, she loves all the climbing space
We searched high and low for ways to heat our tank because nothing seemed to work. We ended up with a dual light fixture that has a day bulb in it, and an infrared night bulb in it that will be replaced with the highest watted moon-glo bulb we can find when it burns out. We also have a heat emitter in a seperate fixture to help keep her tank to acceptable temperatures, and to help keep the humidity down with a waterfall and natural moss in the tank. It has balanced the tank perfectly, we have to thermostats in our tank, one near the top and one near the bottom that read the bottom temp at approximately 83 degrees and the top temp at approximately 85, and when we turn off the day bulbs and have just the night bulb and the heat emitter, we get the recommended temperature drop to work. We just needed to use 2 fixtures instead of two.
Hope it helps!

 

[BMXer1654]

Thanks for the info. And yesterday, i got a 150 watt infra red that doesnt put of near as much light as the spot light, and my tokay was active again at night.

I would like to get or make some kind of waterfall, does it significantly help the humidity?

 

[tokeh]

yes it will.
due to the heat the water of the waterfall will vaporize a litle witch is good for the humidity.:lol:
sorry if my english is not so good:sad:

 

[ILoveMyTokay]

I gotcha, Tokeh
Yes, it definitely helped the humidity in our tank, in fact for a while it raised it up too much, we had to adjust the level of output from the waterfall so that it wouldn't evaporate so quickly and condensate on the walls as heavily as it did. We purchased our waterfall, an example of what we have is here:
Exo-Terra Natural Waterfall Provides an Exotic Watering Solution for Your Pet

I recommend it, it works great minus a few issues we had at first with the water leaking out the back of it and having to seal it up a little bit better. Paul and I aren't very "craft" inclined, so unfortunately we didn't build our own We also live in Minnesota, there isn't a lot of natural "arboreal" material around for inspiration, so we actually spent a lot of time just sort of haunting this forum and looking at other peoples set ups to see what they had done with their tanks, and read what was working for them and not.

 

[Emily]

A little late on the reply, but BMX...next time you want a high wattage IR bulb, ditch PetCo and head to Home Depot/Lowes, etc. You can get a big red heat light for cheap(er): SYLVANIA at Lowe's: 250-Watt Heat Lamp Red

Ilovemytokay: can you give me the lowdown on how you sealed up the back of the waterfall? I'm having the same exact problem!

 

[BMXer1654]

i got a 150 watt. The 250s from the hardware store are to hot.