Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Wanted to thank everyone for their suggestions and show a pic of the finished cage. Well, almost finished cage...The glass is supposed to be ready for pickup this evening. The heater and thermostat are in place, but my question comes in with lighting. The cage will be housing a burm so full spectrum won't be necessary. Lighting will primarily be used to create a photo period and provide ease of view. I thought of using an under the counter fluorescent light that I saw at Home Depot but hate to cut a large enough hole in the back of the cage just to get the plug through. I guess that I could probably take the light apart and reattach the wire once I fish it through the back wall of the cage? How does everyone else handle this? Any suggestions? Sorry about the picture size...I can't seem to shrink it any.

One way is to cut a hole large enough for the plug and then finish off the hole with a grommet designed for running wires.

But I usually just cut the plug off and rewire it with a new plug. I still like to finish off the hole with a small piece of PVC pipe or something similar. In that case you'll want to find a piece of pipe with an inside diameter large enough for the cord. Then you drill your hole the size of the outside diameter of the pipe.
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Current snakes:

0.2 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Silver/Yellow)

3.3 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Green)

2.1 Gonyosoma janseni - (Black)

3.3 Gonyosoma janseni - (Black & Tan)

the cheapo under cabinet lights are what i have, they work fine. I actually the plant/animal (minimal uv) lights in there... the uv on some snakes makes the colors come out better than just a bright white flourescent. I screwed a power strip on the back of my cages and i have my thermostats hooked up to those, then a cheapo on/off timer for my flourescent strip.

To solve the hole size problem, i would do what chris suggested... simply cut the plug off and put a new one on. you can go down to home depot and get these plugs that just literally snap onto the wire - no stripping needed. And you dont need to worry about positive/negative in these type of fixtures really.. however if you want to one side of the wire will be somewhat rough/ribbed; this will be your negative side. the wide blade on a polarized plug is the negative also.
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-Chris

The reason mainstream thought is thought of as a stream is because it's so shallow. -George Carlin

A fool doesn't learn. A smart man learns from his mistakes. A wise man learns from the mistakes of others. Which one are you?

My Website
N. American Rat/Corn snake care sheet I wrote
Information on substrates

Current snakes:
0.1 Licorice Stick Black Rat (Lola)
1.0 Black Rat (Frankie)
0.1 Texas Bairdi (Rosa)
0.1 Blue Beauty (Brunhilde)
1.0 Green Tree Python (Monty)

I bought flourescent lights at Home Depot that have a detachable plug. They're expensive (around $40 for a 24" fixture), but they have an electronic ballast (which was a requirement for me; I can't stand the humming from magnetic ballasts), instant on, etc. They're made by GE. I think it's one of the "linkable" modules, but I don't remember the exact name or model.

For my cages, I actually routed a groove in the back of the cage, slipped the wire through it, then attached the back to the rest of the cage with screws. I then screwed the fixture into the top of the cage, attached the wire to it, then fixed the cord to the to the ceiling. If I ever need to pull the wire out, I'll either have to expand the hole a bit, or unscrew the back...

If you would like to make pictures smaller i suggest using a program called "infraview". It is free and will easly help you adjust the size. Just google it.

Reguarding the plug, if you open the florecent light you can see the wires (cut and splice there). Be careful about the extra cord in the terrarium, i have had a few snakes that like to pull on them. I believe chris mentioned using a small pvp pipe to guard the wire. That is a great Idea.
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Symatic

"You can't appreciate Shakespeare until you've read him in the original Klingon."

Thanks, they're all good ideas. I ended up picking up a 24" light, some SJ cable, and a plug last evening at Home Depot on the way home from work. Wish I would have waited till after I read the post on electric vs. magnetic ballasts before hand. Didn't realize what the difference was (other than a big price jump), and trying to get help in that store is enough to drive a person mad. I waited 20 minutes for someone to show up and cut/price my SJ cable! Oh well, nothing I can do about it now, I already started wiring it up. Hopefully the humming won't be too much of an issue for me. Also, thanks for the shareware to modify picture size. I'll definately look into that.