RHP's and radiation

I always have wondered about RHPs... Do they give off any type of uvb or any type of radiation?

Just curious as I don't fully understand how they work.

No UVB and no "radiation" (the kind that made Godzilla lol) except heat. If I'm not mistaken they are just heat coils sandwiched between non flammable material in a nice aluminum enclosure (at least my Pro Product RHPs are). Here's more information about them http://pro-products.com/pro-heat/

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Originally Posted by BR8080

No UVB and no "radiation" (the kind that made Godzilla lol) except heat. If I'm not mistaken they are just heat coils sandwiched between non flammable material in a nice aluminum enclosure

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That's my understanding as well

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Originally Posted by BR8080

No UVB and no "radiation" (the kind that made Godzilla lol) except heat. If I'm not mistaken they are just heat coils sandwiched between non flammable material in a nice aluminum enclosure (at least my Pro Product RHPs are). Here's more information about them http://pro-products.com/pro-heat/

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Darn I clicked the link and I was really hoping it would go into detail about how they work. But I do understand somewhat from what you've told me thank you.


Have either of you noticed any health benefits from using the rhp? It said on that website there were benefits other than just heat to health.

I guess that's why I was thinking it had uvb or something but I think I was just thinking too far into it when ppl say it's like the sun lol. Thanks for your help I appreciate it! [emoji3]


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Radiant heat panels give off deep infrared radiation, not UV. The radiation in question is called "black body radiation", which is given off by any matter whose temperature is above absolute zero. It's in the electromagnetic spectrum, and its wavelength depends on temperature. Cooler temperature = longer wavelength, hotter temperater = shorter wavelength.

In a way, a radiant heat panel and an under tank heater and a ceramic heat emitter and an incandescent bulb all basically do the same thing: They have a heat element that has a certain amount of resistance and heats up when electricity goes through it. In a 100-watt radiant heat panel, it's a long run of coils where none of it gets all that hot, but it's spread over a large area and there's a lot of it. So you get deep infrared radiation, and a heat source that is safe to touch. In a 100-watt ceramic heat emitter, you have the same amount of power making a smaller amount of coil a lot hotter and it's concentrated in a smaller area. You don't want to touch that. The radiation it emits is still infrared, and still outside the spectrum you can see with your eyes, but it's a shorter wavelength than the RHP produces. In a 100-watt incandescent bulb, the wire that gets hot is just a teeny tiny thin filament, but it gets really freaking hot - like 4,000° F. You might say, so hot it is incandescent. Yeah, don't touch that either.
The incandescent bulb is hot enough that its black body radiation is actually in the visible spectrum, which is why light bulbs were invented. Other things get hot enough to radiate in the visible spectrum too, such as the coils on an electric stove.
UV is a shorter wavelength than visible light, so stuff has to get even hotter to produce it. Welding involves temperatures high enough to produce UV, which is part of why you wear a mask while doing it.

Fluorescent lights work a completely different way, which is why they can emit visible light and UV without getting dangerously hot. That's also why they're more efficient when you only want light and not heat. An incandescent bulb still uses most of its energy to produce heat, with only a fraction of it going toward visible light.

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Originally Posted by Coluber42

Radiant heat panels give off deep infrared radiation, not UV. The radiation in question is called "black body radiation", which is given off by any matter whose temperature is above absolute zero. It's in the electromagnetic spectrum, and its wavelength depends on temperature. Cooler temperature = longer wavelength, hotter temperater = shorter wavelength.

In a way, a radiant heat panel and an under tank heater and a ceramic heat emitter and an incandescent bulb all basically do the same thing: They have a heat element that has a certain amount of resistance and heats up when electricity goes through it. In a 100-watt radiant heat panel, it's a long run of coils where none of it gets all that hot, but it's spread over a large area and there's a lot of it. So you get deep infrared radiation, and a heat source that is safe to touch. In a 100-watt ceramic heat emitter, you have the same amount of power making a smaller amount of coil a lot hotter and it's concentrated in a smaller area. You don't want to touch that. The radiation it emits is still infrared, and still outside the spectrum you can see with your eyes, but it's a shorter wavelength than the RHP produces. In a 100-watt incandescent bulb, the wire that gets hot is just a teeny tiny thin filament, but it gets really freaking hot - like 4,000° F. You might say, so hot it is incandescent. Yeah, don't touch that either.
The incandescent bulb is hot enough that its black body radiation is actually in the visible spectrum, which is why light bulbs were invented. Other things get hot enough to radiate in the visible spectrum too, such as the coils on an electric stove.
UV is a shorter wavelength than visible light, so stuff has to get even hotter to produce it. Welding involves temperatures high enough to produce UV, which is part of why you wear a mask while doing it.

Fluorescent lights work a completely different way, which is why they can emit visible light and UV without getting dangerously hot. That's also why they're more efficient when you only want light and not heat. An incandescent bulb still uses most of its energy to produce heat, with only a fraction of it going toward visible light.

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So ok I have a question also btw thank you for all the detail that's what I needed!

So if I have an enclosure with a RHP and a uvb bulb will that be too much radiation. Like can a pet get cancer or anything from that?


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No, it's not too much radiation. First off, all heat sources produce radiation, by definition. But when people talk about "radiation" that causes cancer, it's the generally the shorter wavelengths they're talking about: x rays, gamma rays, etc; or radiation in much higher doses than is produced by a heat element alone. UV plus a heat source doesn't raise the risk of cancer any more than the UV source does by itself. I read a paper awhile ago about a bunch of reptiles getting cancer from one or two specific models of higher-output UV bulbs. To their credit, the manufacturers did recall and reformulate their products when they found out. Whether or not you provide your animal with UV (I have UV bulbs in my ball python's cage) has nothing to do with how much "radiation" they get from their heat source.

Like I said, EVERYTHING gives off EM radiation, yourself included. Animals have detectors (also known as eyes) to make use of electromagnetic radiation in their environment (i.e, light). 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. That's why you have to heat up their rats in order for them to recognize their food.

There are also other ways of making EM radiation besides just heat. Things like microwave ovens, radio transmitters, LED's, etc, all do that. So it's possible to get an unsafe amount of other wavelengths of EM radiation from sources like that. But not from something that's basically just warm.

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Originally Posted by Coluber42

No, it's not too much radiation. First off, all heat sources produce radiation, by definition. But when people talk about "radiation" that causes cancer, it's the generally the shorter wavelengths they're talking about: x rays, gamma rays, etc; or radiation in much higher doses than is produced by a heat element alone. UV plus a heat source doesn't raise the risk of cancer any more than the UV source does by itself. I read a paper awhile ago about a bunch of reptiles getting cancer from one or two specific models of higher-output UV bulbs. To their credit, the manufacturers did recall and reformulate their products when they found out. Whether or not you provide your animal with UV (I have UV bulbs in my ball python's cage) has nothing to do with how much "radiation" they get from their heat source.

Like I said, EVERYTHING gives off EM radiation, yourself included. Animals have detectors (also known as eyes) to make use of electromagnetic radiation in their environment (i.e, light). 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. That's why you have to heat up their rats in order for them to recognize their food.

There are also other ways of making EM radiation besides just heat. Things like microwave ovens, radio transmitters, LED's, etc, all do that. So it's possible to get an unsafe amount of other wavelengths of EM radiation from sources like that. But not from something that's basically just warm.

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You're so incredibly knowledgeable thank you! Like wow I love learning stuff like this!!!


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Originally Posted by Coluber42

No, it's not too much radiation. First off, all heat sources produce radiation, by definition. But when people talk about "radiation" that causes cancer, it's the generally the shorter wavelengths they're talking about: x rays, gamma rays, etc; or radiation in much higher doses than is produced by a heat element alone. UV plus a heat source doesn't raise the risk of cancer any more than the UV source does by itself. I read a paper awhile ago about a bunch of reptiles getting cancer from one or two specific models of higher-output UV bulbs. To their credit, the manufacturers did recall and reformulate their products when they found out. Whether or not you provide your animal with UV (I have UV bulbs in my ball python's cage) has nothing to do with how much "radiation" they get from their heat source.

Like I said, EVERYTHING gives off EM radiation, yourself included. Animals have detectors (also known as eyes) to make use of electromagnetic radiation in their environment (i.e, light). 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. That's why you have to heat up their rats in order for them to recognize their food.

There are also other ways of making EM radiation besides just heat. Things like microwave ovens, radio transmitters, LED's, etc, all do that. So it's possible to get an unsafe amount of other wavelengths of EM radiation from sources like that. But not from something that's basically just warm.

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Also yes yes yes I want to put uv in my ballpython cage. They said to get a t8 uvb. Do you know anything about those? Which kind do you use? And have you found any benefits!?

You're genius!


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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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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.

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Originally Posted by Bogertophis

: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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Yeah thanks! I love animals.
And..
I wish the same! SOme people really shouldn’t have pets especially if they dont have the right intentions.
These are living creatures and reptiles aren’t treated like puppies (i dont think reptiles would want to be anyway lol) but what i mean to say is... people act like snakes are pests and dont deserve good homes or on the other end of the spectrum they act like they are fashion accessories either in the literal sense :( purses bags and shoes or to be worn around their neck as a trophy or to show off to their friends. And it is cool to have snakes! Heck yeah it is. But I wish people were more mindful of the snakes needs more than their own wants. I hope that all made sense.

Thanks my friend!