How do you observe your BP?

Our BP's are noctournal so how do you observe them? Lately I have been able to watch whenever my thermostat kicked on as I was heating with either a red or blue (black light) bulb. Now however, my new cage is coming in and the belly heat that is routed in should be sufficient. How will I observe my buddy at night now? :(
I've thought of black light flourescent bulbs or something to that effect - or like a red party bulb kind of deal but i really don't want to throw off his cycle and I read earlier (Smulkin was saying, I think) that red bulbs after a while start "leaking" or giving off visible rays thus affecting the snakes light cycle and causing stress. What can I do?

Just sit around after 10:30, they get super active.

I've never had problems with my red bulbs, they don't leak I don't think. Depends which red bulbs you use I suppose.

well this is what I am going to be using on my ball's cages. I am going to install a DIY moon light, I use these for my fish tank because it imitates the spec. of light that is requiered to get fish to breed. I really looks just like moon lights, so your snake will think it is night time.
This is a thought if you like everythign to be natural like me

thanks
JR

DIY moonlight? How do you make one?

Yeah, how would I go about making one? That sounds great!

Jonah, the only time that a red lite will leak is if it is a regular bulb with a red coating (paint basically) over the cover of it. You can see the paint peeling off of the party lite. If you get an actual red bulb, you should be straight!

thanks Eddie I actually havea real nice 100watt ExoTerra red bulb that I bought in March but I wasn't sure if it was just party bulbs or what that lost their spectrum. Sweet I'm taking out my 75watt Black Light ESU bulb then ... that thing doesn't raise the ambient enough. :) I'm gonna see if I can't get links to that moonlight stuff cuz that sounds AWESOME!

EDIT Here is what I've turned up-
http://www.ball-pythons.net/index.ph...&p=31950#31950

I will do a little write up and post it here. If you would like I can do a full write with diagrams, if it was to go in the DIY section. You can get all the parts from Radio Shack and the cost is about $10.

Just to give you a hint on what parts and work it takes here we go:
you need just normal old wire(nothing special)
1 12v adapter, if you have old cordless phones you can just use one of those
and 2-? amount of leds, try to find the ones that are about 420nm. Those emit the right light to mimik moonlight.

thats all you need. you just wire them together and boom instant moon lights. I usually do a little more work so the light are fixed, like getting a piece of 1/2" pvc and drilling holes in it and placing the leds in that. makes them a bit cleaner and makes it easy to place them how you want.

So if you guys would like this in the DIY section, just give me a holler and I can do a full write up and give a spet by spet process w/ picture. I am planning on building one in a few days, so I could do it then.


thanks
JR

Wow! yeah that would be great and good ideas - I researched last night and this is the stuff I came up with:
http://www.ball-pythons.net/index.ph...&p=31950#31950

A DIY on this would be great!