# Bulb for corn snake?



## lucethemoose (Dec 28, 2009)

I am thinking about adding a bulb on a timer to my corn's vivarium to provide some light during the day, as the room where she is kept is quite dark. What wattage would be best? Would it be safe to use a normal household lightbulb? I will be using a guard obviously but don't want it to produce too much heat as she already has a (statted) heat mat. Any advice would be appreciated!


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## HopefulFutureBreeder (Jan 3, 2014)

I have a 60w i wouldn't use a normal light bulb but don't use a ceramic bulb as they get too hot for corns. Really the light won't change the temperature your snake is absorbing from the heat matt and as long as you have a thermostat on your heat matt everything will but just fine. The heat lamp will bring up the air temperature simulating sunlight and the air temperature will drop at night when the lamp is off as it would in the wild. Make sure you change the time the light is on for depending on the season. Eg. shorter hours in the winter. Hope i was of help :welcome:


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## lukeors (May 5, 2011)

depends on what type of viv you have i.e glass or wood and how big the viv is personally i'm one for bulbs as it simulates the sun in the wild and then also how warm the room the viv is going to be in you'll have to consider that to work out what kinda wattage bulb would be best


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## lucethemoose (Dec 28, 2009)

It's a 3ft wooden viv (Vivexotic VX36) the room is not very warm as I don't have central heating! But her heat mat temperature is stable around 29 degrees.


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## Red123 (Mar 3, 2010)

You can run a guarded low energy bulb and it will not cause the temperature in the viv to rise. If you want something to add some warmth as well as light you will need to use a guarded normal/spot bulb on a dimming thermostat. You could use a low % UV bulb but will still need to have it guarded as they can get quite hot at the connection points, this will usually raise air temps by a degree or two.


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## Kimora (Mar 7, 2012)

HopefulFutureBreeder said:


> I have a 60w i wouldn't use a normal light bulb *but don't use a ceramic bulb as they get too hot for corns.* Really the light won't change the temperature your snake is absorbing from the heat matt and as long as you have a thermostat on your heat matt everything will but just fine. The heat lamp will bring up the air temperature simulating sunlight and the air temperature will drop at night when the lamp is off as it would in the wild. Make sure you change the time the light is on for depending on the season. Eg. shorter hours in the winter. Hope i was of help :welcome:


:hmm:

Ceramic's are just as good as a light emitter and carry the exact same risk, the only difference is that they require a ceramic holder rather than a standard plastic. bulbs both ceramic or light emitter can dry the humidity out more than a mat but nothing a bigger bowl won't fix. Please double check advice before deeming something as unsafe as in this case, you are very much wrong. : victory:

Corns you can use light emitting bulbs, ceramics or mats. Remember that a bulb should be guarded and any heat source connected to a stat. They are a temperate species so handle cool ambient extremely well. Too cool in the winter may prompt them to brumnate but thats about it. If you would like to look into brumnation and how to do this then there are some great posts on here that can be found via the search function.

You have got three choices for providing lightening 

Light emitting bulb.
LED stripes/spot lights (give low to 0 amount of heat) for if you want to use a ceramic or mat.
UV tube (will also need guarding, it's much debated but those that use it speak highly of it in regards to its use with snakes. I use it with geckos and will be changing my snakes over to it later this year.) Full spectrum tubes are also something you can look into.


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