NikTrollbert
New Member
I am getting a Veiled Chameleon and i need to know what heat temp would be good and the watt on the bulb I live in florida and inside my house is normally 70f' inside. Also i am getting a baby FEMALE chameleon.
Need Help On Heating...
- Thread starter NikTrollbert
- Start date
SaintJimmy
Avid Member
answers your lighting question:I would get a 40-70 watt incandescent bulb and a cheap home depot fixture to hold it, along with a cheap timer from home depot or any other store like that. Make a basking spot of 80-85, and for females you'll want to keep it around 85-87 once they're adult to prevent too many eggs being produced and to make them live longer lives without the stress of so many eggs.
other husbandry advice from a senior member:Get a screen cage (small) 16x16x20" or around there for a baby cage. Put a plant like a small ficus or schefflera in it, put some bendy vines/fake leaves, but make sure to have a live plant and plenty of places to hide.
For the adult cage you'll need an 18x18x30" cage (medium) or larger. Buy possibly a larger plant (plants usually grow slow) and put both the small plant you already had and the large one in it, remove the branches from baby cage and move her into adult cage with branches in it. (just for when she is an adult)
You'll also want an 18" uvb TUBE, preferably 10.0 or 5.0 labeled. Get a fixture to go along with it.
Remember the timer? buy a power strip, put the strip into the timer, timer into the wall, and the light fixtures into the timer.
That will set your lights to automatic once you set up the timer on/off times.
Also you'll need a squirt bottle, gently squirt the cage/mist the cage so that little rain drops fall over the leaves, 3 times + a day.
You can do this automatically by buying a mist king starter setup for 100$ (I recommend buying from LLLreptile.com, their shipping is cheap).
Dust her food with regular calcium powder (non-phosphorous, non-d3) every day or so, then use calcium powder (non-phosphorous) with d3 twice a month on the food.
She might eat: Mealworms, superworms, crickets, dubia roaches, banana roaches, hissing roaches, stick bugs, horn worms, silk worms, katydids, grasshoppers, cicadas, fruit flies, blue bottle flies, soldier flies, pheonix worms, calci worms, grubs, etc. Never feed wild caught bugs very often, especially if you know they have pesticides.
For night time: they need 12 hours of darkness (it's ok to watch tv or play computer in the same room as them, just turn off the light or keep them in a separate room) so make sure they get enough sleep. Do not use a night light.
They can drop to 50 degrees at night if that is the condition you live in, so that is fine.
Feeding: to get her to like you better, hand feed the bugs. Once she is eating out of your hands, you can see if you can lure her with food up to your hands and sit on your hand. once she associates your hands with good things, she won't be scared of you that much.
use a parrot cup and tie it to the cage somehow inside to a branch, put their food inside of it with the calcium on it, this way you can count how much she is eating.
when using live plants: put large rocks over the dirt so she cannot swallow any dirt.
Never use dirt on the bottom of your cage.
I hope a lot of this helped. This is a lot of what I learned on the forum.
if you already knew all this: good for you! if you didn't, be sure to learn most of the aspects of their care. Especially the don'ts.
other husbandry advice from a senior member:Get a screen cage (small) 16x16x20" or around there for a baby cage. Put a plant like a small ficus or schefflera in it, put some bendy vines/fake leaves, but make sure to have a live plant and plenty of places to hide.
For the adult cage you'll need an 18x18x30" cage (medium) or larger. Buy possibly a larger plant (plants usually grow slow) and put both the small plant you already had and the large one in it, remove the branches from baby cage and move her into adult cage with branches in it. (just for when she is an adult)
You'll also want an 18" uvb TUBE, preferably 10.0 or 5.0 labeled. Get a fixture to go along with it.
Remember the timer? buy a power strip, put the strip into the timer, timer into the wall, and the light fixtures into the timer.
That will set your lights to automatic once you set up the timer on/off times.
Also you'll need a squirt bottle, gently squirt the cage/mist the cage so that little rain drops fall over the leaves, 3 times + a day.
You can do this automatically by buying a mist king starter setup for 100$ (I recommend buying from LLLreptile.com, their shipping is cheap).
Dust her food with regular calcium powder (non-phosphorous, non-d3) every day or so, then use calcium powder (non-phosphorous) with d3 twice a month on the food.
She might eat: Mealworms, superworms, crickets, dubia roaches, banana roaches, hissing roaches, stick bugs, horn worms, silk worms, katydids, grasshoppers, cicadas, fruit flies, blue bottle flies, soldier flies, pheonix worms, calci worms, grubs, etc. Never feed wild caught bugs very often, especially if you know they have pesticides.
For night time: they need 12 hours of darkness (it's ok to watch tv or play computer in the same room as them, just turn off the light or keep them in a separate room) so make sure they get enough sleep. Do not use a night light.
They can drop to 50 degrees at night if that is the condition you live in, so that is fine.
Feeding: to get her to like you better, hand feed the bugs. Once she is eating out of your hands, you can see if you can lure her with food up to your hands and sit on your hand. once she associates your hands with good things, she won't be scared of you that much.
use a parrot cup and tie it to the cage somehow inside to a branch, put their food inside of it with the calcium on it, this way you can count how much she is eating.
when using live plants: put large rocks over the dirt so she cannot swallow any dirt.
Never use dirt on the bottom of your cage.
I hope a lot of this helped. This is a lot of what I learned on the forum.
if you already knew all this: good for you! if you didn't, be sure to learn most of the aspects of their care. Especially the don'ts.
NikTrollbert
New Member
Thanks
Thanks for the info helped me alot
Thanks for the info helped me alot
brownie64
Avid Member
If you haven't already bought the Chameleon yet you might want to consider a male. It's been my experience they live twice as long as the females do to not laying eggs. My Males averaged around 7-9 years, where my females would only live about 3-4 years. But like the other post said there are thing you can do to linnkthin their lives like temps, and how much you feed her to keep the egg clutches down. After she lays eggs, and she will rather she has been bred or not you may need to give her more calcium the eggs really take it out of her.
