# Ball Pythons > BP Husbandry >  Can snakes sleep with red light?

## Laxhitman316

In the subject

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## hughman 125

yeh im pretty sure they dont even notice it. atleast thats what i was told!

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## Laxhitman316

Sorry i ment can balls come out at night and still do their nocturnal duties with a red heat bulb?

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## jason79

I believe they can see the red light but it does not seem to bother them.

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## hughman 125

when i had mine in her big tank, she used to go crazy under the red light for me

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## Laxhitman316

So red light is bad for all the time heat? How about blue or black?

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## WakoNako

I heard Red lights are fine for them becuase their eyes don't see the same spectrum of light as we do.

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## Laxhitman316

Wheres kaorte wen u need her

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## Vypyrz

> Sorry i ment can balls come out at night and still do their nocturnal duties with a red heat bulb?


I don't know whether or not they can see red light or not, but they will still do their nocturnal duties. You could always go with a Ceramic Heat Emitter, same heat, no light...

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## Brian Fobian

I have tried red light with some other of my nocturnal animals (gecko's), and they were very disturbed by this. They did'nt come out at night at all. 

So now I use those blue night bulbs with my gecko's and my bp's, and they don't seem to bother at all.

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## Laxhitman316

Well he is out  tonight doesnt seem to be acting too strange just resting his head on a piece of wood in his cage how would i know if he doesnt like it ?  jus by seeing if hes trying to escape ?

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## Adam Chandler

> I don't know whether or not they can see red light or not, but they will still do their nocturnal duties. You could always go with a Ceramic Heat Emitter, same heat, no light...


I would also recommend a ceramic heat emitter for all the time heat.

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## nicktreb

I'm not sure, but they can see it i know that for a fact.

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## HypoPita

> Well he is out  tonight doesnt seem to be acting too strange just resting his head on a piece of wood in his cage how would i know if he doesnt like it ?  jus by seeing if hes trying to escape ?


Do you mean red incandescent lighting, or infrared lighting? 

I do not know of anyone who turns their heat lamps off for night time because of that reason, so I highly doubt any problems from that. For the first few months when I first started keeping ball pythons, I used tanks with heat lamps. While other factors of the husbandry were causing trouble of sorts, the light from the heat lamps were not a problem. 

buuut let me be the one to recommend belly heat; your snake will thank you.  :Snake: 

Indicators of an "unhappy" snake: (one or more of the following) not eating, pacing, bad shedding, agressive/unusual behavior, irregular bowl movements and urates, eye indentations, unusual lack of tongue flicking, or any other more obvious symptoms. 

-Pita

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Kaorte (05-12-2010)

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## baddawg91

I havnt had a problem with my red light but i have heard uth's are better for heat

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## BOWSER11788

i asked this question a bout 6 moths ago and it got  heated and analyzed, for all-night i heard it was bad not just for snakes but all reptiles, even blue or black, and you can't use just a strait up black light, say one you gt a spencers, you can fiind herp-related ones, i was told just to keep it one for a couple hours for viewing pleasure rather than heat, a CHE, would be best for heat, but those thing get super hot, so you would probely need  a low wattage one

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## kitedemon

I use a dark blue led night lighting it doesn't seems to cause much issues. Pythons vision is a limited full specturm. They see colours but just not as many as we can. I think I read somewhere that it was in the range of 200 differing colours, where we humans can see Millions. You can set your computer monitor to view in only 256 colour and basically that is like a snakes colour vision. 

I figure that dark blue is much like the natural night sky so how bothersome can it be? I'll post the link if I can find it again.
Alex

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## Kaorte

If you need a lamp to maintain a higher ambient temperature, it should be a low wattage red, blue, or ceramic bulb. The light output from the low wattage red or blue bulbs does not seem to bother them much at all. It puts out just as much light as the moon would on a cloudless night. The higher wattage ones will obviously put out more light, which will in turn kill your humidity.

Any heating device you use should be run 24/7. These snakes do not need night drops. This just makes your life easier! No dealing with turning lights on and off or buying light timers.

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## Swingline0.0.1

Kaorte, 
You always have great info. I think YOU should be part of the staff team here!

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## Seru1

Blue lights are supposed to be the "night Lights" I do believe. But a ceramic heat emitter like vyperz said I think would be the best way to go.

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## Laxhitman316

I have 2 uths as it is a 40g breeder and i use the light for ambient temps but  my humidity is perfect as i have the top layered with tin foil . My old black heat light broke and this is all i could find as a replacement atm. I jus wanted to know if the light was acceptable ... should i just go with a  black heat light again? as i would like to see him at least a little at night

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## MarkS

Yes, CHE's are probably better then light bulbs for heating but personally I'm not very fond of either one.  I use Heat tapes or heat cable for all of my snakes.  I just think that overhead heat from bulbs etc dries out the air too much and you end up with shedding problems from too low humidity.  I much prefer heat that comes from the bottom up.

As far as being bothered by the light, just make sure the light doesn't shine in the hide box and you should be fine.

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## kitedemon

The ceramic heat emitters are likely the best for an additional heat source. The are designed for that job. Personally I have a night lighting so I can see the night time activity. The UTH do the heating job.

On a slight side note pythons (and some others) would "see" I guess sense is a better word, ceramic emitters. Pythons hunt using IR (heat) and would also sense the heat it gives off.

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## Angry J

I have my adult male in a 40G tank, with a UTH providing belly heat on the warm side and a dark blue light for ambient heat.  I've been using this setup for a while, and it works well for me and my snake.  He comes out at night to take drinks and roam around, then goes back in the hide when he's finished.  The blue light never seems to bother him, nor does the red light on my other snakes.

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## DLoc

I use a infrared not "red light" I've read posts on the net that claim that any light used for heating besides ceramic emitters and infrared light can cause harm, possible blindness if if using desert type heating lamps. According to the care sheet from this site "And finally, overhead heat in the form of light bulbs or Ceramic Heat Emitters (CHE). A CHE screws into a socket like a bulb, but provides only heat without any light. These can be used as a supplement to a UTH to help maintain warm enough ambient temps.

Bulbs and CHEs can work, but tend to dry out the air making it difficult to maintain healthy humidity levels. Also keep in mind that ball pythons are nocturnal creatures, and therefore a bright white light shining into their enclosure can cause stress. Red or blue "night" bulbs are best. Make sure that all such heat sources are out of reach of your snake or they will get burned!
"
I don't think they actually see infrared light, more or less I believe that they sense it with their labial pits. Mine acted a little weird for about a week and a half after adding a infrared 50 watt. (of course any change to their enclosure may cause stress.) 
This is taken from a study, I found the abstract here. 
"The ability to detect infrared (IR) radiation is a characteristic trait in boids and pitvipers. These snakes possess highly sensitive IR receptors, which enable them to perceive IR sources and assess their direction and distance independently of visual cues. Electrophysiological studies have been conducted to determine IR detection thresholds in boids and pitvipers. This, however, is the first behavioural study that focuses on the detection threshold of a boid snake to IR stimuli. Blindfolded ball pythons Python regius were exposed to a moving IR stimulus of constant size and temperature at various distances (10–100 cm). Distinct behavioural changes during stimulus presentation (S-form posture, freeze and fix, follow and fix) allowed quantification of the behavioural responses. The threshold to elicit behavioural responses was used to assess the IR detection threshold. The results revealed that P. regius  can detect a moving IR stimulus resembling a mouse in temperature and size up to a distance of 30 cm, which corresponds to an irradiance contrast of 38.83 × 10−6 W cm−2. This irradiance contrast detection threshold value is about one-third lower (reveals a 1.5 times higher sensitivity) than the results from earlier electrophysiological studies."

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Angry J (05-13-2010),_Chocolate Muffin's_ (05-13-2010),Laxhitman316 (05-13-2010)

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