Proper lighting for an iguana is absolutely one of the most important parts of iguana keeping. Iguanas need all wavelengths of light including uva AND uvb. Uva is visible light, the kind of light produced by an incandescent light. But this Section of Kazzy’s pages is more towards the UVB lighting that is needed for the iguana to make vitamin D3. D3 is used in the iguana’s body to metabolize calcium. The reason this is needed is that iguanas are very prone to calcium deficiencies, or metabolic bone disease. In this diseases the body lacks the calcium it needs to make the igs bones strong. MBD is shown through many symptoms, swollen jowls, deformities of the back, soft jowls or "rubber jaw"(in with you can actually squeeze the jaw of the ig), the legs will start to show hard bumps or knobs at the end of the long bones, this is the body creating a fibrous material in attempts to strengthen the iguanas bones. This is one of the most common problems in iguanas today.

The way to prevent this is to provide the right foods (see diet section), heat (see heating section), and light in the form of proper UVB tube lights mounted in an appropriate reflector hood that is UNFILTERD THROUGH GLASS OR PLASTIC (and even fine screen). There are many lights out on the market today that to say the least, suck. The top three lights that I would say to stick to would have to be the Iguana Light 5.0 from ZooMed ®, The Reptile Light from ZooMed® (these two lights are really the same thing in different wrappers or a Vita-Light ®. The zoomed lights produce the highest level of UVB available today and the Vita-lights coming up in second (they only have about halve of the UVB radiation as the ZooMed ® lamps but are proven to be effective in preventing MBD). These lights must be at the most 18 inches away from the iguana, preferably 12 inches, and the iguana must have exposure to them for at least 12 hours a day. It makes things much easier to use an automatic timer with this to ensure that you ig will not get more that 12 hours. ***WARNING ***DO NOT USE WHITE LIGHTS FOR MORE THAN 14 HOURS A DAY. This will stress you iguana greatly and stress leads to sickness. I prefer to only keep them on for 12 hours because I notice that Kazzy gets a little aggressive when I leave them on for any longer. Any incandescence used to heat the enclosure must also be shut off. So see how to heat the tank at night see the heating page on this site. The UV light must not be filtered through glass or plastic or even fine screen as this will degenerate the uvb radiation.

There are many beliefs that UVB light fixtures only produce usable uvb at the middle of the tube and that the last 6 inches of the tube don’t produce enough to make a difference. I don’t know if this is true or not so just to be safe I keep Kazzy’s basking area near the middle of the tube light. If you have any questions about Lighting please be sure to e-mail me. My e-mail address is motox@home.com; any and all questions will be answered.