Reptile & Amphibian Forums

is it ok to use a regular light bulb to help in heating one side of the tank. with the air conditioner on it is getting too cold in the tank. any suggestions? thanks in advance

Regular light bulbs will provide lots of heat. You'd be surprised at the amount of heat generated by even a 25 or 40 watt bulb. Just be sure to have a good thermometer so you know what temps you are getting.

Also, incandescent bulbs (the normal ones, like for a lamp) will dry up water sources or humid hides quickly.

Other than these 2 issues, I feel (IMHO) that light bulbs are good secondary sources of heat, after a UTH, which I feel is almost essential reptile heating, except for arboreals.

Joel
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3.6 Leopard Geckos (1.4 Albino)
~~20 Leo eggs cookin'~~
1.1 Ball Pythons
1.0 African Fat Tail Gecko
0.1 Okeetee Corn Snake
1.0 Blair's Phase Gray Banded Kingsnake

i have the uth and it's keeping the floor temp right, it's jus the air temp got down to 70 today...(daylight hrs) so i put in a flood light to try n get the temp up. he has a plastic shoe box with a hole cut in the lid with a small circulating pump in the water....the humidity stays between 55 and 70 percent at all times. didn't think the bulb would hurt him jus wanted to make sure...gotta keep the air temp up. thanks

i have the uth and it's keeping the floor temp right, it's jus the air temp got down to 70 today...(daylight hrs) so i put in a flood light to try n get the temp up. he has a plastic shoe box with a hole cut in the lid with a small circulating pump in the water....the humidity stays between 55 and 70 percent at all times. didn't think the bulb would hurt him jus wanted to make sure...gotta keep the air temp up. thanks

light bulbs were the only heating method back in the 70's (for the most part) and many captive longevity records were set. But, with the new advanced in technology, there are many excellent forms of heating an enclosure. For our ball pythons, we use either flex watt heat tape connected to a helix thermostat (for our rack systems), or, pro product radiant heat panels for our larger cages). Hope this helps.

Rob Carmichael

sorry, i can't afford something like that....