Flourescent lights inside cage?

[gargoyle]

I see a lot of Flourescent fixtures mounted inside plastic cages, is this a safe practise or should I be concerned about my animals coming in contact with them? I'm looking at ordering some plastic caging and want to know that if I order them with this that it's ok for my snakes.

Thanks
DC X

[boa_Jay]

well, fluorescent light do come hot, but not hot enough to arm your snake. Plus its verry rare that i see one of my snakes showing interest to the light.

[gargoyle]

have you ever experience warping or slight melting of the pvc cages due to the ballast heat they produce? And are you using/installing lights that are bare or with covers?

Thanks for the quick reply

[Stockwell]

Fluoresents are usually safe as the heat is spread out over a wide area. The tubes themselves wont respresent a burn hazard, but larger snakes will knock them out unless they are covered. You still need to consider that the tubes and ballast create heat. In a large cage this is usually little concern, but in a smaller cage, plastic or wood, the wattage must be considered to ensure you won't end up with an easy bake oven.
In some cases its a good idea to mount the ballast outside the cage, and have only the tube inside. The other option is to have both the tube(s) and ballast outside using fine screening, glass or plexi as a window. I've never put lighting in a plastic cage, but if there is a fear or warping, you might want to stand it off with some type of spacer such as plexi or a little block of wood at each end.
Every 5 to 10 watts(depending on ventilation) will raise a one cubic foot volume 10 degrees above ambient. If your herp room is heated, and/or you use heat tape, everything must be taken into consideration to avoid over heating the cage.
I once visited a herper that claimed his snake wouldn't hold food down, and was always in the water and he couldn't figure out what was wrong...
It was a small cage about 2 cubic feet, and I was shocked to find it contained a 60 watt light bulb.. The temp was 135F...

[boa_Jay]

All the fluo light i installed have a plastic cover, i use low wattage ballast. PVC will not melt or warp due to a fluorescent fixture heat. A fluorescent light wil generally get the temp up from 2 to 5 degrees depending on cage size and wattage of the light . Fluo light heat a bit, yes, but not enough to cause any problems to the snake or the cage