Lighting

[gratefulj]

Hi, I'm relatively new to the hobby or obsession as it's turning into. My personal goal, is to provide my chameleons with the most possible resemblance of their natural habitat. One thing to me, that I know of from personal experience with growning plants, is the significant importance of lighting. So my question is, would a bulb like a High Pressure Sodium(HPS) (or I've even heard of a Mercury Vapor being usued) benefit a chameleon more than the other incandecent lighting?(given that you take precautions on the heat emitted from both) because they emit so much more but are the closest lights there are to replicating sunlight? Please if anyone has any knowledge, experience, or advice on the issue, I would love to hear what you know. Thanks.

 

[camimom]

I dont know about that bulb.
Even if you can use that bulb for basking, you still need a UVB Bulb.

 

[SonTigerPantherCham]

the kelvins are ok, I would be interested to find out about the lumens. I am looking into the lumens, 16000 for the HPS, but a different ballast is needed than the standard incandescent.

Give me a second to hunt around for info

 

[gratefulj]

Yeah. I still definitley intended on supplementing it with a UVB as well.

 

[gratefulj]

Sontiger.. I'm seeing 9,500 lumens on a 100 watt.

 

[gratefulj]

6,300 on a 70w

 

[gratefulj]

What's chameleon ideal lumens? Or does too high of lumens just bother thier eyes?

 

[Whatcamo]

Well since I have experience in this field of lighting here are some questions I'll need answered before I can make my recommendations
1) enclosure size? W-D-H
2) what kind of plants any of them flowering plants
3) how many hours a day are you going to be running the light? Will you also be simulating seasonal lighting?

 

[gratefulj]

It will be a 3' x 3' x 6'... I have a ficus but they are kinda low light, so anything chameleon safe that likes high lighting. Light cycle will most likely be 12/12.

 

[Whatcamo]

I would go with a 250 HPS set up the high pressure sodium is a bluer spectrum that'll be less Likely to be damaging to your chameleons eyes it also has better penetrating abilities to get lower into the terrarium for plants to thrive in the shady areas of the cage you'd also have no problems keeping a hibiscus under that lighting as well heres a lint to what we use in a green house
http://www.bghydro.com/BGH/customkititems.asp?kc=HLHPS02SYM2&eq=
I would look into a t5 retrofit kit for your UVB supp on like aquacave.com etc.