Reptile & Amphibian Forums

There is a thread down below where Nate and Mike are going back and forth about lites and burning.

In that thread, Nate stated, the proper lites will not burn the monitors(which is true) Yet Mike stated that lites must be very hot to provide temps necessary for varanids, 130F was mentioned, but thats a bit low.

Theres a point to this and a method that allows lowerwattage bulbs to be used very successfully.

Years ago, I explain it to Nate like this and he got it. White man make big fire, sit far away, native american makes small fire sits close.

The key to that is, With a smaller fire, you can place the bulb closer to the subject and obtain higher heat, without heating lots of air.

The farther the heat source is from the subject, the more wattage it takes to heat that subject. More wattage equals mor heat. That heat is lost to the air. It heats the air, it raises and takes moisture with it. Therefore causing dehydration.

One other keeper on this forum, or sometimes on this forum, Bob, cannot figure that out. I believe he uses higher wattage bulbs, farther from the animals with open topped cages, then blames everything other then air movement for his animals having problems with hydration, toe lose, tail tip lose, etc.

This problem is common to two areas of herp keeping, Turtles and varanids. Both require high heat(basking) The turtle folks understand, you can dehydrate a turtle thats living in water. Somehow this has not crossed over to varanid keepers. They miss this concept altogether.

So, with high wattage bulbs, you are also required to release heat or it will heat the whole dang cage. Your also required to keep the bulb away from the animal so it does not burn itself. Your also required to spray or mist often, as the heated air must escape and take moisture with it. All in order to maintain a decent basking area.

With low wattage bulbs, you can place the bulb in the cage, and use less electricity, heat less air, cause Less dehydration, controll moisture loss easily. and still have a decent basking area. Also, you can use two low wattage bulbs and increase the size of the basking area, and still maintain a temp range to ambient. You can also contain the available moisture and not have to spray or mist. hmmmmmmmmmm its an easy one if you ask me.

So what would you recommend for people who live in cooler areas in the winter?

Greg
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1.1 Varanus Rudicollis
2.0.3 Varanus jobiesis
0.0.1 Ornate box turtle
0.1 Varanus Salvidorii
0.0.2 Varanus Salvator

use more small wattage bulbs in place of bigger ones.
In this way you can adapt the number of bulb to the conditons in YOUR place/box.

You could get more low wattage bulbs which contribute to the overall temp. That's a great idea. More bulbs means more air molecules moving faster creating more heat. Heat is cause by molecules exciting...either moving around really fast like gases or vibrating, like, a hot skillet. (Infared ray causes the molecules to excite.) A lot of people use space heater, too, where it gets really cold. I still think you should get as many low wattage light bulbs you need so they line up and heat the entire animal's body.

I could be wrong.... But isn't that why you keep the cages insulated, too? ...To keep in moisture?