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Advanced Discussion
Lighting/Enclosures
Enclosure ventilation and humidity
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[QUOTE="Claudiusx, post: 2021403, member: 31715"] That is a good way of putting it, simple and direct. It does. While the virus has to get into the respiratory system somehow (there are a lot of ways) it doesn't have to directly be breathed in. It's why hand washing is so important with humans, because a lot of viruses live on surfaces as opposed to spreading mainly through the air. Just like us touching some dirty surface and then eating introducing germs and viruses into our body, so could be said for dragons since they eat with their face basically LOL. Any contact with a pathogen is going to start off with a pretty direct path into the respiratory system. Yes but correlation does not equal causation (or visa versa). Realistically, URI's are rare in dragons. Rarer so in dragons kept under proper husbandry conditions. When my girl got one, she was over it in a week or two with no real outside intervention from me besides keeping her slightly warmer at night (to keep the body working). She didn't get put on meds, she didn't have a nebulizer treatment, she was a healthy dragon, kept in healthy conditions, and her body naturally healed itself much like a healthy human being would be able to do. Proper husbandry plays such a huge role in a dragons health. Temperature, diet, and proper UV being the main three if I had to rank them. A healthy dragon eating a healthy diet will have a healthy immune system. This has a two-fold benefit. First is that any viruses/germs that get introduced, are going to have a much harder time grabbing hold of the dragon. Secondly, any that do grab hold, are going to be handled much better. I mention it a lot, and it gets lost on some, but UV is DANGEROUS. It is harmful. It is also necessary. For those two reasons alone, the only logical deduction is to provide as little UV as necessary. You want the health benefits of UV, but you don't want to cross that line into it being more damaging than good. I've discusses UVI in great lengths and detail on this website over the years, and collaborated with Dr. Francis Baines on multiple occasions for the betterment of folks here understanding the complex concepts of UV in the enclosure. If you want to start down another rabbit hole, look through some of those threads. All that is to point out that UV being dangerous, is actually going to be of slight benefit to one of your concerns over lack of airflow and the possibility of germs/viruses just hanging out and multiplying. Firstly, a virus can not replicate on it's own, it needs host cells. So viruses replicating in the enclosure due to airflow I feel don't need to be worried about. Germs on the other hand can spread and replicate on surfaces. Luckily for us, a bearded dragons enclosure is actually a pretty harsh environment when you think about it. Most people are providing UVI levels higher than necessary, but that makes it even harder for germs to spread or live. And I'm not too sure how much an effect airflow would have in removing germs from a surface, as that is typically where you are going to find them. I was actually really close to doing this two years back. I like building built-in enclosures, and was going to convert a bedroom closet into a 5-6 tank built in. My main concern was the closet getting way too hot due to 5 or 6 heat lamps, and not being able to provide a proper cool side. My solution for this was going to be having a dead space of a few inches behind the enclosures to the closet wall that was sealed off from the rest of the room. I was going to route an inline fan through the attic space to suck the hot "used" air out from the back. This combined with vents on the front of the enclosures would force fresh room air through the enclosure to expel the hotter used air. Would have taken some balancing with vent openings so that one or two enclosures aren't getting all their air flow while the rest get none, but would have been easy to do. Really wish I would have just gone for it, but ended up having another child and needing the room to have a functioning closet apparently... :rolleyes::LOL: It is still something i'd like to experiment with, as its very easy to overheat a room once you have multiple enclosures in it. But in that case the benefits were going to solely be for temperature regulation, and according to my wife maybe the most important part of the ventilation issue, smell... :) I have a little wish list of things I want to do experiment wise with enclosures. One being that ventilation idea, but another being an actual full spectrum lighting array that I design and program to change throughout the day to mimic the changing spectra of the sun throughout the day. Lots of ideas on that one, it's a bit of my unicorn project. It will get done one day. -Brandon [/QUOTE]
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