My new Chameleon
- Thread starter ForrestJungle
- Start date
pigglett79
Avid Member
I am happy to see you are taking everyone's advice. Your guy will be very happy. He will for sure out grow that cage in no time. You should start looking for a screen cage that is at least 18x18x36 inches.
ForrestJungle
New Member
Worried :/
alright so.. ha would you mind giving me a list of everything you suggest is should put into this new cage? i mean I'm not going to get it until i have a little bit more money lol. Also Chip is like brown, and a really ugly shade of green. I think he is sick... can anybody give my any details. I will post a picture if i need too. Thanks
alright so.. ha would you mind giving me a list of everything you suggest is should put into this new cage? i mean I'm not going to get it until i have a little bit more money lol. Also Chip is like brown, and a really ugly shade of green. I think he is sick... can anybody give my any details. I will post a picture if i need too. Thanks
ReptiGeek
New Member
Pictures are always best when you think your chameleon is sick. However that being said, young veiled's tend to be grown/ ugly greens more then adults. Their appearance is greatly affected by the temperature in the tank. My little guy will have the side of his body that is facing the heat lamp brown, whereas the other half of his body will be a light green. Colour doesn't usually tell you if your chameleon is sick or not. Generally you will be able to tell if your chameleon is sick by watching his behaviour change, and if there is something clearly visible that could show sickness or injury, like bowed limbs and mouth rot.
As for a new terrarium, you should definitely look into providing some live plants such as pothos or ficus plants. Pothos leaves are great for catching water droplets and the vines are great for spreading across the enclosure. Ficus plants provide height which veileds love most. Cover up the soil your plants are potted in with large rocks (so that your chameleon doesn't accidentally eat it). At the bottom of your enclosure you won't need any substrate. Just leave it bare, your chameleon will not mind what so ever. Provide lots of horizontal climbing options for different ranges of basking. I use bamboo (not lucky bamboo!). You might find that bigger pieces of bamboo will be harder for your chameleon to grip, so make sure the bamboo sticks are slim enough for your cham to get his feet around. To keep the bamboo sticks from falling: If you are using screen you can always use pins (just make sure the sharp point is not exposed) as well as twist ties. If you are using a glass terrarium I find that wrapping vines around the bamboo ends provide sufficient holding strength, however you can also poke the ends of your bamboo into styro-foam pieces and tape or glue them onto the glass. The exo-terra backgrounds work great for this matter.
Best of luck,
Travis
laurie
Retired Moderator
This cham is in a terrarium, if the op followed your advice his cham would need to learn to swim. I am not being mean, I just want members to read and think about the post before they reply. Your advice is good in a lot of situations, but not when a cham is in glass. I ask a lot of members to be careful what they advise as a brand new member will not know who is giving practical advice and who is not. jmo
laurie
Retired Moderator
Hello Forrest, welcome to the forums. I see little Chip has you sucked in already, so you will fit in here great.
I will give you my opinion on keeping chip, in a terrarium or a screen cage.
Glass, retains heat well, where you live Chip will over heat. Retains humidity well, badly needed where you live. Waterfall, breeds bacteria, not good, your light set up could cook poor little chip. Well 110 would even cook me or you.
You can set the terrarium up for now but for chip but he will out grow it soon and you don't not want to have to get him a 24x24x48" terrarium. You could buy a small third world country for what that cost. If you want him in his terrarium I will help you do it, ok?
Screen, keeping it cool in summer is going to be a complete nightmare unless you keep your home air conditioned about 24/7. You can also get a window air conditioner just for chip's room. If you can get past the heat problem, screen cage is easy.
What you would need in my opinion is screen cage 24x24x48 or larger if you want. Chip will say the bigger the better. (I speak chameleon) You need a 5.0 reptisun UVB bulb and fixture, a cheap fixture for a heat light. Most of the time you will want to use a 25 watt, as you want to provide light (sun in cham terms) but no heat. I would get a auto mister, is AZ Chip will add a bit to your water bill. Two of our sponsors sell auto misters, both work well, a dripper, I use the expensive model, gallon milk jug with a pin hole. Several live plants, ficus trees, umbrella trees and pothos plants are good. All must be washed and put in soil with no fertilizer or chemicals. A bunch of sticks and vines to make highways for Chip. A bucket or something like that to allow the water to drain from the floor of your nice new cage you have drilled holes in.
this thread will show a lot of members cages for you to have a look at.
https://www.chameleonforums.com/official-enclosure-picture-thread-49688/
We have more thing to talk about, food choices, supplements, all that fun stuff but read this and get back to me.
I will give you my opinion on keeping chip, in a terrarium or a screen cage.
Glass, retains heat well, where you live Chip will over heat. Retains humidity well, badly needed where you live. Waterfall, breeds bacteria, not good, your light set up could cook poor little chip. Well 110 would even cook me or you.
You can set the terrarium up for now but for chip but he will out grow it soon and you don't not want to have to get him a 24x24x48" terrarium. You could buy a small third world country for what that cost. If you want him in his terrarium I will help you do it, ok?
Screen, keeping it cool in summer is going to be a complete nightmare unless you keep your home air conditioned about 24/7. You can also get a window air conditioner just for chip's room. If you can get past the heat problem, screen cage is easy.
What you would need in my opinion is screen cage 24x24x48 or larger if you want. Chip will say the bigger the better. (I speak chameleon) You need a 5.0 reptisun UVB bulb and fixture, a cheap fixture for a heat light. Most of the time you will want to use a 25 watt, as you want to provide light (sun in cham terms) but no heat. I would get a auto mister, is AZ Chip will add a bit to your water bill. Two of our sponsors sell auto misters, both work well, a dripper, I use the expensive model, gallon milk jug with a pin hole. Several live plants, ficus trees, umbrella trees and pothos plants are good. All must be washed and put in soil with no fertilizer or chemicals. A bunch of sticks and vines to make highways for Chip. A bucket or something like that to allow the water to drain from the floor of your nice new cage you have drilled holes in.
this thread will show a lot of members cages for you to have a look at.
https://www.chameleonforums.com/official-enclosure-picture-thread-49688/
We have more thing to talk about, food choices, supplements, all that fun stuff but read this and get back to me.
Last edited:
ForrestJungle
New Member
Ok you are probably so far the coolest person I have talked to on this site. Thank you so much. I have a large cage in the works it is going to be 29" deep, and 39" wide, 2 feet off the ground for the water collection, ant the actual cage will be 4 feet tall. Sadly I have little to no money at this time, but I will slowly be investing and buying the stuff.ni have a pothos growing in my house now I am just trying to find two big trees that I can put in there. :/ since it is winter I can't find anywhere that sells ficus trees :/ I looked into a mistking(again no money) and I am thinking about getting one of them. I am breeding crickets and I use supplements twice a month. I hope I am doing this right. thanks for the great help. Hope to here back soon.
you are probably so far the coolest person I have talked to on this site. Thank you so much. I have a large cage in the works it is going to be 29" deep, and 39" wide, 2 feet off the ground for the water collection, ant the actual cage will be 4 feet tall. Sadly I have little to no money at this time, but I will slowly be investing and buying the stuff.ni have a pothos growing in my house now I am just trying to find two big trees that I can put in there. :/ since it is winter I can't find anywhere that sells ficus trees :/ I looked into a mistking(again no money) and I am thinking about getting one of them. I am breeding crickets and I use supplements twice a month. I hope I am doing this right. thanks for the great help. Hope to here back soon.
pigglett79
Avid Member
Hello Forrest, welcome to the forums. I see little Chip has you sucked in already, so you will fit in here great.
I will give you my opinion on keeping chip, in a terrarium or a screen cage.
Glass, retains heat well, where you live Chip will over heat. Retains humidity well, badly needed where you live. Waterfall, breeds bacteria, not good, your light set up could cook poor little chip. Well 110 would even cook me or you.
You can set the terrarium up for now but for chip but he will out grow it soon and you don't not want to have to get him a 24x24x48" terrarium. You could buy a small third world country for what that cost. If you want him in his terrarium I will help you do it, ok?
Screen, keeping it cool in summer is going to be a complete nightmare unless you keep your home air conditioned about 24/7. You can also get a window air conditioner just for chip's room. If you can get past the heat problem, screen cage is easy.
What you would need in my opinion is screen cage 24x24x48 or larger if you want. Chip will say the bigger the better. (I speak chameleon) You need a 5.0 reptisun UVB bulb and fixture, a cheap fixture for a heat light. Most of the time you will want to use a 25 watt, as you want to provide light (sun in cham terms) but no heat. I would get a auto mister, is AZ Chip will add a bit to your water bill. Two of our sponsors sell auto misters, both work well, a dripper, I use the expensive model, gallon milk jug with a pin hole. Several live plants, ficus trees, umbrella trees and pothos plants are good. All must be washed and put in soil with no fertilizer or chemicals. A bunch of sticks and vines to make highways for Chip. A bucket or something like that to allow the water to drain from the floor of your nice new cage you have drilled holes in.
this thread will show a lot of members cages for you to have a look at.
https://www.chameleonforums.com/official-enclosure-picture-thread-49688/
We have more thing to talk about, food choices, supplements, all that fun stuff but read this and get back to me.
You are in good hands now........everyone loves to help someone that cares so much and is willing to take sound advice. Chip is going to be a very happy cham.
Tetsuo
New Member
Ok
If you don't have much money go around to people that a framing (building houses) and ask them if you could have some scrap wood. Then just get some plywood or wafer board from them then some aluminum screen mesh and build your own. It's really easy and cheap. When I was doing framing we had people come up to the work site asking for scrap wood all the time. Also I was told the same thing about how the temp should be 110 but sadly she didn't make it...
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