# Cheap Lighting



## Kennyhawk24 (Sep 17, 2019)

I have a 90x45x60 cm enclosure. 

Was interested to see if there was any energy efficient bulbs I could be using for day light/heat.

I’m using an 100 watt reptile one dome and globe at the moment.

It’s for a blue tongue 

Thanks in advance


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## Sdaji (Sep 18, 2019)

If you're using it for heat you don't want an 'efficient' one. The amount of electricity used correlates to the amount of heat it produces. What makes lighting efficient (using less electricity) is the production of light with less heat. This is pointless for heating reptiles. If you use something of less than 100W you're going to be providing less heat.


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## Kennyhawk24 (Sep 18, 2019)

I’ve read that some people use, CLF’s or halogen bulbs as they produce the same amount of heat at less wattage. Does anyone know if this is true?
[doublepost=1568754150,1568754079][/doublepost]Yes it is for heat more then light


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## Bl69aze (Sep 18, 2019)

Does it matter? If you’re using a dimming stat, it’ll be using less than it’s full wattage


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## Neil j (Sep 18, 2019)

Throw the dome away and drop the fitting down into the cage using a light cage to prevent burns. I only run 40 Watters in my three cages ( all different sizes) with on off thermostats
[doublepost=1568771904,1568771196][/doublepost]Except the glass one on top just runs all the time


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## Sdaji (Sep 19, 2019)

Kennyhawk24 said:


> I’ve read that some people use, CLF’s or halogen bulbs as they produce the same amount of heat at less wattage. Does anyone know if this is true?
> [doublepost=1568754150,1568754079][/doublepost]Yes it is for heat more then light



No, it's not true.

As I said, the wattage indicates exactly how much heat is produced. It's literally a measure of how much power the light has, and power is literally how much energy is converted from one form to another, and literally all of the electricity converted is turned into heat. Some of it is directly turned into heat, a very small amount of it is turned into light and when the light hits something the thing it hits heats up (a very tiny little bit). To have a light which produced the same heat with a different wattage would violate the laws of physics.

The only difference is the direction of the heat. A heat mat, cord or regular light globe just emits the heat around itself. A spotlight (such as a halogen) directs the heat in a specific direction. Some spotlights have a more narrow angle of emission than others.


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## Gears (Sep 19, 2019)

I have a 45 high enclsoure & use a 75W Phillips Spotlight under a silver lined dome. It gets 34-36 degree heat to the floor underneath it. I tested & a dome with a silver lining created a higher temperature then a white lined dome, so it's not just about the globe, but also what you put it in.


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## murrindindi (Jul 21, 2020)

ElizabethHardacre said:


> I have been using for a while an incandescent light bulb that provides radiant heat for my lizard until I have bought a snake.




Hi, what type of lizard, size and type of enclosure and what are the usual ambient (air) temps in the room the tank`s in?
If your situation requires a relatively high basking surface temp to allow the animal to fully thermoregulate, an incandescent bulb may not be the most efficient type (it directs the heat all around rather than downwards). If you can answer the above questions I`ll advise further.


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## Bluetongue1 (Jul 22, 2020)

The wattage on any electrical appliance, such as a bulb, is the rate at which it is using electrical energy. One watt is one unit of energy used every one second. So the higher the wattage, the more power that’s going into the device and being used. For example, a 100W device is using twice as much power as a 50W device. Therefore a 100W device run for 1 hour will use the same total amount of electrical energy as a 50W device run for 2 hours.

Electric lights convert electrical energy into light energy. However, it is a law of nature that during all energy conversions, heat energy is always also produced and transferred to the surrounding environment. So with all forms of electrical lighting, only a certain amount of the electrical energy is converted to light and the rest is converted to heat. Traditional incandescent bulbs convert about 10% of the energy they use into light and 90% comes off as heat. They are therefore said to be 10% efficient. Halogen incandescent bulbs (a more advanced type of incandescent) are about 15% efficient, compact fluorescent bulbs around 85%, and LED bulbs approximately 90%.

Halogen bulbs are quite small and used to manufacture spotlights by placing them inside a silver-based bulb to direct the light and some of the heat downwards. Fitting this sort of bulb into a silvered dome will further help to do this. A 100W dome means that you can use a bulb rated *up to* 100W but not higher. This is actually a heat tolerance rating, related to the potential amount of heat that the dome can safely be exposed to.


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## Lurker (Aug 1, 2020)

Keeping reptiles equates to using electricity, more than what we’d really like to see on our power bills. That’s just part of the game with reptile keeping, and all that’s left to decide is simply how much power you can afford to pay for. Creating heat from electricity can be costly.

That said, I prefer to use ceramic globes for overhead heating because they just last longer than any globe, either incandescent or halogen, that I’ve used. I believe the thermostat / rheostat/ whatever you use function, just kills globes because globes, and especially incandescent ones, aren’t meant to be regulated in such a way and are happiest just burning at full tilt day and night until they eventually die some years down the track. I use T5 UVA /UVB fluorescent reflected globes for daylight, set on a timer, again for reducing the cost a bit since they’re not being used to heat the enclosure. Ceramics obviously don’t give you that “sunny day basking spot” but the reptiles can live with that since their enclosure is warmed. I also use a heat mat in a larger enclosure as well as the ceramic, and it’s connected to the day light so it heats up “during the sunny day” as it were, and that hopefully provides something like a nice warm basking spot on their bellies.

Oh and by the way, avoid dropping a daylight basking heat globe into the enclosure; whilst I’m certainly no expert on reptiles, I have read that reptiles are adversely affected by light coming in at a low angle, into their eyes. They all have eyebrow ridges for a reason, and they’re designed to be getting their sunlight from directly overhead.


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## CF Constrictor (Aug 1, 2020)

Your right , but i personaly think ceramic heat bulbs are to inefficient ( for my setup anyway ) I rely on heat cord through a dimmer switch 24/7 for ambient heat, and a normal 60w incandecent bulb also through a timer and a dimmer switch for aditional daytime heat. I find the bulbs last a lot longer if you don't run them at full power. My enclosures are well insulated too , so electricity consumption is at a minimal.


Lurker said:


> Keeping reptiles equates to using electricity, more than what we’d really like to see on our power bills. That’s just part of the game with reptile keeping, and all that’s left to decide is simply how much power you can afford to pay for. Creating heat from electricity can be costly.
> 
> That said, I prefer to use ceramic globes for overhead heating because they just last longer than any globe, either incandescent or halogen, that I’ve used. I believe the thermostat / rheostat/ whatever you use function, just kills globes because globes, and especially incandescent ones, aren’t meant to be regulated in such a way and are happiest just burning at full tilt day and night until they eventually die some years down the track. I use T5 UVA /UVB fluorescent reflected globes for daylight, set on a timer, again for reducing the cost a bit since they’re not being used to heat the enclosure. Ceramics obviously don’t give you that “sunny day basking spot” but the reptiles can live with that since their enclosure is warmed. I also use a heat mat in a larger enclosure as well as the ceramic, and it’s connected to the day light so it heats up “during the sunny day” as it were, and that hopefully provides something like a nice warm basking spot on their bellies.
> 
> Oh and by the way, avoid dropping a daylight basking heat globe into the enclosure; whilst I’m certainly no expert on reptiles, I have read that reptiles are adversely affected by light coming in at a low angle, into their eyes. They all have eyebrow ridges for a reason, and they’re designed to be getting their sunlight from directly overhead.


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