Custom Enclosure Questions

[jmiles50]

I'm planning a custom enclosure for Asami, and I have a couple of questions. First thing is, can I overexpose her to UV :?: The planned measurments will be 6ftx3ftx3ft, and I wanna put like a 5 or 6 foot long UV light in there. I know it's a silly question, but I just wanna make sure My second question would be what's the best wood to use for the frame, and sides :?:

 

[DaRealJoker]

Not a silly question at all. Infact a very important topic. Yes a tegu can be over-exposed to UV. I don't know the scientific name but it's basically sun burnt eyes. What happens is the too high UV causes them to get burnt on the eyes and apperently is painful. Use an appropriate UV light. Repti-Sun or Repti-glo 5.0 if your light is real close to the animal, Repti-Sun or Repti-Glo 10.0 if the light is further away. Or a PowerSun Mercury Vapour Bulb will do as well at further distances. As for wood, I was recently asking those questions a couple months ago too. I'll share what I found out. 1st is that Pine and Cedar are toxic to Tegus. It can however be used if you paint it with a safe paint. That's the second thing, safe paints I've been told of are exterior Latex paint, or any Water-based Polyurethane Paint. It gets a lil slow going tho. I was told to paint a coat, let it completly dry, then repeat like 4 or 5 times. After painting, I was told to let it vap off. I let it sit there for three weeks just to breath and let any gasses escape the paint. I washed it and put my tegu in. Lighting distance is something you'll have to figure out tho. Some lights require being close to the animal as others need to have a bit of distance. Best of luck and I hope I helped. Happy Holidays.