how is my setup?

[dr cucumber the chameleon]

so the list of things i have is

zoo med 5.0 T5-HO linear uvb

exo terra sun glo halogen daylight 50-w bulb

mistking starter automatic misting system (set for 4 minutes 30 mins before lights turn on and 30 mins after lights turn off, if the humidity is too high/low i will adjust)

vivarium electronics LED plant grow light

reptibreeze xl enclosure and stand

plants are all from neptune the chameleons list of safe plants

i have all the lights on a timer to turn on at 8 am and turn off at 8 pm, the ambient temperature is 81 and the basking spot is 85, i’m doing calcium without d3 every day and a multivitamin with d3 twice a month. he’s getting gutloaded small crickets right now, ill introduce dubia roaches soon. he’s a male veiled chameleon and he’s about 3-4 months old i think.

problems im having:
i cant get the humidity above 60%, ill be adding more misting at night but even right after misting for 4 minutes the humidity is still only in the high 50s. maybe the humidity gauge isn’t a good one? i’m looking into getting a fogger i’m just trying to find one i can program for a specific time and how long it goes for.

 

[ToastyCham]

Hi and welcome to the forum!
Your ambient temp is too hot, it should be around 70-75. What are you gutloading the crickets with? As for humidity, you can try wrapping the sides and back of the cage with window insulation. Where did you get your chameleon? Your setup looks pretty good! I’ve attached a few files to help you.

 

[ERKleRose]

Welcome on here! I love your username, by the way! What species of chameleon do you have?
Edit: never mind, saw it!
I’ll go through what you have posted, just give me a sec

 

[ERKleRose]

zoo med 5.0 T5-HO linear uvb

exo terra sun glo halogen daylight 50-w bulb

How far away is each bulb from his basking branch?

plants are all from neptune the chameleons list of safe plants

I’d double check what you have in there with the veiled tested plants on the Chameleon Academy's plant list. Veiled are notorious for eating anything, so you want to make sure you’re only using plants that have been proven safe for veileds. Also make sure to put rocks too big for him to eat over the soil in the plant pots if you haven’t already. I’ve linked the Chameleon Academy’s plant list below!

the ambient temperature is 81 and the basking spot is 85

Like @ToastyCham said, the ambient is too hot, he gave a good ambient range; your basking temp is too hot for your cham’s age, as well. It should be 80*F at the top of his back when he’s on his basking branch. How are you measuring his basking temp and ambient temps?

i’m doing calcium without d3 every day and a multivitamin with d3 twice a month

What specific brands and versions are you using? The schedule is perfect!

he’s getting gutloaded small crickets right now, ill introduce dubia roaches soon

Stick to the gutload chart with the white background @ToastyCham anttached above for gutload. Both the old one (first listed with green background) and Neptune the Chameleon’s list (based on your plants and other threads, I’m guessing that’s where you got your info) have kale in them, which is not good. Kale is high in oxalates, which binds calcium. More feeder variety is always better, so go wild trying the different bugs on the feeder chart above! Let us know if you need/want places to buy bugs from! Dubia roaches don’t always interest chams, so start with a small amount to test them out. Other easily accessible roaches that chams love (there are way more than this) are red runner/Turkistan roaches, discoid roaches, horseshoe crab roaches, orange-and-ivory headed roaches, and green banana roaches (these are the only ones that can climb and fly in what I listed, the others do neither)

he’s a male veiled chameleon and he’s about 3-4 months old i think

If you could post a pic of the back of his back feet, we can check for tarsal spurs to double check he is in fact a he. Plus a regular pic of him so we can fawn over him of course! Where did you get him from?

i cant get the humidity above 60%

That is too high for veileds during the daytime, you want it to be 30-50% during the day. What are both your nighttime temps and humidity levels?

ill be adding more misting at night but even right after misting for 4 minutes the humidity is still only in the high 50s. maybe the humidity gauge isn’t a good one?

Short spurts of misting at night are great, you can also make your night misting longer to help. Is your humidity gauge digital or analog? And did water get into it and break it?

i’m looking into getting a fogger i’m just trying to find one i can program for a specific time and how long it goes for.

Unless your nighttime temperatures are 65*F or lower, it is not safe to fog at night. Higher temps and high humidity increases the risk of a respiratory infection. If you can get that nighttime temp drop, make sure the fogger is cool mist, not warm mist. There are many options to choose from, you can search here on the forums for premade ones or even make your own! @crosscutts has a great tutorial on making your own: (the entire series is awesome!)

For his cage, I’d add some more branches and vines (that are safe) throughout, but especially near the top. If you want to do a full husbandry review, let us know! I’ve attached helpful links below (if you haven’t already seen them)!

https://chameleonacademy.com/chameleon-husbandry-program-getting-started-with-chameleons/
https://chameleonacademy.com/plants/
https://chameleonacademy.com/veiled-chameleon-care/ (everything on here is correct except for basking temps and feeding amounts, those both vary depending on age and gender, and the humidity can go lower, too)

 

[dr cucumber the chameleon]

Hi and welcome to the forum!
Your ambient temp is too hot, it should be around 70-75. What are you gutloading the crickets with? As for humidity, you can try wrapping the sides and back of the cage with window insulation. Where did you get your chameleon? Your setup looks pretty good! I’ve attached a few files to help you.

I made a blend of collard greens, mustard greens, sweet potato, apple, and mango. I used a bit too much sweet potato but I'll use less next time.

 

[dr cucumber the chameleon]

How far away is each bulb from his basking branch?

I’d double check what you have in there with the veiled tested plants on the Chameleon Academy's plant list. Veiled are notorious for eating anything, so you want to make sure you’re only using plants that have been proven safe for veileds. Also make sure to put rocks too big for him to eat over the soil in the plant pots if you haven’t already. I’ve linked the Chameleon Academy’s plant list below!

Like @ToastyCham said, the ambient is too hot, he gave a good ambient range; your basking temp is too hot for your cham’s age, as well. It should be 80*F at the top of his back when he’s on his basking branch. How are you measuring his basking temp and ambient temps?

What specific brands and versions are you using? The schedule is perfect!

Stick to the gutload chart with the white background @ToastyCham anttached above for gutload. Both the old one (first listed with green background) and Neptune the Chameleon’s list (based on your plants and other threads, I’m guessing that’s where you got your info) have kale in them, which is not good. Kale is high in oxalates, which binds calcium. More feeder variety is always better, so go wild trying the different bugs on the feeder chart above! Let us know if you need/want places to buy bugs from! Dubia roaches don’t always interest chams, so start with a small amount to test them out. Other easily accessible roaches that chams love (there are way more than this) are red runner/Turkistan roaches, discoid roaches, horseshoe crab roaches, orange-and-ivory headed roaches, and green banana roaches (these are the only ones that can climb and fly in what I listed, the others do neither)

If you could post a pic of the back of his back feet, we can check for tarsal spurs to double check he is in fact a he. Plus a regular pic of him so we can fawn over him of course! Where did you get him from?

That is too high for veileds during the daytime, you want it to be 30-50% during the day. What are both your nighttime temps and humidity levels?

Short spurts of misting at night are great, you can also make your night misting longer to help. Is your humidity gauge digital or analog? And did water get into it and break it?

Unless your nighttime temperatures are 65*F or lower, it is not safe to fog at night. Higher temps and high humidity increases the risk of a respiratory infection. If you can get that nighttime temp drop, make sure the fogger is cool mist, not warm mist. There are many options to choose from, you can search here on the forums for premade ones or even make your own! @crosscutts has a great tutorial on making your own: (the entire series is awesome!)

For his cage, I’d add some more branches and vines (that are safe) throughout, but especially near the top. If you want to do a full husbandry review, let us know! I’ve attached helpful links below (if you haven’t already seen them)!

https://chameleonacademy.com/chameleon-husbandry-program-getting-started-with-chameleons/
https://chameleonacademy.com/plants/
https://chameleonacademy.com/veiled-chameleon-care/ (everything on here is correct except for basking temps and feeding amounts, those both vary depending on age and gender, and the humidity can go lower, too)

Sorry I just joined this forum and don't know how to quote line by line like you did, but I'll answer in order.

The basking branch is about 7 inches away from the heat bulb, I bought something to raise the bulb above the cage to bring it to a safer temperature.

All the plants I have are on the list besides the monstera and dracaena, but on other lists besides just neptune it said they were safe for veiled, will they be a problem? I'll get some rocks to cover the soil.

I'm honestly not too sure about my temp and humidity readings because I think my gauge might be broken or just inaccurate, but to answer your question it is digital. I just bought a new one that will be here in 2 days so I should be getting better readings soon. I'll also be buying one of those laser temperature guns to more accurately get the temp of the basking spot, since I was just positioning the current thermometer on the basking spot and reading it after a minute or so.

I have the zoo med repti calcium without d3 and flukers repta calcium with vitamin d3 and phosphorus free, I also just got the exo terra calcium + d3 powder supplement for free from my work.

I used a blend of sweet potato, collard greens, mustard greens, apple, and mango for the gutload, there was too much sweet potato this time but other than that the percentages are in line with the chart. I'm hoping I can get him on board with the dubia roaches because I can get them and crickets for cheap at the pet store I work at and we dont carry any other staple feeders, but I will definitely look into online sources if he refuses the dubia roaches so he's not just eating crickets and the occasional treat bug.

I'll post pictures from my phone in a bit! I'm pretty sure that he has spurs, but I only noticed them on one of his feet (which isn't saying a whole lot because I have not interacted with him too much) and I got him from the pet store I work at. I have no idea where we got him from or anything about him. we had this chameleon named wanda there for months and i got so emotionally attached to her and wanted to bring her home so bad, i started doing all sorts of research and deep dives (apparently not enough since i'm clearly missing some things lol). my parents said absolutely not and so i started educating everyone that came in asking about her on proper care and giving them resources, but she was sold on a day i wasn't there and they put her in one of the zoo med chameleon kit things. it broke my heart so as soon as we got this lil guy in i convinced my boyfriend to let me put him in his room and i bought him the next day so no one else could and kept him at work while everything came in. so thats the story! i still feel awful that i didn't take wanda, she was one in a million from what i understand, she loved to be held and would climb up my hair, and she got huffy when i put her back in the enclosure and would try to make a dash up my arm to perch on my shoulder. i miss her a lot. anyways

the humidity sits around 50 all the time, i just taped down a shower curtain to help hold humidity at night. i brought the mist time to 2 minutes at 7:30 am, and now have 4 minutes at 8:30 pm, 11 pm, 2 am, and 5 am. again though, i don't know how accurate my humidity gauge is because it does not change at all after misting. it's been 3 hours since lights turned off and the middle of the cage is reading as 75 degrees and the humidity is showing 48, but the house temp is showing 70 degrees. i'm really not sure what to do at this point about the temperature, because with lights off and heat bulb off the temp is supposedly the ideal daytime temp. i think the fact that between the 8:30 misting and 10:45 the humidity is showing 48 means i should definitely be misting for longer and more often at night, its just hard to tell when the humidity gauge shows no change in the middle of the cage after 4 minutes of misting. (UPDATE since writing this originally, the 4 minutes at 11 just went off and the humidity is showing 59, so the shower curtain is helping. i guess i should just do 6 minutes and more often?)

good to know about the foggers with the high temps. i'm just really struggling with nighttime humidity as im sure youve gathered, and i saw a lot of good things about foggers. ill avoid them.

ill add more branches to the top, i was just nervous about putting too much stuff up there since the light and bulb is sitting directly on the top, but im raising the heat bulb and ill find a way to raise the linear uvb bulb as well, so it shouldn't be a problem.

new problem im having- at 7 we left the house, he was doing fine, hiding in one of his plants. he had just crawled onto my finger briefly and then went back into the plant, he looked completely normal. at 10 when we came back after lights out, he was on the ceiling. i got nervous about him hurting his claws or tail (he had his tail threaded through the mesh cage to hold on) since ive heard horror stories about chams breaking them, so i slowly reached in to try and coax him down and he immediately hissed, puffed up, and his darker patterns appeared. is it okay for him to be up there? is it because of the temp being too high (75) at night? how can i lower the temperature when the heat bulb and light bulbs aren't even on? there are fans going in the room (that probably have a part to play in my humidity not holding) but i don't know what else i can do.

 

[dr cucumber the chameleon]

here’s dr cucumber! also included is the light setup (i unplugged the led grow light because i can’t figure out how to only make it white light, might have to return it) and him on the top of the cage. i don’t know how worried to be about him on top of the cage, im finding a lot of things about baby chameleons doing it a lot but also a lot of things about temperature being too hot or cold or stress? so idk

 

[Sonny13]

What a cutie and still so small