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- Jan 11, 2008
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Well, perhaps I'm mistaken, but I thought 500-600 was yellows and greens. 600-700 includes orange to red. But, if I'm wrong, please say so.Perhaps you might find that interesting: http://jeb.biologists.org/content/49/1/95.full.pdf+html
You will see a VERY significant drop in sensetivity from 500 too 600 nm.
How exactly did you set up your experiment then? Maybe the negative effects you observed have another reason? Sounds to me, like you used the bulbs during nighttime ("Anyway, after a month, the animals subjected to bulbs were much more temperamental, ate less, restless and more sensitive than the ones that were actually allowed a night-time of darkness.")? I would suspect that the fact that you heated during nighttime could explain it..
I always use red light (flashlight) to observe my specimen during the nighttime. I have never seen any photonegative reactions to this wavelenghts.
Edit: Here is another paper: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347208001632 (if you have access to it, otherwise I can quote from it if you like).
And by the way: "Nobody cares about the quality of their animals, just that they can get them to survive. " is a rather harsh assumption, how would you know?
But to emphasize, I am not trying to make a point for red light bulbs! I am just stating what I find is a fault in your logic. As stated before I find that white light during the day works fine too and I don't see any reason in using red light when heating in the daytime.
Regards
Finn
Yes, the bulbs were used at night. As were the CHEs and RHPs. Reptiles require heat, even at night. If it weren't so, there'd be no market to advertise toward with the red bulbs. I don't have qualms using them during the day if it's all you have, but there are significantly better options out there. Our discussion had purely to do with night-time usage.
The experiment was set up in seperate rooms. Note, none of the invertebrates received direct heat from the bulbs, but were rather in the same room and were affected by the light.
All that being said, invertebrates don't need light, and tend to do best without a direct lamp. A room light is more than sufficient and they tend to prefer it. Otherwise, they spend most of their time hiding. A well known fact.
EDIT: I opened the experiment page. Looking at the graphs, the range stops at 600, leading me to believe that sensitivity wasn't tested beyond this point, or that sensitivity was so greatly reduced as to not be worth mentioning or wasting page space. I would go for the latter assumption, but I don't have time to actually read the paper. Thanks for sharing it! With my assumption, it does help me believe they are much less sensitive to red light than others. Still, I'm not utterly convinced that red bulbs are worth their purchase price.
---------- Post added 11-17-2011 at 09:12 AM ----------
It's not 24hr. I have all the snakes on thermastats that allow for a 3 degree night drop (it's not significant, but it's the most economically friendly choice for my set-up). The inverts don't have any heat of their own, and I've monitored it dropping as much as 5 degrees at night for them. Without any direct heat, the levels get warmer as you go up. My Ts, on the lower levels, tend to stay around 77 during the day and the scorps around 80.It sounds like you have an constant 24-hour temperature. From my understanding, it sounds like you want to create a natural environment. It would make sense then to create a range that matches the natural heating and cooling that these scorpions would be experiencing in their natural environment. In nature the tempreture changes as much as 10-15 F in a single day. http://www.climatetemp.info/ghana/
You are correct, it's a different wavelength. Different species can see light in different wavelength ranges. Humans see from violet to red. Infrared and UV are invisible to us, but the light is still there and other species actually can see it. The same way infrared light is invisible to the human eye, red light is invisible to the scorpions eye. The heat can be felt, but the light can't be seen.
I would be interested in seeing your data and how your study was conducted. Was this conducted in a lab setting, with all things being equal? How did you quantify the findings? How many test subjects? I'm sorry to be so skeptical, but it goes against what I have heard elsewhere.
I'm not sure that red light is totally invisible to them. Particularly if we're talking about the cheap incandescents. BUT, I will concede that they are much less sensitive to the red light than to other spectra.
I'd love to show you the data obtained from the experiment. However, due to the tornado a little while back, I lost most all my papers, data, etc on a variety of things. Miraculously, my tarantula shelf was left standing. Don't know how, but I was more than pleased to see that. Personally, I don't feel like you're being skeptical at all. It is expected. If you don't have questions, I worry. The study was actually done in house so I would have 24hr access to maintain and control parameters. The room temperature and lighting schedule needed to remain at a constant for each group. Each group was kept exactly the same, under the same parameters. One group receiving red bulbs, another CHEs, and another RHPs. There were about 20 reptiles and 10 inverts per group, give or take one or two. The study was only done for a month and obviously needs more monitoring, but it gave others a basis on which to continue their own projects.
The areas measured are difficult to actually "measure". What I did was use a hook and tap each animal. Agitation was measured by whether they attacked the hook or not. Animals in the red light district were up to three times as likely to strike or attempt attack. Temperament looked at how well the animals tolerated me or other objects working in or around their cages, as well as handleability. This extends along the agitation principle, but takes it another step further. Of course, this also tested skittishness and overall personality. Motion points were also set-up to monitor level of activity. As stated before, activity and restlessness was increased with the red bulb during daylight hours.
I considered the CHE and RHP groups my control, as they allow for complete darkness, but seperated them out to find if the difference in technological advancment has any effect on the animals themselves. I concluded that behavioural patterns did not differentiate significantly, but there are reasons to believe that the health of the animals long term could be beneficial with RHPs. Why? Animals kept with RHPs required less maintenance in that humidity was not dried out. This resulted in less needed water changes, full piece sheds without misting, and better humidity control. Other benefits were that the RHPs ran on much less energy, being energy efficient cuts down costs long-term and leads one to believe they will last much longer. In my discussions with reptile keepers that use RHPs, they can easily run for 20 years. Much longer than a CHE or incandescent. In the long run, the RHP looks to pay for itself in energy savings and increased ease of maintenance. The incandescent bulbs have the same drying effect as the CHEs.
I hope that answers some of your questions on the project. I just wish I was able to salvage some of this stuff.
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