Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am finally getting around to building a snake room and was curious as to what others do for lighing (UV?, timers?, cycling? for light, not heat) in the room. I am converting an old laundry room in the basement where there is no natural lighting from the outside. I can't wait to have the water and a freezer in the same room as the snakes! Right now my collection consists of all colubrids, but I do plan on adding boids again in the future.

Thanks for any input.

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Joe

Joe, this is my first year with a snake room but I am using a cheap light timer from the hardware store and a stadard lamp with an energy saver bulb in it. Turns on and off as I desire and is not too bright. Does it work for the snakes? Time will tell.

Hey Joe,

First of all, congrats on your own dedicated snake room. My wife is moving her pottery wheel out of mine and I will finally have my own room too!

There are two windows in my snake room so they get natural light. I think a light on a timer would be fine and I would try to mirror the natural photocycle as best you could.

Great pic of the eastern by the way!

Dave
DNS Reptiles

Thanks Dave. I covered my lone window in the snake room with foil insulation.( on the outside ) The window was "sweating" a lot due to the temperature difference and I wanted to be able to manipulate the lighting without natural lighting coming through the window. I actually am going to have two snake rooms because I am putting my pyros and soon to have zonatas in the storage room next to the original snake room. The walls are block and the ambient temps are about 60 in the winter. With back heating this will give me a gradient of 60-81. ( I have checked ). Should be better for the mountain kings. My wife wants to take up pottery----I better give her reasons not to I guess!!

Thanks Dave. I was surprised to see my female eastern out investigating what was going on when I started moving things around in the soon to be snake room. She has been in the room cooling for about 2 months, and when I turned around and looked up there she was! Gave me an excuse to get the camera out and get a few shots.
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Joe