RHP's and radiation

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Originally Posted by Coluber42

The stuff about black body radiation is fairly basic physics; you can easily find more on YouTube or Wikipedia or a high school physics textbook. It's worth having some basic knowledge of how heat works in general, because it can save you a whole lot of $$ in heating and cooling your own house more efficiently, let alone your snake.

I have two 18" T8 fixtures in my ball python's enclosure with Reptisun 5.0 bulbs. Most of the cage is too far from the bulbs for the UV to penetrate, but there are a couple of higher platforms that are closer. My snake does bask openly from time to time, but more often he will mostly curl up in a hide on the upper platform with just a loop of his body sticking out in the UV. He can easily fit completely inside the hide, and when that bulb was burned out that's what he did. But once I got a new bulb, he was back to always having part of his body sticking out. That's called "cryptic basking"; lots of animals do that as a way to catch some rays while staying more hidden from predators.
Snakes don't need UV the way many lizards do (who will get sick if they don't have it) but it still has some benefits. They do need to have a circadian rhythm, and they're from an equatorial region so keeping lights on a 12-hour timer takes care of that.

It goes without saying that the whole thing is that the snake should be able to choose when and whether to hang out under the lights. In other words, there should also be plenty of areas of the cage that are in the shade and hides that are dark inside.

If nothing else, the lights look nice and are good for the plants. It's not the UV that the plants like, it's just the white light in general. The output of these bulbs is a pretty low percentage UV, it's mostly visible light. And the UV they do put out does not make it very far, which is why you also need to have a basking area sufficiently close (but not too close). If the light shines through a plastic cover or a mesh screen, that will stop some of the UV from penetrating too.
So worst case scenario is that the snake doesn't care, and you have some nice looking lights in the cage.

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Yeah I'm pretty young. The funny thing is I wanted to look into taking a physics course in school (university) bc I find all of this fascinating!!! Thanks for all the information and in detail. Not a lot of people are always willing to elaborate. But I'm certainly going to look into this more. May plan is to build a natural Viv with lots of plants and hides and climbing branches and UV light with a RHP inside of a animal plastics T10 I'm excited about doing all of this but I wanted to have an understanding. I subscribe to the idea of understanding how a thing workes so you can fully appreciate it. As well just understanding things in general!

Do you have any pictures of your set up you're willing to share!?

I'm rereading your posts bc it's incredibly insightful!

I'm soaking in all the knowledge lol

Thank you again!


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Yeah - What Coluber42 said LOL Lots of good information there - well done.

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Originally Posted by Coluber42

Ball pythons also have another kind of detector, which are those heat pits on their faces, which detect deep infrared in the spectrum given off by things at around a warm-blooded animal's body temperature.

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I have another question!!!
So then can the ball python see the rhp and see it very well? Bc the rhp is infrared? I wonder if it looks like a big daunting square of light to them all day and all night?

That's just me being curious. If it's a silly question no worries. I've been thinking about this a while I couldn't find any info on it.

I went on and bought a rhp from pro products. I hope his are good.


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Originally Posted by Zuri Indigo

I have another question!!!
So then can the ball python see the rhp and see it very well? Bc the rhp is infrared? I wonder if it looks like a big daunting square of light to them all day and all night?

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not the person you replied to, but i can answer this! i have an AP T8 with an 80 W RHP: when i first put my oldest male in there, he was curious about it for a few days, but now he doesn't even bother with it. yes they can see it, but they learn to live with it and not worry about it.

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Originally Posted by Zuri Indigo

That's just me being curious. If it's a silly question no worries. I've been thinking about this a while I couldn't find any info on it.

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the only silly (or stupid) question is the one not asked, my friend. :)

There has been some research about what snakes can “see” with their heat pits, some done on pit vipers and some on pythons. Plus some on other reptiles’ mechanisms for detecting temperature differences. But not nearly as much as you’d want to be able to have any idea of what the snake really “sees”. At least in vipers (maybe pythons too, I might be conflating different studies?) the heat pits do connect to the visual areas of the brain, so maybe it really is like having an IR camera overlay on top of normal vision. They seem to operate on the basis of detecting temperature differences between things, such as an animal and its background. If you hunt warm-blooded prey in the dark, you are looking for things that are warmer than their background. If you hunt lizards (which thermoregulate) right after dusk in an area that gets very hot during the day, maybe you are looking for thigns that are cooler than their background.

And if you have good heat detectors all over your face, you can use them for more than just finding prey. You can also use them for helping you thermoregulate, because you can look around and find basking spots or refugia at the temperature you need. That’s probably how snakes’ infrared detection abilities originally evolved, because that’s hugely important to an ectothermic animal but it requires a lot less precision than using it to detect prey.

All that is to say - yes, your snake can “see” the heat panel. It’s probably not the same as having the light on all the time though. It can also “see” any other heat source you use even if it doesn’t produce visible light.

But it can make feeding potentially confusing, if you dangle a prey item in front of the RHP. If a ball python usually looks for a 100-degree rat in a 85-degree space, the rat is warmer than the background. If the 100-degree rat is in front of a 150-degree heat panel, it’s cooler than the background. So that can make it harder to target if the snake is used to looking for prey that’s warmer than its surroundings. But it’s easy enough to present the prey from the other side of the cage or whatever and then you don’t have to worry about it.

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Originally Posted by Coluber42

There has been some research about what snakes can “see” with their heat pits, some done on pit vipers and some on pythons. Plus some on other reptiles’ mechanisms for detecting temperature differences. But not nearly as much as you’d want to be able to have any idea of what the snake really “sees”. At least in vipers (maybe pythons too, I might be conflating different studies?) the heat pits do connect to the visual areas of the brain, so maybe it really is like having an IR camera overlay on top of normal vision. They seem to operate on the basis of detecting temperature differences between things, such as an animal and its background. If you hunt warm-blooded prey in the dark, you are looking for things that are warmer than their background. If you hunt lizards (which thermoregulate) right after dusk in an area that gets very hot during the day, maybe you are looking for thigns that are cooler than their background.

And if you have good heat detectors all over your face, you can use them for more than just finding prey. You can also use them for helping you thermoregulate, because you can look around and find basking spots or refugia at the temperature you need. That’s probably how snakes’ infrared detection abilities originally evolved, because that’s hugely important to an ectothermic animal but it requires a lot less precision than using it to detect prey.

All that is to say - yes, your snake can “see” the heat panel. It’s probably not the same as having the light on all the time though. It can also “see” any other heat source you use even if it doesn’t produce visible light.

But it can make feeding potentially confusing, if you dangle a prey item in front of the RHP. If a ball python usually looks for a 100-degree rat in a 85-degree space, the rat is warmer than the background. If the 100-degree rat is in front of a 150-degree heat panel, it’s cooler than the background. So that can make it harder to target if the snake is used to looking for prey that’s warmer than its surroundings. But it’s easy enough to present the prey from the other side of the cage or whatever and then you don’t have to worry about it.

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Freaking excellent information THANK YOU SO MUCH. Lol this is like the best conversation I've had all week. Lmao

So last question I swear! Hahaha for anyone reading this. Which type of thermostat should I buy for it. I read some things about proportional vs something I can't remember. A lot of people seem to like the herpstat. Currently I've been using the jumpstart one that turns off when it reaches the temperature set. And turns on when it drops below it. But should I upgrade to a herpstat. I only have the one snake right now. Tbh. But in the future I might rescue another.

My little noodle is a rescue from a person who wasn't feeding him. Had him in too cold of an environment. And laying in his own feces and urites it was sickening. And no animal deserves that. And honestly he should have never had him. He just had him to take pictures with and look "cool" with his friends. A dumb reason to have an animal. I want to do the best by this noodle see him to a full recovery B4 I take on a new noodle way in the future probably after I'm done with college.


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Originally Posted by tttaylorrr

not the person you replied to, but i can answer this! i have an AP T8 with an 80 W RHP: when i first put my oldest male in there, he was curious about it for a few days, but now he doesn't even bother with it. yes they can see it, but they learn to live with it and not worry about it.

the only silly (or stupid) question is the one not asked, my friend. :)

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Awesome thank you my friend!
That's good to know!

And yeah you're right we should always not be afriad to seek knowledge. [emoji3]


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Originally Posted by Zuri Indigo

Freaking excellent information THANK YOU SO MUCH. Lol this is like the best conversation I've had all week. Lmao

So last question I swear! Hahaha for anyone reading this. Which type of thermostat should I buy for it. I read some things about proportional vs something I can't remember. A lot of people seem to like the herpstat. Currently I've been using the jumpstart one that turns off when it reaches the temperature set. And turns on when it drops below it. But should I upgrade to a herpstat. I only have the one snake right now. Tbh. But in the future I might rescue another.

My little noodle is a rescue from a person who wasn't feeding him. Had him in too cold of an environment. And laying in his own feces and urites it was sickening. And no animal deserves that. And honestly he should have never had him. He just had him to take pictures with and look "cool" with his friends. A dumb reason to have an animal. I want to do the best by this noodle see him to a full recovery B4 I take on a new noodle way in the future probably after I'm done with college.


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Good for you for rescuing an animal in need!

The thermostat you have should be fine as long as it says it can handle the wattage of whatever device you plug into it. A Herpstat will control the temperature to a higher degree of precision - fractions of a degree instead of swinging a few degrees up and down, but I don't think the temperature swings are that big of a deal. Some types (which I think includes Jumpstart, but if you search the forums you'll find better technical details on all the various models) will put the heating device on full blast if the thermostat fails, which is obviously dangerous for the snake if the cage gets too hot. This is a rare occurrence, but it's not unheard of.

You'll have to decide for yourself what things to buy when, but a Herpstat is a good quality piece of equipment that's worth getting at some point although that point does not have to be now. You can always keep the Jumpstart on hand, just in case. It's not bad to have a spare on hand, since it's a pretty important piece of equipment. Plus, you mentioned you might rescue another snake at some point in the future. :)

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Originally Posted by Zuri Indigo

...But in the future I might rescue another.

My little noodle is a rescue from a person who wasn't feeding him. Had him in too cold of an environment. And laying in his own feces and urites it was sickening. And no animal deserves that. And honestly he should have never had him. He just had him to take pictures with and look "cool" with his friends. A dumb reason to have an animal. I want to do the best by this noodle see him to a full recovery B4 I take on a new noodle way in the future probably after I'm done with college......

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:sweeet: Good work helping a noodle-in-need AND for asking great questions. I wish "some people" -those who have them for all the wrong reasons- would just stick to
inanimate objects, not living creatures.

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Originally Posted by Coluber42

Good for you for rescuing an animal in need!

The thermostat you have should be fine as long as it says it can handle the wattage of whatever device you plug into it. A Herpstat will control the temperature to a higher degree of precision - fractions of a degree instead of swinging a few degrees up and down, but I don't think the temperature swings are that big of a deal. Some types (which I think includes Jumpstart, but if you search the forums you'll find better technical details on all the various models) will put the heating device on full blast if the thermostat fails, which is obviously dangerous for the snake if the cage gets too hot. This is a rare occurrence, but it's not unheard of.

You'll have to decide for yourself what things to buy when, but a Herpstat is a good quality piece of equipment that's worth getting at some point although that point does not have to be now. You can always keep the Jumpstart on hand, just in case. It's not bad to have a spare on hand, since it's a pretty important piece of equipment. Plus, you mentioned you might rescue another snake at some point in the future. :)

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ok cool thank you for all the help!
And yeah always I’d like to maybe open up a rescue someday or something I’m not sure yet but it’s going to be after school.
The Herpstat is on sell right now. I want to run it by my boyfriend and see if its possible for us to get one.
Only the redline is on sell rn. I can’t really tell what the difference is in the redline and the regular other than color. But yeah i just wish my AP cage would be here already its been like forever and its killing me! I want to go ahead and set up this little guys forever home. And be happy that he has everything he needs so I can go ahead and just enjoy his company and focus on his recovery.

I can’t really afford the Herpstat bc he had so many vet bills from his previous care he has an RI :( he’s still fighting through.