Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello,
Anyone using full spectrum metal halide lighting over their large chameleon enclosures?
These work great over reef aquaria and was wondering if they would work well for full spectrum lighting and heat source for chameleons in large well planted vivariums/enclosures?
I'm thinking 175 watt single ended bulbs suspended at least 8 inches over a 4 foot tall by 3 foot wide by 3 foot deep enclosure.
Possibly for 1.2 to 1.3 Quadricornis.
Thank you.

I have not used metal halide lighting for chams. I don't think you need such serious (and expensive) lighting for quads in that size of cage (not all that big really). Maybe metal halides for a room sized enclosure...just haven't used them. I think you could do as well with a double fluorescent fixture or aquarium hood with ReptiSun 5.0 bulbs to provide UVB, and one or two ordinary house light bulb basking spots. Quads prefer cooler higher humidity conditions and the halides may produce too much heat for them. Also, are MH bulbs very touchy around water? You will be spraying A LOT and tiny misting droplets can cause hot bulbs to explode. ReptiSuns are safer in that way.

Thank you Carlton.
I am leaning towards the halide for the nice 'intense' sunlight look it would provide for the enclosure. I understand that the flourescents and regular incadescent bulbs would be sufficient for this species, and I would use those for the better part of the day, but I would like a 'brighter look' during my peak viewing hours. I'm thinking that the halides would have the added benefit of casting strong sunlight looking 'beams of light' through the dense foliage I plan on using which is a nice plus. I would only run the halide for a few hours during peak viewing times (scheduled to mimic high noon hours).
Of course, this is just specualation at this point. I have not ordered the chameleons or built the enclosure and I might just go with plenty of flourescents and a few regular bulbs for heat.
If I do go with halide, the bulb will be placed outside the enclosure, at least 8 inches or so above the enclosure so that no water spray will get to it.
Thanks again for the suggestion.

If you go this route, let us know how it turns out.
A friend of a guy I know uses MetHal lighting for his vields. But it's four large cages in a single room that he's lighting. I'm using Reptisun and am happy with that - and you can combine with incandesents or hallogens in a colour spectrum to make a nice strong sun-like light.
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SandraChameleon@gmail.com
BC Canada

You might find this site useful:
http://www.uvguide.co.uk/mercuryvapourlamps.htm
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SandraChameleon@gmail.com
BC Canada

The other thing that would be interesting, which is one of the reasons Halides are so widely used in the reef aquarium scene is their intensity and ability to penetrate greater depths in large volumes of water. This translated to reptiles, could mean that you would get active UVB reading throughout your entire enclosure, not just 8-10 inches from the bulb. The next time i am at the shop (i work at a pet store that specializes in reef aquaria, and reptiles) i will test my UVB meter on one of the halide fixtures on our show tanks at different depths and see what the results are. Of course, just with reef lighting I imagine that the UVB production would vary from bulb to bulb, especially with all the different available color temps (degrees of Kelvin), as well as from ballast to ballast (magnetic ballast vs. electronic ballast, etc)

Thanks galadrial for giving me reason to experiment! Hooray for science!

cheers~!
jon

You may find your quads sitting low in the denser foliage during your "peak" hours which would be natural, but if you are hoping to view them easily at that time it might not do what you want. But, you'll have to experiment with that and see.

Yes! If you don't have one already, I would invest in a good
uvb meter so you can dial in the correct distances with the uv output.
http://reptileuv.com/solartech-solarmeter-uvb-meter-model-6.2.php

I've been looking at the hydrolux blue bulbs,
also the philips daylight something? The spectrums are supposed to be very close to daylight (96 cri or something)
I'm not sure on uv output of these bulbs tho, I've heard they don't put out any because of the double glass construction of the bulb, but I don't know because i've never used them. Metal halide lighting can be very similar to natural sunlight if the correct spectrum bulbs are used. The added bonus of using these lights is getting plants to grow like mad, and even flower in your enclosures..really cool. I think with quads you would just need to make sure and heaaaavily plant the cage, so the light is pretty filtered where the animals will be perching.
I know there is a chameleon book out that talks about metal halide lighting, can't think of the name now

Just to follow up with what Carlton said,
halide lighting on this type of cage with quads is total overkill
and not needed, BUT sometimes the fun (and addictive) part of chameleon keeping is setting up the environment to mimic nature as closely as possible.. reef tank people are all about the environments. Halide lighting is probably the closest you will get to sunlight indoors, i think it would be really satisfying to recreate a sunny day rainforest micro-habitat, even if there were no chameleons in the cage!

When talking about halides, most of the bulb manufacturers speak about the bulbs and CRI, which can be kind of deceiving.

For example when looking at the bubl output for a reef aquarium, many of the bulb manufacturers use CRI or Lux for the output of the bulb, however these measurements are designed around the human eye, and the colors that we can perceive.

When talking about metal hailde output in regards to plants (i.e. corals that harbor zooxanthellae algae to gather simple sugars from via photosynthesis) we use the value of PAR which stands for photosynthetically available radiation, or the light produced that is available to plants to begin the production of simple sugars. Therefor, in a reef environment you dont want the bulb with the highest lux, you want the bulb with the highest PAR. It would be interesting to test the UVB production of these bulbs (which do in fact produce Ultraviolet radiation of all types, and has been proven to be of no harm/nor help to corals) and correlate their output to the health of reptiles and herps in general.

I might just have to go speak with my professor who deals with herps and see if we can put together an experiment! Great discussion everyone! Sorry if i started to ramble, i get excited about science!

cheers~!
jon

Thank you all for the input.
I'll post when/if this enclosure and lighting scheme is fabricated.
I'm still debating on wether to invest in a harem of quads or save up for a pair of Parsoni.
I kept a breeding trio (1.2) of Parsoni for 5 years but sold them about 10 years ago when we had our first child. I have missed them terribly ever since and desperatedly want to get some back, however their current price is quite amazing. Justified for certain, but still quite high.