fluxlizard
Avid Member
so clarkrw3- do you use a misting system or do you use a drip?
Nasal Salt Glands - the cause of the white crusts on the nose
- Thread starter ferretinmyshoes
- Start date
clarkrw3
New Member
I am just going to copy this over from another thread. I have at times used a drip but mainly only misting. If I notice a particular cham being dehydrated I will put a gal of drip in the morning for a few days but that's it.
I am in DRY AZ and run 1-2 cool mist humidifiers in the room with the chams at all times. I run one usually unless a cham is shedding then I bump up to two.
My normal schedule is:
Lights on 6am
6:30am -- 5min
945am -- 3min
1200pm -- 5min
245pm -- 5min
530pm -- 3min
Lights out at 6:15PM
Unless I am trying to hydrate a cham then I change the first and possibly the 4th misting to 15min. I also use a three nozzle rain dome when trying to hydrate chams that come in very dehydrated.
Elizadolots
New Member
You've not proven anything other than that reptiles and birds in the wild secrete the dominate salts of their environment. Something I'm not disputing.
You are carrying that forward to say you've proven that this is completely untrue of captive raised chameleons because--for many--the dominant salt is calcium carbonate, which you say, cannot be excreted (the research has not been done, but you say you've proven it.)
How many posters here have offered the "reduce the calcium dusting and the crusts will go away"? Lots and lots. But you are saying that it's not true.
Please explain why saying these people are not speaking the truth is somehow not calling them liars?
I do want to point out, again, that the last 2 people who've raised this problem did not give their chameleons tap water.
Also, I'd like to ask you: why do you recommend restraint in dusting with calcium? I've seen you say over and over that people should dust very lightly, it should barely be visible...stuff like that. Why? If, as you've said, it's not possible to over supplement a chameleon with calcium, why not recommend all white crickets?
Does that somehow invalidate it? I'm quite sure many who have experienced the white crust phenomenon and know that reducing the calcium will solve it disagree with you, but maybe they're unwilling to engage in the discussion. As you seem to rely heavily on ridicule I can't say that I blame them.
ataraxia
Avid Member
not to argue a point or to place my side of the discussion. Ferret and Eliza both give awesome advice here but i will say my personal experience. only animal i have ever had crust on the nose was on a uromastyx. this animal only eats vegetation, seeds and occassional crickets with no standing water bowl in the cage. i will say that i toned his calcium dustings down to get rid the deposits.
DekuScrub
Avid Member
im going to have to reread your initial post ferret, but very interesting stuff. thanks
ive known the white stuff was salt, and ive tasted it /facepalm only after being told it was salt....
but as far as the exact composition and reason for excretion ive personally been unsure. and it would seem to me, like as eliza pointed out, that "The gland regulates the dissolved solids. When there are too many for osmosis, they are expelled."
think of it this way, you chomp down a powdered doughnut with no milk. in all likelyhood your spit is going to be white, its dissolved into your saliva and is retained in your mucous membrane. until you can ingest fluid to wash it down, or produce a sufficient amount of saliva.
(i never mist my lizards immediately after a feeding)
now imagine youre a lizard and you naturally remove salts via this gland, usually miniscule amounts. well youre system is flushed with a large amount of calcium dust (which never occurs in the wild) wouldnt it seem probable that this gland would serve the secondary function of removing these dissolved solids?
i have nothing to back up that assumption, just how i always figured it.
sounds like we have got a chemist on our hands here with zen pointing out.
"Chlorine combines (ionic bond) with any naturally occurring sodium in the body to form Sodium Chloride (table salt)"
i suppose my initial response hencefore to inquires regarding "whats the white stuff" is going to be "do you use city water? thats generally chlorinated and that will bind with naturally occuring sodium in the body, excessive amounts of this will be discharged through the nostrils" i will however still be asking if they feed them powdered doughnut looking crickets, and say "it MAY attribute to the deposits"
all in all i appreciate both ferrets and elizas perspectives on the debate. however i think both of you need to be a little more willing to accept that youre probably not completely correct.
ill need something a bit more conclusive to choose a side.
ideally we would have a study of the effects of calcuim supplementation, with variables included, on captive populations of chameleons.
if i still had 200+ lizards in my basement i would totally test some things out myself (minus giving my lizards city water)
ive known the white stuff was salt, and ive tasted it /facepalm only after being told it was salt....
but as far as the exact composition and reason for excretion ive personally been unsure. and it would seem to me, like as eliza pointed out, that "The gland regulates the dissolved solids. When there are too many for osmosis, they are expelled."
think of it this way, you chomp down a powdered doughnut with no milk. in all likelyhood your spit is going to be white, its dissolved into your saliva and is retained in your mucous membrane. until you can ingest fluid to wash it down, or produce a sufficient amount of saliva.
(i never mist my lizards immediately after a feeding)
now imagine youre a lizard and you naturally remove salts via this gland, usually miniscule amounts. well youre system is flushed with a large amount of calcium dust (which never occurs in the wild) wouldnt it seem probable that this gland would serve the secondary function of removing these dissolved solids?
i have nothing to back up that assumption, just how i always figured it.
sounds like we have got a chemist on our hands here with zen pointing out.
"Chlorine combines (ionic bond) with any naturally occurring sodium in the body to form Sodium Chloride (table salt)"
i suppose my initial response hencefore to inquires regarding "whats the white stuff" is going to be "do you use city water? thats generally chlorinated and that will bind with naturally occuring sodium in the body, excessive amounts of this will be discharged through the nostrils" i will however still be asking if they feed them powdered doughnut looking crickets, and say "it MAY attribute to the deposits"
all in all i appreciate both ferrets and elizas perspectives on the debate. however i think both of you need to be a little more willing to accept that youre probably not completely correct.
ill need something a bit more conclusive to choose a side.
ideally we would have a study of the effects of calcuim supplementation, with variables included, on captive populations of chameleons.
if i still had 200+ lizards in my basement i would totally test some things out myself (minus giving my lizards city water)
Let me address some of the discrepancies of your argument before we go on.
Templeton 1967 - captive Mexican Spiny-tailed Iguanas (Ctenosaura pectinata) were kept on a diet of thinned dog food. As I mentioned, dog food was at one time recommended for correction of MBD (before we realized how bad that was). This was back before there were readily available calcium supplements. To correct MBD you need to have sufficient calcium to not only meet the maintenance requirements, but also replace the deficit. In a healthy animal without MBD, that amount of calcium qualifies as excessive to me. Therefore, healthy animals kept on that diet were receiving more calcium than they needed.
Yes that is the entire point of the salt gland, but they have to actually play a role in osmosis to be relevant according to all the reserach, and even some that are responsible for osmosis don't necessarily get excreted.
Umm that is 100%, completely, absolutely wrong! Sodium is the BIGGEST osmoregulator. The osmolarity caused by sodium and potassium is what triggers the gland, to have better control over tonicity. Physiology 101. That is key here in this argument so if you don't understand this concept please do some more reading first. You can't extrapolate if you don't even understand what you're talking about.
I don't need a study, it's physiology 101, something I am well versed in, that you have no background in at all. Maybe in a test tube that would work but not in the body. Calcium is almost entirely immediately absorbed by cells rather than remaining in extracellular fluids so has a minimal effect on tonicity at all. You're just wrong here.
Your argument may have some amount of validity if you could still hold it up without this one sentence of this one paper taken out of context. Have you found an echoing theory in any other papers you've seen? Because I didn't see it anywhere. I have also sent her email for clarification. I really hope she responds. If your one sentence doesn't hold up against my 400+ studies then I think you should stop using it. Just because it's published doesn't mean it's necessarily good evidence. Published studies get revoked or discredited every day. That's why you use multiple studies from different sources to make a unified supportive argument. Remove that one paper from the pool of evidence. What else ya got?
Really, please post your study proving it is only with an excess. You want all these studies to prove everything I say, why don't you back up something you say with studies? Who has proven it is only an excess that is the issue???
If you are waiting for someone to do an analysis of the content of crusts of captive chameleons specifically you are going to have to fund it yourself. The stunning lack of research done on reptiles is astonishing. Listen closely because this is important: There are dozens and dozens of very relevant topics about reptiles that have not even a single published study on them at all. Hundreds of topics and you are lucky to find more than one or two published papers on them. A handful of papers on a topic is a godsend. So here, when there are hundreds of papers written on this one specific topic from tons of different people for at least the last 50 years, on nearly as many different species from different environments and evolutionary decendants and they ALL say the same thing, that is a BIG deal. That basically makes it a universal truth. There have been hundred and hundreds of scientific studies specifically focused on the nasal salt gland secretions of many, many species of birds and reptiles over the last 40+ years and not one of them has ever shown the primary components of the secretions to be anything other than sodium and potassium with small amounts of chloride and bicarbonate and absolutely negligible amounts of calcium, if it’s even present at all, despite genetic, environmental, wild or captive, herbivorous or carnivorous lifestyles. You are going to have to do a lot more than tell me your gut feeling is enough to override that. Chameleons are unique, but they are not that different to be excluded from the rest of their cousins.
And my own personal history contradicts that. I changed to bottled water because my city water is remarkably high in sodium and they went away within days never to return. Are you saying I'm lying about that? Did you follow up with these other cases and see them actually go away? Have you ever noticed how many people get on here, post one question, and then never get on here again? Did you email them all personally after they stopped posting and follow up? When newbies have problems, even innocuous ones, we almost always make them fill out the husbandry form. So at the time they see the crusts people are also making husbandry recommendations, which usually include better gutloading recommendations. That's a confounding variable that does not make calcium the most likely culprit at all.
Please stop trying to provoke me by calling me a liar and actually contribute to this discussion in a scientifically sound manner. Otherwise this debate is useless.
Templeton 1967 - captive Mexican Spiny-tailed Iguanas (Ctenosaura pectinata) were kept on a diet of thinned dog food. As I mentioned, dog food was at one time recommended for correction of MBD (before we realized how bad that was). This was back before there were readily available calcium supplements. To correct MBD you need to have sufficient calcium to not only meet the maintenance requirements, but also replace the deficit. In a healthy animal without MBD, that amount of calcium qualifies as excessive to me. Therefore, healthy animals kept on that diet were receiving more calcium than they needed.
Yes that is the entire point of the salt gland, but they have to actually play a role in osmosis to be relevant according to all the reserach, and even some that are responsible for osmosis don't necessarily get excreted.
Umm that is 100%, completely, absolutely wrong! Sodium is the BIGGEST osmoregulator. The osmolarity caused by sodium and potassium is what triggers the gland, to have better control over tonicity. Physiology 101. That is key here in this argument so if you don't understand this concept please do some more reading first. You can't extrapolate if you don't even understand what you're talking about.
I don't need a study, it's physiology 101, something I am well versed in, that you have no background in at all. Maybe in a test tube that would work but not in the body. Calcium is almost entirely immediately absorbed by cells rather than remaining in extracellular fluids so has a minimal effect on tonicity at all. You're just wrong here.
Your argument may have some amount of validity if you could still hold it up without this one sentence of this one paper taken out of context. Have you found an echoing theory in any other papers you've seen? Because I didn't see it anywhere. I have also sent her email for clarification. I really hope she responds. If your one sentence doesn't hold up against my 400+ studies then I think you should stop using it. Just because it's published doesn't mean it's necessarily good evidence. Published studies get revoked or discredited every day. That's why you use multiple studies from different sources to make a unified supportive argument. Remove that one paper from the pool of evidence. What else ya got?
Really, please post your study proving it is only with an excess. You want all these studies to prove everything I say, why don't you back up something you say with studies? Who has proven it is only an excess that is the issue???
You should be actually. That was a verbatim quote from the book. I would love to see you laugh in the faces of devoted researchers with PhD's who have spent decades studying this one topic. What are your credentials again?
If you are waiting for someone to do an analysis of the content of crusts of captive chameleons specifically you are going to have to fund it yourself. The stunning lack of research done on reptiles is astonishing. Listen closely because this is important: There are dozens and dozens of very relevant topics about reptiles that have not even a single published study on them at all. Hundreds of topics and you are lucky to find more than one or two published papers on them. A handful of papers on a topic is a godsend. So here, when there are hundreds of papers written on this one specific topic from tons of different people for at least the last 50 years, on nearly as many different species from different environments and evolutionary decendants and they ALL say the same thing, that is a BIG deal. That basically makes it a universal truth. There have been hundred and hundreds of scientific studies specifically focused on the nasal salt gland secretions of many, many species of birds and reptiles over the last 40+ years and not one of them has ever shown the primary components of the secretions to be anything other than sodium and potassium with small amounts of chloride and bicarbonate and absolutely negligible amounts of calcium, if it’s even present at all, despite genetic, environmental, wild or captive, herbivorous or carnivorous lifestyles. You are going to have to do a lot more than tell me your gut feeling is enough to override that. Chameleons are unique, but they are not that different to be excluded from the rest of their cousins.
And my own personal history contradicts that. I changed to bottled water because my city water is remarkably high in sodium and they went away within days never to return. Are you saying I'm lying about that? Did you follow up with these other cases and see them actually go away? Have you ever noticed how many people get on here, post one question, and then never get on here again? Did you email them all personally after they stopped posting and follow up? When newbies have problems, even innocuous ones, we almost always make them fill out the husbandry form. So at the time they see the crusts people are also making husbandry recommendations, which usually include better gutloading recommendations. That's a confounding variable that does not make calcium the most likely culprit at all.
Please stop trying to provoke me by calling me a liar and actually contribute to this discussion in a scientifically sound manner. Otherwise this debate is useless.
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Because there's no need for more than a light coating so why waste it? And because crickets can suffocate on heavy calcium dustings before they get eaten so they get wasted? Those are both pretty sound to me. Did I ever say 'don't do more or something bad will happen'? No. I don't see how this is at all relevant btw.
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Elizadolots
New Member
That's probably true.
It would be interesting to survey the board members to see what really is happening. For instance, my theory is that only captive raised animals would adapt to excrete calcium, but if a survey found that animals who grew up in the wild started doing that, my theory would be out the window.
Carlton
Chameleon Enthusiast
Personally I've never added my voice to others who suggest reducing calcium dusting to get rid of nasal crusts. I've always suggested that the higher the mineral content of the local water was, the more likely you'd see crusts on cham nostrils, and that more water or use of softer water might dilute such deposits. Most of the house water I've had while keeping chams has been very hard well water without chlorine or chloramines. I'd see crusts (and corresponding buildup on cage plant leaves), but found that higher hydration or use of an RO filter seemed to help. I also didn't consider nasal crusts to be a dire health problem.
I'd have to go back through the entire thread to check, but has it been established that chams even have salt glands? Respiration water vapor loss alone could cause some slight crusts to form on nostrils too if the mineral content of all the water the animal drinks or absorbs is high.
There are tons of wild animals with these crusts all the time with no supplemental calcium in sight. And you have absolutely zero evidence that the same phenomenon that occurs in our captive animals would be anything different.
GET ME SOME WHITE CRUSTS AND I WILL DO A QUICK ANALYSIS MYSELF.
This has gone on long enough and I am sick of arguing with you when you have no basis to argue on. Are you saying that the predominant ion is calcium?? That it will be more than sodium or potassium? If that is what you are saying then I can prove that myself if someone will send me some crusts. I can do a test that will tell me what ion is present in the highest concentration. That's all it will tell me but I will do it to settle this if I can get some crusts to run it. And if you really want to know everything in it I might be able to set up a more quantitative test through our chemistry department, but Eliza you will have to pay for it.
No, technically I don't believe it has been. It's widely believed based on their crusts but there has not been a study on chameleons specifically. Yet Eliza is convinced that if they do have one it is even more specialized than any other lizard in the world.
I'm serious about the test btw. I'll need crust donations though.
Elizadolots
New Member
I've always been clear that I am only referring to the calcium carbonate that is used to dust feeders.
And, you know calcium doesn't how? Calcium carbonate is dissolved and absorbed by tissue, is it not? Is that not "osmosis"?
And you know that calcium carbonate dissolved doesn't do this, how?
Isn't absorption "osmosis"?
Sounds like absorption to me. And when there is more calcium carbonate (which, lest we forget, is a salt) than the cell is able to absorb....what happens?
Dr. Hazard actually says it twice and I've referenced both. I've also shown you numerous articles that discuss salt glands which are able to express calcium. You blithely dismiss those because the calcium levels or low. That completely ignores the fact that, in the wild, most animals do not get fed large quantities of calcium carbonate.
I do too. Here's hoping your status gets you the response I couldn't. I tried both University addresses for her.
Your studies do not address the issue of calcium carbonate supplementation. I can post studies on fat absorption that are just as relevant as yours. Dr. Hazard at least offered the theory that a reptile raised in an environment rich in an ion other than potassium or sodium would adapt to excrete that through the salt gland. One "on topic" theory by a noted researcher should trump 400 unrelated discussions of wild animals.
You are the one making statements of fact.
That's the theory: excess calcium carbonate triggers the salt expression. Really, that's been very clear. I've never claimed that normal, correct amounts of calcium supplements cause white salt expressions.
It's difficult when you insist on posting condescending things like "booyah" and "I want to believe" posters. Stick to adult discussion and you'll probably find you get the same in return. I have not called you a liar anywhere. I have said--accurately--that you have implied that many here have lied.
That's not a contradiction at all as the theory has always been that the gland adapted to the dominant environmental salt, be that potassium, sodium, calcium or another.
Elizadolots
New Member
Ferret wrote:
More childishness. You've posted over and over that the white crust is expelled potassium and chloride salts and is harmless. If you were not convinced that chameleons have salt glands, it was pretty silly to research 400+ articles on reptilian and avian salt glands, wasn't it?
More childishness. You've posted over and over that the white crust is expelled potassium and chloride salts and is harmless. If you were not convinced that chameleons have salt glands, it was pretty silly to research 400+ articles on reptilian and avian salt glands, wasn't it?
Carlton
Chameleon Enthusiast
FWIW, I doubt any cham species except namaqua has any specialized tissue that concentrates or excretes salt. Their highly humid and wet wild environment would not make such a thing necessary...if I think over the many species that do have salt glands they are either subject to marine situations or have highly efficient water conserving metabolisms...that would tend to concentrate and reclaim any body moisture before it's lost as urine, urates, or through respiration, thus producing some mineral salt deposits (and I am not even trying to debate just what minerals they are; calcium, potassium, sodium, etc). I would bet we are seeing deposits formed by evaporation.
So what you are saying is that hundreds of lizards have been studied and the results are always the same because regardless of species, diet, environment or anything else the only cations they are exposed to in high quantity are sodium and potassium? That nothing else in the entire world could possibly have been prevalent in their environment? No chromium, iron, zinc, magnesium, copper, aluminum, nitrate or any other cation could have possibly been prominent in the environment? That is completely implausible. I wouldn't think they'd be as high as calcium supplementation, true, but I didn't ever see even one of those other cations listed as a component of secretion in any species. Your theory doesn't fit with that.
Nope, you still aren't grasping the concept. Keep reading. What I said was that calcium can readily move into cells, and because of that would not cause hypertonic extracellular fluid, which is what triggers the gland to excrete more of what's causing hypertonicity. Too much sodium in one place makes water flood to that one place, which can make cells explode. Since it's so dangerous (the exploding part) the body needs to eliminate what is causing water to flow. Calcium doesn't have that effect. Also when there is more of it in the extracellular fluid it binds to proteins and gets eliminated via renal orhepatic secretion, or just sticks around bound to protein until blood pH changes or calcium is needed elsewhere. So googling osmosis is not enough to explain it. Physiology is not an easy subject to grasp.
And how do I know this?
Because I have extensive training in chemistry, biology, physiology, anatomy, pharmacology, medicine, surgery, etc. etc. etc. I have been thoroughly trained on how to integrate facts and evidence to arrive at logical conclusions consistent with the scientific consensus by the experts of our fields. I am not just "in the field". I can speak with a certain level of authority on subjects like this because I have the background and knowledge level due to my training to actually be an authority. What do you do for a living out of curiosity? Do you also have a professional degree in advanced sciences? You question me when you have no foundation to stand on. I provide facts after facts and study after study and you have provided nothing of the same caliber to support anything you've said.
Once or twice, who cares when it's the same person. Make your argument stand without anything by this one author. I can say the world is flat two times so does that make me outweigh the people who know it isn't?
The only person who has noted her is you. I don't see awards or long lists of publications. Don't get me wrong I have a healthy respect for her doing what she does, but she is not an authority on it compared to many others who have published way more on the topic. And no, one person does not trump everything else ever when that's not even what she studied. All her studies looked at wild animals too.
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