Light Cycles

[DAWNoftheLEO]

Many good points, but I don't see much relevance towards lizards, geckos and "light cycles"..

There doesn't seem to be much of an understanding of UV -A and -B's effects upon anything nocturnal, particularly reptilian. Within the chondro community many will use some form of UV florescent lighting within the habitat. The assumption is that many of the higher white locality animals (Aru, Merauke/Bade, Cape York, etc) somehow benefit in the UV for the production of their white patterning. Unfortunately many have kept their animals under UV lights and produce animals with low, normal, and above average white patterning; and the same can be said for those not even using lighting. Granted these are animals that live in trees, but even that taken into consideration not much UV light penetrates a given forest canopy - be it rain forest to temerpate deciduous forest.

Anyone ever notice that when their geckos are cool or cold they sometimes appear darker? This is a natural response to environmental conditions within most (potentially all) reptiles. Be they crepuscular, diurnal, or nocturnal, many reptiles will darken up when cold or cool. This "color change" aids in allowing the animal to thermoregulate faster (dark colors absorb heat more quickly) when basking. A good example for us gecko people would be tokays. Those of us that have kept tokays have seen our beautiful geckos go from baby blue-gray to slate gray. I've personally witnessed 1 of my own tokays in a 90 gallon out basking in the morning in a darken state to only appear baby blue-gray 30 minutes to hours later. When the tank use to get accidental direct sunlight (it use to be oriented in an eastern facing room) the gecko would come out to bask in the morning sun. Many European keepers of tokays have witnessed this and have even gone as far as providing a basking lamp within the habitat.

To keep with the temperature related theme, many "nocturnal" herp species, at least here in the us, don't start working towards becoming nocturnal until the night low starts regularly hitting 55-60°F. That's typically April and May for here (New Mexico). Many of these "nocturnal" animals will be DIURNAL during these times of the year (and subsequently in Sept and Oct when night temps start to fall again). To bring this a little more closer to home Eublephlarid wise, where I live I've seen TX banded geckos active during the day in Spring and Fall. Something else to consider, many high elevation species also tend to be darker pigmented in order to better absorb heat from the sun, again even "nocturnal" species.

Anyhow, I have to go. Many more points to hit on, but I have training for work causing me to leave earlier that I'm use to this morning.

 

[david13]

im gunna put my hatchlings (if my geckos will ever breed) in the closet so does any1 recommend a good light timer? and is it possible to hook it up to a built in house light.. sorry for asking this on your thread but i figured.. why open a new one.

 

[Aar0n]

I took my gecko to the vet yesterday. She put him on megace which kind of made me laugh (its a weight gainer they give to chemo patients normally). He is impaction and parasite free.

Anyways, she said that he absolutely needs a light cycle and that UVB lighting is required as well. These animals do absorb sun light in the wild and it helps to stimulate receptors in their brains that trigger normal sleeping and eating cycles.

She said there have been a few new studies that support this but she wasn't able to give me any titles or authors. I gave her my email and asked her if she could send them to me. Would be interesting to see in the least

 

[xboxmember1978]

All I can say is that I have had leopard geckos and fat tailed geckos for years and never needed uvb bulbs to get my leos to sleep and eat properly. A normal household incandescent and florescent bulb works for us, infact my leos only come out maybe once a day to get a drink for about 5 minutes, then they go right back to their hides and sleep. A uvb bulb would not benefit them if all they do is hide all day.