Confused about bulbs

[yolobrat]

Hello people!
I have never noticed this till now, but there are two kinds of heat bulbs for reptiles: basking spot and daylight spot (beam) bulb. So untill now i have always used daylight spot bulb and it worked great, my veiled had great colors and ate A LOT. Sooo, I went to another city and transported my cham and there were no problems until my bulb broke so I went to a local store ASAP and I bought basking spot bulb (I was only looking at those 50W to be same) but that bulb seems weaker or something because my chameleon is grayish and eats less. SOO the question is does anybody know what difference is between two of those what should I use?

 

[Chameleon Mike]

I'm going to confuse you even more. You really don't need either. For baskng chameleons only need household Incandescent bulbs. I use the GE 60 watt plant bulb. My plants do a lot better with that as well.

 

[Graves923]

Like Mike said, a normal incandescent house bulb works great, is less expensive than special 'reptile basking" bulbs, and are more readily available.

Any bulb that puts out heat will work. Play with the bulb wattage to get the desired basking temps. These bulbs also produce a wider range of light so they tend to help bring out the colors in the cage and cham a little more.

Just make sure you do not use LED. LED house bulbs produce almost no heat and are gaining popularity so read the packaging before buying.

 

[nightanole]

There are a few incandescent.

The "house" bulb. These are the normal ones you saw in houses till cfls took over. They put out light in all directions and are great for non adult chameleons for basking spots.

The "spot/reflector" bulb. These are flood lights that have directional beams of either narrow or wide. These are great for adult basking spots. You do have to be careful about narrow/wide. If you tune for 92f with a wide, and it burns out and you grab a narrow by mistake, it will increase the basking spot by over 10 degrees. So it a good idea to retest temps if you change from one model/brand to the next, even if wattage stays the same.

Finally there is halogen incandescents. These put out the best color, and can be in either house or flood variety.

So you are not out of your mind, your old bulb burned out, and you replaced it with a completely different model. I dont think that caused the cham to start eating odd. I would drop down to my local hardware store and check out some flood halogens in the 35-75 watt range. Then just tune for temps and angle to prevent hot spots.