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relationship between lighting and activity?

n1ck

n1ck

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i was wondering if the lighting in the viv. has a direct influence on the activity of my snake. the reason for my question is because i have one red heatlight as the lighting source for her viv. i leave this on all the time. my room stays rather dark on its own. i notice that when i turn my room light on to brighten up her living area that shes a little more active in exploring around her viv. little help?
 
Some corn's prefer light, but on the whole most don't as they are nocternal animal's. What time was it when you noticed the activaty when you put the light on? I only ask because 1 of mine sometimes (not to often, but occasionally) will come out when the light is on, where as my other 3 all head for the hide boxes.
 
just at any point it seems. i wonder if my "red" heat bulb is too much light for her? only thing is i cant find anything else to put off enough heat for her. i have a UTH for her but it still gets really coool in her viv. without the light on. i also have one of those blue lights but that doesnt put off enough heat? maybe thats why she hides so much. that red light is really bright...... i thought those were ok for night and daytime use though...... ?
 
I would consider getting 2 seperate light's, a day glo for day time use, and a night glow for night time or 24 hours use. what temp is the surface of the substrate? Any thing between 80 (absolute minimum for day time) and 90 (max day time) with 84-86 being ideal and just the UTH will do if your getting those sort of temp's. Personally i prefere the UTH to lighting for heat, but lighting can be used to good heating effect as well.
 
my room stays pretty cool so the temp without the UTH is around 72 or so on the warm side and like 65 on the cool side. with the UTH and the heat light on the warm side is around 85 - 90 while the cool side is around 75 ..... thats the closest im able to get it to optimal temperature. i just hope that the LIGHT itsself isnt bothering her eyes or something. she does hide quite a bit. tryin to make it as close to perfect as i can so she wont be afraid to show herself :)
 
n1ck,
I don't have an answer for you, just concurrence...because it sounds like I've got a similar situation. When winter rolled around, I had to have a 75 watt red light turned on 24x7 in order to keep the substrate surface temp on the cool side at around 76 degrees on average. I also have an UTH for the warm side, which keeps that end around 85-degrees.

Around the same time that I began using the red light, i started seeing a lot less of my snake. She used to come out daily and lurk around her viv at dusk (hunting time) for an hour or two. Now, I never see her unless I go in after her. The packaging on the Repta*Sun Red Light claims that it's barely visible to reptiles and recommended for evening use, but I'm not so sure based upon my limited experience. On the other hand, perhaps it's a seasonal thing, maybe they can feel the winter, regardless of the articial heat source and just prefer to hide out.

My snake does get natural sunlight during the day, so I don't think that her day/evening cycle is out of whack, but something is definitely different.

On a related note, to make matters worse (from a viewing perspective), I recently switched from a paper towel substrate to aspen chips, and now she can really hide 24x7 - I have not seen her crawl around on the surface since...she remains completely buried.
 
chris - if i may ask, how old is your snake? see ive only had my girl for about 3 weeks now and i havent seen any difference based on my influence. this is why im tryin to find out if something im doing is maybe discouraging her, but from my observation it seems to me that she tries to hide her head from that light a lot. i dont know what else to do for a heat source. i think her night/day cycle may be out of whack because my room is always so dark i dont have her in any place that could receive light. i dont really know what to do. similar to you i was also told that the red bulb was also fine as is the blue bulb. i was told that they liked to bask in the red lights rays and that it would bring her out more. haha. yeah, im yet to see her out enjoying the heat.......
 
n1ck - to answer your question: my snake is approx 18 months old, and I've had her for 6 months.

I'm not an expert and others may chime in here, but based upon what I've read, your snake may still be a little shy as she acclimates to her new home of 3 weeks. Perhaps if there is a lot of activity or ambient noise/vibration in the room, or if the viv is too large, she might not be comfortable coming out from under shelter yet.

Also, regarding the topic of light: If your room is as dark all the time as you say it is (no natural light), you should be running a daylight bulb (neodymium) for about 12 hours per day (like 6am-6pm) and then running your red light bulb at night for viewing and radiant heat. You could get an automatic multi-timer and it will take care of the lights for you. This will simulate a more natural day/night cycle and she may come out at dusk - their hunting hours. This would also be the time to feed.
 
chris, i will look into the daytime light as u suggest and i actually have a timer already so that will work out well. i appreciate all your good feed back. expert or not what you say makes sense so thanks for the help! i will have to let u know if theres any sort of change in her behavior!
 
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