Red light all day?

[DeenosMama]

My boyfriend sent me a text saying that he forgot to change our beardies lights over this morning (so he still has only his red light on) and asked if I could go home to change it but I can NOT leave work . Will our beardie be okay until 4 PM (eastern time so....5ish more hours) with the red light on? We have heat in our house so even without the light, he wouldn't freeze. We changed his lights over at 10 PM last night. Is he going to be okay? If so-- what time should we change his lights back over to red tonight for him to go to bed?

 

[vampy]

He'll be fine. Depending on the temperature it gets to, you probably won't want to feed him until you've put his basking light on for an hour or two so he's warm enough, and then leave it on for another couple of hours before bedtime. So if you get home at 4, put his white light on, feed him somewhere between 6 and 8, then turn it off again at 10 (if that's his normal bedtime)

Also, he doesn't need a red light at night, and in fact it will stop him from sleeping properly. In future just keep the white basking light (and his UV) on for 12 hours or so in the daytime, and don't have anything on at night.

 

[Chompy]

I have timers on my lights. Just go to the pet store and ask for timers. Program your timers and all you have to worry about is changing bulbs when the time comes.

 

[Tander]

...
Also, he doesn't need a red light at night, and in fact it will stop him from sleeping properly. In future just keep the white basking light (and his UV) on for 12 hours or so in the daytime, and don't have anything on at night.

I had a red light too for Dracula, used to have it on for an hour before I would go to bed - now I don't use it at all and have since removed it from his tank as I saw no need for it if his temps were good throughout the night.

Some say it disturbs their sleep - I know if I had a light on all night while sleeping, it would disturb my sleep, too!

 

[DeenosMama]

I believe that the red light would disturb his sleep... if he slept out in the open... but when Deeno sleeps, he squishes his body up under a log in his viv. You can hardly even see him.

I've heard from others that I should get rid of the light but decided not to for temperature reasons. He has had the light for months and sleeps with it, it might disturb him at this point not to have it... sort of like a human with a fan (some humans wouldn't be able to sleep with a fan on but some humans, because they've always had the noise of a fan, can't sleep without a fan). But I could be completly wrong. I live in Upstate NY and it gets very cold here and I like to keep my house a little bit colder (around 60 degrees) to perserve energy. If he didn't have his light on during the night, his viv would get really cold and I don't want to put his body into shock when I put on his daytime lights because he's going from 60 degrees to 95.

Thanks for the advice on the timer, I'll go and pick one up this weekend!