question about lighting

[Bay687]

im getting my second chameleon thanks to lance... ill be picking him up in 2 weeks, but frost right now is doing great but basking lamp is around 98 degrees. so obvisously i need to down grade watts to keep it around the low 90's but the real question is how much light do you guys perfer from your lamp? like do you want more light than the UV light itself? or do you want the UV light to show more? do you get what im saying.. cuz my spreads through the cage and the UV light doesnt take much of the cage.. if you understand that? basically my light dominates the UV light.. if you need to see pics ill show

 

[Billy Quan]

I don't know if this is true, maybe someone else can enlighten us. . . i have heard that a dominant incandescent light can nullify the beneficial effects of a fluorescent. I feel like that makes sense. . . maybe try a different angle for your basking light?

 

[vindicatedornot]

im getting my second chameleon thanks to lance... ill be picking him up in 2 weeks, but frost right now is doing great but basking lamp is around 98 degrees. so obvisously i need to down grade watts to keep it around the low 90's but the real question is how much light do you guys perfer from your lamp? like do you want more light than the UV light itself? or do you want the UV light to show more? do you get what im saying.. cuz my spreads through the cage and the UV light doesnt take much of the cage.. if you understand that? basically my light dominates the UV light.. if you need to see pics ill show

You want to have a balance. One side of the cage will be lit up by the basking light. It will be the main source of light. The UV needs to be on top, near the basking light so when your chameleons bask they can absorb UV as well. Here is a pic of mine.

You can see how the basking light provides the visable light and heats up the top half of the cage. My UV is diagonal accross the top because of how I have his climbing branches setup. The top 10 inches of his cage are around 87-91 degrees and he can absorb UV from anywhere up there.

Hope that helps
-Andrea

 

[sandrachameleon]

I'd say my basking light is a bit brighter downwards into the cage than the UVB tube. It makes no difference as far as I can tell.
I put All bulbs on top of the cage. The tube UVB running front to back on the left side of the cage, and put the basking heat bulb in the middle of the the back of the cage. This way the chameleon can choose to bask while getting UVB, (by being on the upper left and rear of the cage) bask without UVB (by being toward the right side and rear of the cage) or get UVB without the heat (front left).

 

[Bay687]

ya i see that and i like how you have it setup.. awesome to hear how this works, i was just curious to see how it all worked.. because i wasnt sure if too much of one is bad or not... plus im getting my second one in a few weeks.. just wanted to make sure if that was good