# Ceramic Lamp Sockets Inside Viv



## MikeO233 (Sep 14, 2014)

Can anyone recommend a good ceramic socket which can be used *inside* a viv where humidity will be around 60-70%?

I have found a socket from lighting company which is supposedly OK but it doesn't come wired up - I want something that's wired up and sealed to avoid potential issues with the humidity / electricity!

Thanks


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## CloudForest (Nov 27, 2013)

humidity wont be an issue, any ceramic holder with a bracket thats earthed will be safe - even without the earth, unless your room drops below 10C at night, its highly unlikley enough/any condensation will form on the holder to cause a short


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## MikeO233 (Sep 14, 2014)

Thanks for that - What about if there was a fogger running on the viv too and the ceramic is near the bottom of the viv and therefore gets surrounded by the fog?

The type of holder I am looking at is just the screw fitting on the end of a wire - no dome or anything.


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## CloudForest (Nov 27, 2013)

MikeO233 said:


> Thanks for that - What about if there was a fogger running on the viv too and the ceramic is near the bottom of the viv and therefore gets surrounded by the fog?
> 
> The type of holder I am looking at is just the screw fitting on the end of a wire - no dome or anything.


can you post a picture of the setup?

I would keep the fogger well away from any electronics, except for fully waterproof versions, as far as I am aware, there are no water proof ceramic heater holders ( they get far to hot for pretty much every plastic in existance which is used for waterproofing)

the fogger should be a minimum of 1ft away, probably more, they make a hell of allot of mess

wht are you trying to achieve with a the fogger? if its humidity, well they are useless, they look pretty, but all they do is saturate your substrate


if you are using a Ceramic Heater, and you need high humidity, then use a low power halogen flood/refector type lamp instead (frosted front glass), they provide the same heat for around 1/4 or less the power, and dont burn off the humidity as much


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## MikeO233 (Sep 14, 2014)

Can't post any pics yet because nothing is setup yet - just the bare viv at the moment.

What I have is a 48" x 24" x 36" glass viv, which I am trying to keep warm and humid.

I currently have another setup which is 36" x 18" x 36" which I have a 100w Halogen bulb on, with no thermostat, and a 150w caramic on top the mesh in a dome, on a stat, and a fogger. The temperature still struggles a little despite the halogen being on full and so what I want to do with the new viv is try the same with the halogen, but with the ceramic inside the viv, a few inches away from the substrate, but I still need to keep up the humidity, so spraying is a worry and was thinking of putting on a fogger.

I was going to house the ceramic in a guard and then try and make some kind of further surround to stop the spray from getting all over the socket.


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## mudskipper (Jan 4, 2015)

can't you seal the connections with aqua safe silicon, like HA6 silicon it has a temp range of -60c to +200c. That's all I was going to do with mine.


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## CloudForest (Nov 27, 2013)

it might be safe upto those temps, but what chemicals does it leach out at those temps?


bare in mind that a ceramic heater will get upto 450f, and a 60W halogen lamp will get to 250f, so you are getting close to the thermal limit of HA6 already


you only need to be concerned about big temp differences causing condensation (only from very low to high quite quickly, so dropping off from 90% humidity at 35C, to 10C for eg), but big temp differences also mean big trouble for most reptiles, who need stablity, so if you are expecting a drop down to 10C at night, then you need to reconsider your setup, insulate it well, and provide background heat at night


condensation only forms on glass in hot vivariums because of the temp difference between the glass and the hot humid air, you dont get that same temp difference between the ceramic holder and the air


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## MikeO233 (Sep 14, 2014)

The night temp in my house doesn't drop to below 18c even in the middle of winter. Currently ambient night time temp doesn't even go below 23c, so there will not be an issue there.

I think from responses I've had and people I have spoken to in the shops I should be ok with just putting the fitting in the viv and just make sure I spray at the opposite end


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## CloudForest (Nov 27, 2013)

MikeO233 said:


> The night temp in my house doesn't drop to below 18c even in the middle of winter. Currently ambient night time temp doesn't even go below 23c, so there will not be an issue there.
> 
> I think from responses I've had and people I have spoken to in the shops I should be ok with just putting the fitting in the viv and just make sure I spray at the opposite end


you can spray the whole enclosure, just dont spray directly onto the lamp, depending on the species, you may need to saturate the substrate and let it dry out a few times a day while the snake is shedding, the rest of the time, a large water bowl is generally enough to provide humidity

for species which need higher humdity all the time, 60%+, then you may be better off reconsidering your method of humidifying the enclosure, for eg using Coir Fibre, buy enough to fill 3 vivs, and when it starts to dry out, simply change 50% of it out for freshly wetted coir when needed - heat lamps and ceramics are problematic for high-humidity loving species, although low-power halogens are ok, radient panels are better, in which case you can spray as normal


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## MikeO233 (Sep 14, 2014)

The viv is for an iguana which needs 50-70% humidity.

I've installed a large heat mat under the viv and have a clay ball layer beneath the substrate so that the heat mat warms that layer and should create some humidity.

Do you think there is a better option than using a ceramic then?

Someone did mention to me about a heat bar but having never used them I'm not too sure...... Ideally I want something that will be ok on a pulse stat, although it's not essential.


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## MikeO233 (Sep 14, 2014)

Not sure if this maybe might work, connected to a stat (going to call them to ask if a pulse stat will work with it)

https://www.vidaxl.co.uk/p/250587/infrared-panel-heater-white-425-w-extremely-thin-wall-mounted

Also going to see if they do a 200w version......


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## CloudForest (Nov 27, 2013)

MikeO233 said:


> The viv is for an iguana which needs 50-70% humidity.
> 
> I've installed a large heat mat under the viv and have a clay ball layer beneath the substrate so that the heat mat warms that layer and should create some humidity.
> 
> ...


for an iguana you need high basking temps, so you are limited to using low power Halogen Flood/Reflector lamps (3 X 40-60W in a row), rather than radient panels


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## MikeO233 (Sep 14, 2014)

I am putting flood halogens on top the viv anyway but I know they won't be enough to get the ambient temps up, hence why I am looking at an additional heat source, so original idea was the ceramic inside to help the ambient temp added to the flood halogens for basking - unless the radiant panel might work better for the ambient temp without effecting humidity


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## CloudForest (Nov 27, 2013)

MikeO233 said:


> I am putting flood halogens on top the viv anyway but I know they won't be enough to get the ambient temps up, hence why I am looking at an additional heat source, so original idea was the ceramic inside to help the ambient temp added to the flood halogens for basking - unless the radiant panel might work better for the ambient temp without effecting humidity


what shape/size is the enclosure?


I cant see any reason why a bank of R80 halgoen foods wouldnt provide very good basking temps and ambient temps...they are used to provide temps far higher for monior lizards without any problem


if you mean for night-time background temps...well there are lots of options tbh


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## MikeO233 (Sep 14, 2014)

CloudForest said:


> what shape/size is the enclosure?
> 
> 
> I cant see any reason why a bank of R80 halgoen foods wouldnt provide very good basking temps and ambient temps...they are used to provide temps far higher for monior lizards without any problem
> ...


4ft length, 2ft depth, 3ft tall - glass.

I have a smaller Viv which struggles to reach 32c with a 100w flood halogen and a 150w ceramic on the hood


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## CloudForest (Nov 27, 2013)

what temp is the room?

I used 2 X 30W halogen floods to provide 57-60C basking temps, and ambient temps around 28-32, during the winter I upped that to 42W's, most people find they dont need higher than 60W, occasionally 80W for very very large enclosures (10x6x6 for eg)


are you sure its a 100W halogen? or a 100W standard reflector bulb? halogens provide essentially twice the heat @ the basking spot of a normal reptile reflector lamp


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## MikeO233 (Sep 14, 2014)

CloudForest said:


> what temp is the room?
> 
> I used 2 X 30W halogen floods to provide 57-60C basking temps, and ambient temps around 28-32, during the winter I upped that to 42W's, most people find they dont need higher than 60W, occasionally 80W for very very large enclosures (10x6x6 for eg)
> 
> ...



I thought it was a halogen when I picked up the box - I shall check it tonight and see - the room sits at about 24c because it's got 7 vivs in it.... Which is why I've been scratching my head over the heating of the smaller Viv struggling. I shall have a look later on and double check the bulb.

Think I will see if I can get a couple today to go on the new Viv anyway and see what I can get the temps to tomorrow.


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## MikeO233 (Sep 14, 2014)

:blush: Turns out I did indeed pick up a spot bulb not a halogen. Didn't help they were next to each other on the shelf I guess.... 

Anyhow I put a 100w halogen on the new viv last night, along with a 62w heat mat to help heat the clayball layer for humidity.

Without a stat, getting 32c at basking spot and only 18c at the cooler end - A bit on the low end. Still a lot lower than what I would have expected, but then there will be quite a lot of heat lost from the mesh lid I guess.

I've gone off the idea of that radiant panel because of it's high wattage - but quite like the look of this as an alternative to give a little boost to the ambient temps:

https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/HETH310.html


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## Badgerroy (Mar 16, 2015)

Not sure if this would be any use? 

http://direct.asda.com/Warmlite-WL4...-05eff6da2486&istItemId=xpqxwmrxi&istBid=tztx

I use these connected to a pulse stat in my 2 big vivs(6x4 and8x4ft) Iv found they work really well.


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## MikeO233 (Sep 14, 2014)

Looks similar to the panel I was looking at yesterday - You've answered my question I sent to the manufacturer - Can it be used on a pulse stat.

Do you know what wattage this one is?


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## Badgerroy (Mar 16, 2015)

Yep mines been working on a pulse stat with no problems.
It's 400w but costs next to nothing to run. 
Iv found its cheaper then running two spotlights and a damn sight more effective.


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## MikeO233 (Sep 14, 2014)

OK thanks - That's really useful thank you.

I might go with one of these and get one of the tubulars and try them both - The tubular has a built in stat which is handy as I only have one pulse stat spare kicking about at the moment.

Guess then I can compare the two and decide on getting another of one or the other after evaluating


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## Badgerroy (Mar 16, 2015)

Iv fitted mine to to top of the viv. It doesn't get to hot but it just seemed sensible to avoid the snakes laying on it.


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## MikeO233 (Sep 14, 2014)

Well the panel came today and is a perfect fit for half the top of the viv, but I need the space on top for the UV, else it would have been perfect as a lid!

I've installed it inside on the back instead with some bamboo in front of it to hide it away a bit.

Been on a couple of hours and it's excellent! 

Glad I didn't get it for the 3ft viv as it would have been far too big for it - The greenhouse heater is working well in there.


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