Regular standard black light (for night view)

[Diamond Serpents]

Hi first post here, got my first BP 3 days ago hes a pinstripe and a awesome lil dude. Anyways I did a lot of reading before getting one but I have one question I cant seem to find a answer for.

Can I use a regular incandescent black light for night viewing? (I don't wanna disturb and stress him out) Why pay 15 dollars for a 75 watt one that has a picture of a lizard on it at Pet-co, when I can buy one for 2 bucks at Walmart. Here is a pic of the one I picked up from Walmart.

Also his main source of heat is a UTH. Thank you

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/98/blacklight.jpg/

[Skittles1101]

I think as long as you have a dimmer on it so it isn't as powerful it wouldn't be much of an issue. Just remember that any lamp/light will plummet your humidity, and it will also affect your heat. As long as you take those two things into consideration and find ways to even them out with the light it wouldn't do any harm.

[Vypyrz]

I thought you might find this interesting, and to BP.net...

Black Lights

©1996 Melissa Kaplan



Just as the meaning of the term "full spectrum lights" has been perverted by lighting manufacturers (using them to refer to both UVB-producing fluorescents as well as non-UV-producing incandescent bulbs), the term "black light" is causing confusion. There are the real black lights (the BL and BLB fluorescents, the former of which is safe for reptile use for providing UVB and A, the latter the so-called "poster lights" which cause eye damage), and the incandescent "black lights" which include poster/Halloween type lights that cause white clothing to glow purple-ish, and the "black phosphor" reptile lights designed for nocturnal reptile heating, and the dark, but not dark enough for nighttime reptile heating, neodymium lights.

BL fluorescents may be used to provide UV for reptiles during the day - but you still need bright white light to promote basking, so you might as well stick to using a Vita-Lite or one of the other white-light-&-UV-producing fluorescents. In the days before the higher UVB lights were made, some herpers who kept lizards who in the wild would get higher UV (tropical, montane and desert fauna), used BL lights in addition to the Vita-Lites to provide higher levels of UV for their lizards. With the new higher UV lights, this is no longer necessary.

Never provide UV at night. Just as the sun doesn't shine at night, so too should we be providing a comparable UV- and light-free periods for our animals, be they nocturnal, diurnal,or crespuscular. If you need to provide heat at night, use the nocturnal reptile incandescent light bulb, a high enough wattage dark red, blue or green light bulb (not the so-called "party lights" that produce bright colored light), or a ceramic heating element. During some parts of the year, a people heating pad in or under the tank may provide sufficient heat in the enclosure for the reptile if heat is prevented from escaping from the top of the enclosure.


www.anapsid.org/blacklight.html