Plastic light fittings

[Mitch.11]

Hi guys. Just curious whether anyone has experienced any problems first hand from using plastic light fittings in reptile enclosures?

I have just moved on an old 3 bay enclosure with all plastic light fittings. I never worried about it in the past but curious whether it may have contributed to some strange neurological symptoms showing in a Carpet Python currently. I see many people use plastic fittings so I’m potentially worrying about nothing but would be very interesting to hear any feedback from other people.

Cheers

 

[dragonlover1]

There should never be any plastic light fittings in enclosures as they can't take the heat. I'm surprised they didn't melt.
It's always possible that fumes from the high temps caused some physical problems in your snake , but I'd be leaning more to respiratory problems than neurological but then I'm not a chemical engineer or scientist

 

[Herpetology]

if it is used for heating and melted the plastic and created fumes, definitely could cause neuro or death. I Imagine a CHE would melt a fitting faster than a globe

I see many people use plastic fittings

plastic or ceramic??

 

[Sdaji]

I'm sure you could find a bad enough quality unit if you looked hard enough, but especially in Australia, if a fitting is designed and allowed to be sold to hold lights, in rooms where humans sit and breathe, it is probably going to be safe and heat resistant.

I haven't used lights in reptile enclosures for over 10 years now but back in the day we all used plastic light fittings, it was the standard way the vast majority of enclosures were set up, and plenty of old timers still use them today. I used them for about 20 years and the only problem I ever had was some of them eventually getting old, brittle and cracking (they were the old ones I bought in the 90s and early 00s for about $1.50 each). The last enclosures I built to include spotlights were done with ceramic fittings, but for many years before that I was using plastic ones for spotlights. I stopped using plastic spotlight fittings about 15 years ago, but only because I stopped keeping the species I had built those enclosures for.

Back in the day, public zoos and commercial reptile facilities etc used them in all their enclosures.

You probably want to look elsewhere for the cause of your neuro issues.