Heating/Lighting

[SerpentLust]

Hehe building, heating and lighting cages is harder than I anticipated. I have a few questions...

1. I was under the impression that it's better to have a light or heat lamp somewhere in the enclosure. But in alot of peoples enclosures, I've noticed that they don't care about light, just heat. Is that correct?

2. If I were to make a whole rubbermair rack. How do I heat that? What are different methods?

3. Is it necessary for reptiles (snakes actually, Pythons and Boas) to have a lighted basking type area? Because I haven't been seeing that in alot of cages.

4. If I were to make an enclosure like the one I've inserted below. What type of wood do you recommend?

It's all confusing. Hehehe.

I was planning on building something like this: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2323804950&category=1285&rd=1 But if I'm planning on stacking them, which I am. There's no place for a lighted area unless I build it inside. Which I have no problem doing.

Any pointers would be appreciated and such. My aunt and I are starting to build my enclosures in late June and i'd like to sketch some blueprints for her by then.

Thanks to everyone in advance,
Jenn

[eyespy]

It's easier to maintain humidity without a basking light, so a lot of folks use fluorescent or other "cool" sources for viewing light and use heat tape or mats, flexible heat rope, ceramic heat emitters, or even radiant heat panels for large snake enclosures.

Basking lights are better for heliotherms like iguanid and agamid lizards that depend on UV and IR light for thermoregulation.

I've never built my own cage so I'll leave the more specific questions to those with more experience, but I love wrapping flexible heat rope around two sides of the bottom of a snake enclosure for heating. You can plug it into a thermostat to control temps beautifully.