Healthy Chameleon, Weird Food Habits...

[Deo32]

Hello,
Chameleon Info:

• Your Chameleon - Male, Panther, 7 m/o, been with me for around 2 weeks
• Handling - Nothing significant
• Feeding - Crickets... won't eat anything else
• Supplements - Calcium, Calcium with D3/vitamin
• Watering - Mist 3 times a day for 5 min. Sometimes he drinks straight from me spraying him
• Fecal Description - Brown, some white
• History - I bought the same enclosure as he lived in before. The only thing that is different is that the enclosure is facing me/he sees me walking around a lot. I don't know if this stresses him b/c at the reptile store he wasn't seeing a lot of people. He visibly seems to cower when I stand up and walk over, but he gladly walks up on my arm and onto my head when I was misting.. he just sprinted up on me.

Cage Info:

• Cage Type - Glass, maybe 3.5 long 4 tall and 2 wide
• Lighting - 2 UV bulbs, 2 weak heating lamps that stay on overnight (this is a block with 4 slots) and one basking light
• Temperature - 88ish on basking, ambient is 72-78 depending on how high he is in cage
• Humidity - probably like 70 on average. If I put the hydrometer higher on the cage, the humidity will rise to around 95 after I mist and slowly plateau down to around 50- if I don't mist again. When I put the hydrometer nearing the bottom (maybe like 6 inches above it) it plateaus at 75 constant humidity. He seems to like hanging out on the bottom of the cage - even the floor - at times. Definitely not more than he hangs out on the vegatation/sticks, but I see him there occasionally.
• Plants - Motly fake plants, I put an orchid in there (its just two sticks pretty much) and he likes to sit there. Its on the bottom of the cage in a pot.
• Placement - In my room on a ledge that is surrounded by three windows. It's facing my desk (maybe like 15 feet away) so that's what he probably sees.
• Location - Wisconsin. My room temp is around 69-72 degrees. Something else to note is that he is pretty active whether its walking around the sticks or trying to climb on the ceiling of the enclosure/glass, which causes him to fall occasionally.

Problem: Odd Eating/Habits


I drop around 20 large crickets in his enclosure every other day. He never immediately eats them and he won’t eat with me watching, though I‘ve seen him eating them occasionally so I know he’s not...not eating lol.

Anyways he refuses to eat super worms/waxworms both from the floor, feeder cup, and my hand. He also spends some time on the ground of the cage, but I attribute this to crickets being there. Though it’s also worth mentioning that he falls occasionally, as he tries to climb on the ceiling/glass of the cage a lot.

I’ve never raised a panther but I’ve had a female and male veiled chameleon who lived to 7 years and 10 years respectively. They never exhibited this type of behavior..

 

[Deo32]

Pics: I put the hydrometer in there just for the pic, it’s usually on the wall but it wasn’t visible. He’s also way darker during the day. At night or when I handle him he gets his blue stripes and turns orange.

 

[timw1]

Welcome to the forum. Please don't take anything I say as gospel (do your research, ask questions) or demeaning. Your husbandry is a little off, and could potentially cause you problems. The cage looks small, the lighting appears to be inadequate, and the substrate on the bottom can cause impaction. Your enclosure looks to be 2 ft tall, if so it is about two feet short. Seriously, if that enclosure is 4 ft tall, I'll eat my shorts. Your uvb lighting should be linear, and you should have no need for your 2 "weak" heating lamps being on overnight. Your Cham needs a temp drop at night. If your enclosure is all glass that is not good, panther's need adequate air flow, and needs to dry out between mistings. With the glass enclosure and substrate (cocofiber?) on the bottom you have a recipe for an URI. Search the caresheets of this forum and ask questions.

 

[Deo32]

Welcome to the forum. Please don't take anything I say as gospel (do your research, ask questions) or demeaning. Your husbandry is a little off, and could potentially cause you problems. The cage looks small, the lighting appears to be inadequate, and the substrate on the bottom can cause impaction. Your enclosure looks to be 2 ft tall, if so it is about two feet short. Seriously, if that enclosure is 4 ft tall, I'll eat my shorts. Your uvb lighting should be linear, and you should have no need for your 2 "weak" heating lamps being on overnight. Your Cham needs a temp drop at night. If your enclosure is all glass that is not good, panther's need adequate air flow, and needs to dry out between mistings. With the glass enclosure and substrate (cocofiber?) on the bottom you have a recipe for an URI. Search the caresheets of this forum and ask questions.

Thanks for responding!

First, the enclosure is actually 3 feet 10 inches tall. It’s gigantic...I was going to use the same vent enclosure I used for my veiled but the people insisted I bought a larger enclosure because panthers apparently need more space.. hence the lack of plants/vines on the bottom, I didn’t have enogh to fill the entire enclosure (which is fixed now, I have stuff everywhere).

I don’t know what you mean by “linear UV” but that entire block you see on the back is UVB. The basking light I have keeps the entire top right of the cage at 89 degrees - I originally also had an additional UVA/heat lamp up there because I thought one lamp couldn’t heat that big of a cage area.

As for the glass cage, as I said up there the breeders that I went to buy from told me I had to get that cage despite my veild’s 1.5x1.5x4 vent cage. I didn’t question them though, since they had all of their panthers in the same enclosures they told me to buy..

But is what you’re saying is that I should try to open the cage/increase airflow and maybe he will start eating things other than crickets?

 

[NDO]

Linear UVs vs Bulbs, he means. Linear are the "straight," for lack of a better word, UVs...look like a pipe.

 

[jamest0o0]

No lights or heat at night. Unless your tank gets down to 50 degrees at night, you're doing more harm than good.

And 10 yrs for a Male and 7 for a female?!.... I guess I'll take your word, but I'm having a hard time believing that. I don't keep veileds though so maybe I imagined them not living as long.

 

[Goose502]

That cage is fine, I use the same exact one for mine. It’s 36x18x36. There is plenty of ventilation as long as you are using a basking bulb(this creates the chimney effect). I see you are using the Exo Terra t5 fixture as well. It works, but really doesn’t provide enough light for your chameleon, I recommend at least a quad fixture. Also, that substrate sucks. Find out how to make it bioactive and employ that strategy. Those cages are excellent for bioactivity. I’m surprised all your crickets aren’t escaping, I’ve had to tape all the holes on the top rear of the cage to prevent this. You need to look into a misting system as well, hand spraying will get old over time.

 

[Deo32]

No lights or heat at night. Unless your tank gets down to 50 degrees at night, you're doing more harm than good.

And 10 yrs for a Male and 7 for a female?!.... I guess I'll take your word, but I'm having a hard time believing that. I don't keep veileds though so maybe I imagined them not living as long.

I got my veiled when I was 8 years old, he died when I was 18 this year. He was a vegetable for the last 2 years of his life though - had a clear mass/tumor on his head - so I kept him alive until it seemed like he really was just in pain...As for the female, my dad got it when I was really young, so I'm taking his word on it. But yeah the person that took care of my veiled chameleon when we went out for vacation was shocked every time we came back and he was still alive after he was 6+ years old.

 

[Deo32]

That cage is fine, I use the same exact one for mine. It’s 36x18x36. There is plenty of ventilation as long as you are using a basking bulb(this creates the chimney effect). I see you are using the Exo Terra t5 fixture as well. It works, but really doesn’t provide enough light for your chameleon, I recommend at least a quad fixture. Also, that substrate sucks. Find out how to make it bioactive and employ that strategy. Those cages are excellent for bioactivity. I’m surprised all your crickets aren’t escaping, I’ve had to tape all the holes on the top rear of the cage to prevent this. You need to look into a misting system as well, hand spraying will get old over time.

Thanks for the response.

The "fixture" you referred to (the UV/box thing I'm assuming) has 4 slots so I was a bit confused when you mentioned a "quad fixture." The only thing is that 2 of the slots are occupied by the weak/LED heating lamps. Are you suggesting I just place 4 linear UV instead of 2 and scrap the 2 heating lamps?

Also that substrate you see is pretty much just a water absorbing-humidifier...It's safe for him to eat, from what the breeders told me (they gave it to me). I don't know what you mean by making it bio active though.

 

[Goose502]

Thanks for the response.

The "fixture" you referred to (the UV/box thing I'm assuming) has 4 slots so I was a bit confused when you mentioned a "quad fixture." The only thing is that 2 of the slots are occupied by the weak/LED heating lamps. Are you suggesting I just place 4 linear UV instead of 2 and scrap the 2 heating lamps?

Also that substrate you see is pretty much just a water absorbing-humidifier...It's safe for him to eat, from what the breeders told me (they gave it to me). I don't know what you mean by making it bio active though.

The lighting fixture can hold 4 t5 high output fluorescent tubes? That’s the recommended fixture for that cage and our chameleons(per Todd at lightyourreptiles.com). As far as basking lights, some use a regular incandescent bulb. They use a wattage that provides the correct basking temps. The chameleon will get plenty of UVB from the flourescent tubes. I recommend 2 bulbs be 5.0 or 6.0 UVB bulbs, and for the other two, I use one plant growth bulb, and one full spectrum bulb. Your substrate is garbage, you really should get rid of it. If your misting schedule is correct, then you will be dumping 1/2 to 1 gallon of water into the tank every day. Start researching bioactive enclosures now, they are by far the best way to go. You will never have to clean your cage...ever. If you leave your substrate you have in there now, it will turn into mud, and end up giving your chameleon a respiratory and/or fungal infection. The breeder must be changing his substrate nearly every day. If he isn’t, then he isn’t hydrating properly.

 

[laurie]

Welcome to our world! We may be new but you are already good with chams, so most of the battle is over, lol.I am concerned that your cham is falling! Does the cage have enough branches and vines? You might want a few more so there is no falling.
I do believe your chams lived that long! I have also had a cham live seven + years.

 

[jamest0o0]

I guess veileds live longer, always assumed they lived as long as Panthers. Learn something every day heh. Says a lot for their hardiness