is a black light good for my ball

[candyman88]

i have a black light i turn its on at night looks like he likes it but not sure?Is it ok for him to have the black light on him

[ev477]

I would bet that it's quite annoying for it. It's probably not giving it any necessary nutrients, nor do I think that balls need nutrients from lighting. I am no expert, but it is unnecessary. The only purpose it is serving is to make it look "better," but it has really got to do more bad than good.

[Bloodsong]

Let's see...black lights are mostly soft UV...can age and wrinkle skin and break down vitamin A...considering the fact that Vitamin A deficiency is already a problem for many reptiles I would say turn the thing off. Not to mention the collagen breakdown could lead to shed problems.

Bloodsong

[candyman88]

ionly turn it on at night day time i used a heat light

[Bloodsong]

Only at night? For how long? Two to four hours nightly could do a lot of collagen damage making a shed more likely, in my understanding, to break and become "flaky". I would suggest making the black light a once in a while thing and not a nightly thing for the sake of skipping the hassle every shed of having to try to remove retained skin.

Bloodsong

[Kaorte]

I used a moonlight bulb for a while (just ablue bulb). Is it good for the snake? No. Is if bad for the snake? Probably not.

How can you tell that the snake likes it? Did he tell you? lol (sorry, anthropomorphizing makes me laugh)

[Bloodsong]

Moonlight bulbs are fine. They provide heat along a frequency of the light spectrum that these guys generally don't seem to mind. They also use different filters and paints to tint the glass on the bulb, so the spectrum is not including that soft UV area that can cause the problems I was outlining. Definitely a better idea for night viewing (along with red bulbs which are invisible to reptiles) than your average ravers blacklight (sorry no stereotyping meant by that).

Bloodsong

[DZBReptiles]

I have never used a black light and never thought about the UV aspect but you never know. The snake may like the heat the lamp gives off but the amount of visible white light is so low he cant see it so it doesn't bother him. A red bulb may be a better alternative though. Gives off heat. Still has very little white light but you can still watch him crawl around. Jeff

[FeathersRuff]

Let's see...black lights are mostly soft UV...can age and wrinkle skin and break down vitamin A...considering the fact that Vitamin A deficiency is already a problem for many reptiles I would say turn the thing off. Not to mention the collagen breakdown could lead to shed problems.

Bloodsong

"Backlights only Emit UVA light which is completely harmless, UVB and Mainly UVC light is what causes problems. So you should be fine using them in your cages."
Taken from The Serpent Merchant in another thread.

[chrid16371]

"Backlights only Emit UVA light which is completely harmless, UVB and Mainly UVC light is what causes problems. So you should be fine using them in your cages."
Taken from The Serpent Merchant in another thread.

This is exactly right. I've researched the aspects of different lighting both in the past and now again. UVA is completely harmless and that's all blacklights emit. Its not like its a uvb blacklight, its a basic black light bulb. There is also several articles on the web relating to this topic as well.

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