What lighting to use for corn snake?

Question

Hi can you helpme please i need to no what is the best lighting to use has there is lots of information about.

I am building a home made tank 6foot long2 foot wide 2foot tall

Dont want to use heatmats because my tank is made from wood

100W Reptile Vivarium Daylight Basking Lamp Light Bulb

Arcadia 23W 7% Compact Reptile Lamp, Reptile Vitamin D3

combines with night glog or heat glo for 24H cycle

Answer 1

hi, my names darren, ive kept and bred reptiles and worked in the trade for more than twenty years, a 100w lamp or any of the other lighting equipment listed in your question are not suitable on there own as none of them are powerful enough to heat a 6ft tank, i would strongly reccomend using a habistat 600w dimming thermostat, this will give you the ideal tempreture no matter what the room temp, normal bayonet baton lampholders are fine, you would probaly need three. dont be fooled by so called reptile lights, apart from a picture of a reptile on the box and the high price theres no diffrence. i use red spotlamps for all my reps, you could put a white spot in 1 holder and plug direct in to the mains and 1 or 2 red lamps on a dimmerstat, then of a night just turn off the white light and lower temp with your dimmerstat, (by no more than 10 degrees) this will simulate nighttime as red bulbs give off no white light, thus making your tank more natural. best of luck. darren

Answer 2

The night glo or heat glo will be fine for 24H heat and provide light for night viewing if you wish without the bright light which would disturb the snake. I have no specific info on the Arcadia brand, but compact lights should be used with cation.  While UVb lighting is considered unnecessary,the use can still be beneficial and has shown an increase in 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 concentrations in corn snakes

Here are some links on Uv lighting  the last one is quick overview of a study on Corn snakes D3 production when exposed to UVb lighting

http://www.uvguide.co.uk/index.htm

http://www.anapsid.org/maincaptive.html

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18241...

Answer 3

Hi,

If you are buying a baby corn snake a 6 foot viv will be too big.

They are known to become agoraphobic and will do far better in a viv half that size while they are small.

You should not use UV lighting as they are crepuscular (awake at dawn and dusk) and do not need it. Also UV lighting has been known to damage their eyesight.

I would have them in a room that gets the sun so they know the natural cycle but not right by a window.

Instead of an incandescent heat bulb you could use a ceramic bulb with a thermostat, which in the long run will probably cost you less. If not then use an incandescent bulb but make sure it's red in colour as this doesn't disturb their vision.

Answer 4

Well then, I would get a ZooMed 60 watt NIghtlight Red Reptile Bulb. It's great if you're going to use it as a 24 hour heat source. I hope this helps.