Reptile Heating & Lighting

14 products

Showing 1 - 14 of 14 products

Get the lamps right and most other husbandry problems get easier. This collection holds 51 items of reptile heating and lighting from Exo Terra and URS: UVB tubes and compact bulbs, basking and infrared lamps, ceramic heat emitters, heat mats and rocks, LED terrarium lights, and the fixtures, reflectors, clamps, mesh covers and thermostats that hold and control them, in T5, T8 and screw-in fittings.

UVB: which strength, which fitting

UVB is what lets a reptile make its own vitamin D3, so for most diurnal lizards and turtles it is not optional. Strength is chosen by species and by lamp-to-animal distance. Exo Terra numbers its lamps by output and repeats that numbering across formats: UVB100 for tropical and forest species, UVB150 for desert species, UVB200 where demand is highest, in T8 tubes, T5 very-high-output tubes and compact screw-in bulbs. URS uses Outback Max 5 and Max 10 tubes, the 10 being the stronger of the pair. A T5 tube puts out considerably more than a T8 of the same length, so it needs mounting further from the basking site. UVB output also falls away long before a tube stops looking lit, so keepers replace on a schedule rather than waiting for failure.

Heat: basking lamps, ceramics, mats and control

Heat and light are separate decisions. A basking lamp does both, and a halogen or intense spot lamp is the usual way to build a hot spot for a day-active species. Night is different, because animals should not be lit while they sleep: a ceramic heat emitter such as the Exo Terra unit or the URS Oz White gives heat with no visible light, while a moonlight or Oz Purple night globe gives only a dim glow. Heat mats and heat rocks warm from below instead of above, which suits nocturnal snakes and geckos that take belly heat. Run any heat source through a thermostat — the URS Thermostat Plus is the controller stocked here — because an unregulated globe has no upper limit. Fixtures matter as well: porcelain wire clamp lamps, light domes and mesh globe covers keep hot glass away from the animal.

Exo Terra and URS

Exo Terra covers most of the lighting side: Repti Glo and Reptile UVB tubes in T8 and T5, the Compact Top fluoro unit, TerraSky UV and planted LED units, and the Day Glo, Swamp Glo, Heat Glo, Night Glo and Solar Glo lamp family. URS covers much of the heat and control side, including Oz White ceramic emitters, Radiant and Compact Max globes, ES lead fittings and the Lamp N Clamp.