LED night lighting

[Colby1100]

Hey guys, Im trying to find a good light to use at night for my S. Dehaani. Ive heard they cant see red lights so its good to use for nocturnal viewing. The problem is I cant find any of these lights. I want an LED one that doesnt emit much heat so i dont dry the terrarium up. Any advice on where to find a good LED nocturnal bulb? Thanks! Colby

 

[chanda]

I just use a red "party" bulb (which are readily available at many stores) and it's fine. You wouldn't want to leave it on 24/7 - but I imagine that would be the case with any supplemental lighting. Just turn it on when you are actually watching your centipede, but turn it off when you are done. Short-term use for viewing should not dry out your terrarium.

 

[omni]

if you want to make some LED lighting, it's cheap and easy DIY, but you'll do a little wiring. do you want some really simple lighting or more involved for viewing? basically all you need is 3 to 5 5mm LED's, a resistor, some black tape and wire, and a phone charger.

 

[Scope]

Blue night led lighting is not possible?

 

[Rhino1]

Hi @Colby1100, this question seems to be a recurring one so will put up what I found to be the cheapest option for my situation.
This is the best option I have found, you just need to purchase a 12v adaptor and it will just plug in, it comes with a remote so if you don't like red you can change it to blue or purple or green or party mode etc, if it's too bright you can turn it down. They use very little power and don't get warm, I needed to do a few shelves so went with the 4 option, it's wired up and ready to go and arrived in 2 days from eBay and the light Bars come with good quality double sided tape and install in seconds.
You can buy single lights any length, doubles etc

This is it set up with the few of enclosures I keep in my bedroom.
It doesn't bother any of my inverts, tarantulas, scorpions or gecko's in any way at night.

 

[Bill S]

The issue of red light vs other colors for "night time viewing" is sometimes misunderstood. The reason why red is the color of choice is that many animals do not have receptors for red wave lengths of light. For a spider, a bright red light is less visible than a dim blue light. For humans, we have receptors for red and blue, so we're looking at the overall brightness of a different spectrum than what spiders and centipedes see. A further complication is that if you use fluorescent lights, they give off light in wave lengths (into the UV range) that humans cannot see, but that spiders and other animals can see. So again, what looks like dim light to a human may look like a bright light to another animal. Adding one more problem - most lighting emits over a wider range than we might realize. A red light bulb emits white light along with the red. We react to the red, but a spider only sees the white light. So - the best light for night viewing is a filtered red light, or one that emits only in the red wave lengths. Blue lights may seem dim to us, but they are more visible to the animals. And fluorescent is much more visible to them than to us.