Hello all,
With the help of a few great friends we are going to begin building our own enclosure. It's going to be a drawn out process because money is tight and we will be getting supplies piece by piece.
We have all the wood and now would like to start purchasing the small (but important) things likes vents and light fixtures. The issue is I don't know anything about lighting. We know we will be mounting all lights, UVB and basking, inside of the enclosure. The plan is to make a small hole in the back of the enclosure to run the cords through and plug into our timer. What light fixtures do you guys recommend? I'd like to be able to angle the basking light. so I'm looking for a fixture that would allow me to mount it to the ceiling, plug into a wall (no complicated wiring) in which the light beam can be rotated in different directions.
Also, I'm wondering what is a good fixture for a t5 bulb? The bulb will be approximately 34" and we will also be mounting it inside of the enclosure.
Thanks so much in advance for all responses
zoo med makes a pretty good fixture for t5 bulbs (they arent cheap tho like 50 to 75 bucks)
as far as the basking lamp as long as you arent using any ceramic heat emitters you should be find going to a hard ware store and getting a standard flood light socket.
For a T5 you could pick up a grow light fixture. Not all of them sit flat at the top though so that's something to keep in mind. This is what I have and it has a flat top that could probably be mounted to a ceiling easily. http://www.lightyourreptiles.com/22-t-5-ho-fixture-high-output-with-arcadia-d3-12-ho-bulb/. There are clips that come with it too so you could attach it to hooks or suspend it from a wire if you want. The bulb should sit about 12'' above the basking area for optimal output.
For basking lights (including CHE) I use a brooder lamp fixture (with ceramic base) from the local farm store. Each fixture was under $10 as I recall and supports up to 300w. If you have a fixed ceiling though, you may just want to mount a ceramic screw type socket to the ceiling and skip the big dome reflector which takes a lot of space.