UVA specific bulbs?

[mightyzug]

maybe i am just crazy, but i have tried a number of different basking bulbs for my cham (~6mo. vieled male, 4-5in. svl) from plain household bulb to the 'blue' basking bulb, halogen, everything but the combined UV / heat bulbs.

right now i am using a 50w zoomed halogen basking bulb, i have it raised up above the top of the screen a little because it is a little too hot so i need extra distance to get it down to 85. but my chams coloration is way better with this bulb over any of the others that i have tried. he is brighter, more vivid / variation, shows relaxed coloration noticeably more and stress colors noticeably less. the only real difference being the basking bulbs. if i go back to a incandescent bulb his colors will get darker and he will show stress more easily even after i give him time to adjust.

all of the bulbs were sufficient for UVA / basking, but apparently some better than others... anyone else notice something like this or am i maybe just going crazy ??

 

[TRI0N]

I was talking about this in another thread but UVA does help the psycology of your chameleon. Now heat does also effect your chams colors. Dark colors of your cham under light shows he is absorbing heat while light colors or even pale shows he is trying to reduce heat.

I myself use ZooMed Repti Basking Spot Lamp with UVA 100w. Victoria usually is a very bright green and yellow like my Avatar under this light and when she goes and cools off out of the rays of the spotlamp and under the ZooMed RetpiSun 5.0 UVA/UVB. When she is ready to heat up she will turn very dark before turning around to lay back into her basking spot lamp.

When she hunts it depends on where the hunt is. On her vines she will turn brown and if its on real plant or fake plants she goes dark green and jade colors. I noticed that when she is sees a fly she shows off jade dots right before she eats them. She loves flies and they excite her.

 

[mightyzug]

that helps put in in perspective a bit. thanks but under a incandescent bulb he will spend most of his time totally brown, tried the 60w and the 100w right on top of the screen. with my current lamp he is mostly showing his relaxed colors and sometimes he gets just very slightly darker when he is basking, but he never turns brown unless he is creeping up on his vine to the auto feeder thinkin he is hunting a cricket

is the darker basking coloration something i want to see? should i stick with the current light or use the other bulbs that make him go darker to bask? does it really make any difference as far as his health is concerned?

 

[TRI0N]

Well this is more of a questiong of Tempature.. Is he getting enough heat? You should get a remote sensor to be placed in the basking spot to see just how hot it is. Darker could mean he is not hot enough and is turning darker to absorbe the heat. Walking away from the spot or turing almost pale could mean too much heat. Its its more about tempature. I'll go take a few snaps of my setup for lighting and show the probe I have that mesures victorias basking spot.

 

[mightyzug]

temperature is alright, between all the bulbs the basking spot goes from 84-87. now its 87 with the bulb 6 in away... if the bulb were as close to the screen as my other ones it goes up to 95

could it also have something to do with the amount of UVA? i am sure this halogen probably puts out alot more UVA than the normal incandescent did.

 

[TRI0N]

You will need to click each image to see the notes I wrote on them. But this is how I have mine setup so that Victoria's temps are just right at all times.

Heat Sensor Location:


Hanging Lamps and On Top Fixture:


I'm sure with tweaking your own you will be able to make your chameleons enviroment perfect so that its colors are more exotic.