day cycle

ChromaChameleons

New Member
I have 2 questions for the group....

Would a chams day cycle be effected if their UVB light source was off for a 3 hour peroid in the middle of the day?

If a chams room were isolated from the outside day/night cycle, could their day cycle be artifically reproduced to run from 10pm to 11 am?

Any opinions would be welcome..

thx
 
That would be kinda hard to isolate them that much thoug you think. I would think that your chameleons would have some type of natural instinct to know that right now its supposed to light out and its isnt. because when im late turning my lights on somedays my chams are already up and bustling around. just a thought i could be wrong.
 
That would be kinda hard to isolate them that much thoug you think. I would think that your chameleons would have some type of natural instinct to know that right now its supposed to light out and its isnt. because when im late turning my lights on somedays my chams are already up and bustling around. just a thought i could be wrong.

Most likely they have access to a window or something to trigger them to get up before you do.

On another note, think about it. If you were in a room with no windows and no clock, you'd never know the time of day or night it actually was after some time. So after knowing this, the chameleons would definetly adjust to the artificial daylight that you provide, if in fact they had no access to any light source from anywhere else to tell them different. Thats my 2 cents.

I'm guessing he works a different shift and he wants to have them up when hes at home and sleeping when hes sleeping.
 
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Very interesting replies.. thx


Reason for UVB out in the middle of the day relates to a problem Im having with heat. I have 2 seperate circuits around my reptile room and I have all heat lamps on one circuit and all UVB on the other . Each circuit is seperately controlled by a timer. I want to connect half the heat lamps and half the UVB lights on one circuit and half the heat lights and half the UVB on the other. THen I can turn off half the heat lamps for a 3 hour period and the other bank of lights would be off another different 3 hour period. Problem is that the UVB lights would turn off along with them. The best solution would have been to install a 3rd circuit for UVB only . I am leaning toward going with a 3rd circuit and leaving the UVB lights on for the full 13 hour day cycle.

Reason for the shifted day cycle question , where a room isolated from daylight would be run from 10pm to 11am is more academic at the moment than anything . My electrical company is proposing to install new smart electrical meters in the next few years. It will charge the customer a lower rate for electricity if it is consumed in the off hours of the day.
 
If the reason for turning off the heatlamps for part of the day because the room gets too hot otherwise, why not put the heat lamps on a thermostat? Has worked for us for 2 summers now. Yes, that means that your chams will be without heat lamps for a bit, but if it really gets that hot then they probably won't even miss it.

About reversing their day-night cycle: I'm sure it's possible, but changing the cycle and letting the chams adjust to it would be a gradual process.
I'm not sure if Circadian Rhythm studies have ever been done on reptiles, but google probably knows. :)
 
If the chameleons are WC's then they should be used to the days being nights and vice versa since Africa is in darkness when we have daylight. I don't know what it would do for those that are born here....but people move from one side of the world to the other and seem to get used to the difference in day and night times...don't they??

I have some of my reptiles in a room in the basement that has no windows...they are on a later schedule so I can spend more time seeing them. Living in Canada, it gets dark early in the winter...so if I follow the daylight schedule, I'd never get to see them....and I have to work it out so they get fed and watered during the daylight hours when I'm busy doing other things.

Its harder to do that in the other room that I use for reptiles because in the summer that room is quite warm during the day and there is a window there. I'm thinking of blocking the window off with heavy curtains and trying it there too...but it may have to be a slightly different schedule than the basement ones are on.
 
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