New Home Butterscotch

[EasternGirl]

I edited the last post.

[Eight]

From what I understand about lighting, almost all light bulbs produce some uva (unless you buy the more expensive ones designed to block out the uv) and its the uvb which is damaging to albinos?

UVA for Heat
UVB for artificial sunlight.

I may be wrong but its just how I understood it. Hence exoterra slapping UVA all over their bulbs when its UVB that most reps need (so people tend to buy their basking bulbs instead of buying the same thing in their local hardware store at 10% of the cost)

[EasternGirl]

I don't know...I was always under the impression from what I had read and heard that the red and black bulbs for nocturnal heat only do not produce any UV that is dangerous for albinos and that those are best to use. I don't use regular bulbs on my albino tank. I do have a lamp with a regular bulb in it that sits near the albino tank...but it doesn't direct light directly down onto the snakes. I also thought that the UVB and UVA bulbs were supposed to provide UV for reptiles that need that...I do have a UV bulb that I use for my easterns. I thought that any ultraviolet light was dangerous for albinos.

[ConcinusMan]

UV is UV and is bad for albinos. It will "sunburn" them and cause blindness/cancer. For heat, ceramic infrared bulbs are more efficient. all the energy consumed goes to heat and none to light, and its a nice penetrating heat. a 40 watt puts out as much heat as a 60 watt light bulb. They still need light during the day. Ambient window light or a flourescent tube works fine. as marnie said, red or black heat bulbs are just for night time heat and viewing. The snakes cant see the light from those but we can. This is because their visible spectrum is shifted from ours toward the ultraviolet end of the spectrum. we cant see UV but they can. They cant see red, but we can.

kind of funny because a red snake doesn't appear red to another snake/reptile. they are blind to it. Did you know, squirrels can't see green? grass and trees appear purple to them.

[Dan72]

So the red light has been added. She seems to be responding the same as she did to the other heat source as far as where she likes to bask under it and so forth. The difference now being the red light does nothing for me in terms of being able to see just how gorgeous she is. Somewhere I thought I read some one suggesting LED lights. So I can see but no harm to her, could somebody help me out with how to go about this with how my setup is. I'll get some fresh picks up soon....

[EasternGirl]

Okay...so just to double, triple, quadruple check...Richard...using a regular household 40 watt bulb in the dome lamp for my new albino baby will be okay, right? He likes light to bask under during the daytime and I really don't have the money to go out and buy a fancy heat emitting ceramic bulb right now. I use a red bulb at night for him.

Dan...this should answer your question too...if you can use a regular bulb in there then you will be able to see her...

[Dan72]

So I went to Petsmart the other day (when I picked up the red bulb), and they had this tree trunk looking thing that I thought would look totally rad (hello 1980's). It has two bigger holes in/through it that even an adult garter would'nt have trouble with so I'm for sure not worried about Butter. BUt it does have a couple of areas that do worry me some. So my thought is this...... if I get some of the tube sealer stuff (very specific, I know) that you guys that build your own enclosures use to seal up the sides and cracks and so forth. Could I get a tube and a gun for that stuff and seal in the trouble spots, let it dry, then it could be added to the viv?

[guidofatherof5]

Can you post a link to what this trunk looking thing looks like.

[Dan72]

This isn't the actual item, but it's close to it as I could find online. What do you think?

[katach]

That's neat!