Party Pythons

Sometimes when the temps are good at night i will turn off the light and let the heat pad do all the work and i find that sage will come out more often with no light on with the light on i will be lucky to get a head pop out Schurke could care less though he comes out all the time at night he will even curl up out side his hide they have too different personality's.

they come out more often when the light is off because they are nocturnal. Regulating a light schedule is good for them, IMO. As for me, I don't use a light because my pad does all the work and the temp in my house. The pad goes from high in the day to low at night. Hydra always come out at night when the house lights go off, IN FACT, i see her coming out now as I type. lol, shes going to have a nightly soak which she does every night, hence the name hydra.

i also wouldn't recomend leaving the light on for 24hrs. it causes stress and 12 more hours a day on your electric bill.

sorry i didn't mention its a red light they can't really see it thats wy it seem weird to me.

Hmm, they say that the red light is not seen, but I actually wonder about that claim. I use to use the red light, but quit cause my snakes never came out then. Now I use a heat pad and heat emitter.

heating pad for me. no lamps. straight pads.

Flourescents on timers for sake of regualrity (no breeding yet), red overhead as needed. If you are using a red light make sure that it is not coated etc - we tried to save a few bucks by getting red bulbs (just generic red bulbs) and noticed after about a week the coating was thinning and the coloration was shifting to orange and thus becoming visible to the snakes - janked that caca before they got stressed. It'll be warm enough soon we can forego the (red) lights altogether.

I use an infared heat lamp and a heat pad. The heat lamp leave a 90-95 degree basking area (also where the warm hide is) and leave the rest of the tank at about 80 degrees. The only times that I have used the heat pad is during the winter months when the heat lamp can't keep up (left the cool side around 70 degrees = not acceptable)

The infared lamp stays on all the time, and I see Amber out at night all the time. The light doesn't seem to bother her sleep cycle one bit.

Flourescent lighting is great when when you dont want it to build up heat. But like Wizill said heating pads are the most important heat source for ball pythons. They could care less if its daylight outside they spend that time in their hide catching some ZZZ's. I got a new night lamp its one of those blacklight kind. And i dont know why because i am switching to a underbed storage box this weekend, i dont know what i was thinking no matter i got it free anyway.

Light cycles WILL be important if you plan on breeding, though.