Is this substrate okay for my Cham?

[Chamkeeper101]

Hi,

Next week I am going to start building a glass terrarium for a 6 month old panther chameleon and was just wondering weather I was okay to have a substrate of bark wood chip (large pieces only) and I planned to place large stones around the substrate to help prevent ingestion

Would this be okay?

 

[tianniccari]

Hey just out of curiosity how would you go about airflow? Pygmy chams can be kept in glass terrariums with success but panthers really cannot. You'll need a few sides of the glass to be a mesh screen to allow air movement to prevent stagnant air that can lead to RI down the road. As for the substrate, I don't use any honestly. Panthers are arboreal chams and rarely go to the bottom of the cage (it does happen occasionally.) I know you said about making the wood chips big enough as to not be ingested but I wouldn't risk it honestly. I was amazed at how big of things a panther can swallow. I saw a video of one eating a hornworm that I thought there was no way he was eating that thing and sure enough I was wrong lol. Not trying to be rude, just trying to help! Anybody else feel free to chime in with any other thoughts.

 

[Chamkeeper101]

Hi the back is wood and the side are glass I have a fan system in the terrarium I had it custom built & okay thanks for the advice & would you say it's essential for you to have live plants in his tank ?

 

[tianniccari]

if you have fans circulating the air it may be alright. I would say live plants DEFINITELY are essential. Fake plants simply don't hold humidity and moisture. My pothos holds water droplets for my chams to drink off perfect. My fake ficus, the water droplets drop right off to the bottom of the cage

 

[Chamkeeper101]

Thanks for the reply and what sort of live plants could I put in their and would it hurt the Cham if he eat any for the fake ones ?

 

[tianniccari]

http://flchams.com/chameleon-safe-plant-list/

There is a whole list to choose from. Pothos and Umbrella are two big ones used

 

[Carlton]

Hi,

Next week I am going to start building a glass terrarium for a 6 month old panther chameleon and was just wondering weather I was okay to have a substrate of bark wood chip (large pieces only) and I planned to place large stones around the substrate to help prevent ingestion

Would this be okay?

Using bark chips can cause other problems besides possible ingestion. Loose feeders hide in it and they will be walking around or possibly eating shed skin, feces, urates, dead leaves from the plants, and other dead feeders. Not stuff I would want my cham ingesting. If you don't keep the bark aerated or cleaned it can rot, releasing mold spores into your cham's air supply. As chams don't need the substrate to burrow or hide in, and there are other ways to keep the cage humid, there's really not much reason for it. Its one thing if you want a bioactive substrate that live plants grow in, but other substrates are a hassle for a herp that doesn't need them.

FWIW, have you read through the Resources tab articles about cham housing? If not, I suggest doing so in order to understand why we recommend what we do. It will also give you good ideas.

 

[Chamkeeper101]

Thanks