Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Has anybody purchased a vision cage and added their own ceramic light fixture? I see some great ones, but they can not be stacked due to the way the lights are set up - I could easily mount one in the cage, but would worry about heat and such.

to me it sounds doable, but I was wondering what you all think...

thanks a ton!

Yes.. you get an outlet box and bolt it to the inside ceiling of the cage using truss-head machine screws. Mount your fixture on the box. This helps with the heat issue on the plastic ceiling, because light fixtures get hot, and the polyethylene that Visions are made of has a low melting point. I've done this on 3 Visions with no problems.

If you are using low-wattage bulbs only, then you can cut a disk out of particle board, router out an area for the wiring, and mount the fixture onto that (mount the particle board disk to the ceiling of the cage.

The Visions that are 12" or 14" high do not really have the clearance to put a light in as described above (well.. you can, but it hangs down pretty low.) A better approach for these low cages are the low-wattage undercabinet halogen lights. You'll need to have a piece of particle board (like a 3.5" dia disk) to screw the fixture into. This works very well. I have 2 cages like that. Plus they do a great job of heating the cage. Use a dimmer though, as even a 20 watt halogen gets hot to the touch.
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Mark

where can you find the halogen lights?
I've only been able to find low profile xenon lighting. Not good to use, because you need a transformer.

Home depot. the sell em in black white and silver. singles run about 8 bucks - or a three pack runs for 20 bucks...I use them on all of my barrs cages.

right on - Im just thinking of how to set up a vision for a BTS. They dont need climbing room so a snake cage is a good one..but no light. now I know what to do! Thanks man.

Hey how hot is your hot spot under your halo lights?

With a 72 deg room temp and a 20 watt halogen under-cabinet light in a 12"-high cage, I can read 85 deg near the floor under the beam of light. I do have some styrene foam sheeting on the outside back of the cage to help insulate it, so that helps alot.
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Mark