Sticky's New Home - Introduction

[rainbowsprinkles]

2 weeks ago, our new arrival from Kammerflage Kreations arrived at our door step. The story behind our panther chameleon and how we came to acquire him is pretty funny but will have to wait for later in the thread. Sticky belongs to and was named by my 5 year old, Enzo.

Dealing with Briana and Kammerflage was an awesome experience. I couldn't recommend it enough. They were so helpful and Briana spent all the time I wanted discussing everything. Sticky was well packed and delivered exactly as expected/promised.

Sticky was hatched around February 10, 2017. Sticky is an Ambilobe from Sire: "Arira" (AKA Fable), Dam: “Bakoly" (AKA China) and Dam's Sire: "Thunder". All beautiful specimens on their own, so we are very excited to see how Sticky develops and comes into his bloodlines colors.

Below are the Kammerflage photographs before Sticky shipped and one of Sticky's dad for good measure.

Sticky

Sire: "Arira" (AKA Fable)

 

[jamest0o0]

nice! I love buying from the kammers as well, great people, great chams, what else can you ask for? You'll have to post some pictures as he progresses

 

[rainbowsprinkles]

Months of research and acquiring all the required accouterments made for some fun times with my little boys. The Dragon Strand came and my 5 and 3 year old tried to open it with a kitchen knife before I arrived home from work. Needless to say, it had a knife slit in literally every single panel. I spent an entire weekend re-screening it myself as I was unwilling to look at sewn repairs in every panel on a brand new setup.

His colors have really started to show more as he has calmed down (lots of brown daily assuming from stress) and gotten used to his new habitat.

We initially had an Exo Terra 100 for UVB and a incandescent 53 watt 890 lumen basking bulb, both in clip on reflectors sitting on top. With a thermometer in the basking spot and one way low, the temps were clearly too high and I quickly swapped to a 42 watt 620 lumen basking bulb. Then Petco ran a sale (still going at the time of this post) on the Zilla Slimline Tropical 25 UVB T8 fixture at 40% off online. Their store matched the online price much to the chagrin of the cashier and bam, I got to replace that Exo Terra junk UVB bulb.

Sticky enjoys his large Dragon Strand open air cage, Mist King, custom cut and prepped crape myrtle branches and custom picked cage decor, safe plants, vines, etc. He's super spoiled and gets a variety of gut loaded and Repashy'd crickets, superworms, dubias etc.

 

[JacksJill]

Congratulations!

 

[RedMountainHome]

Hello there, my favorite flavor of sprinkles! Sticky is GORGEOUS!! It seems like you've done a lot of research and it paid off tremendously with a top notch cage and a healthy little boy. Plus, you're raising some very polite children, who wanted so much to help you unpack the cage If you don't mind my making a couple of suggestions...

Chams are known to walk upside down on the top of their screen cages. Sitting the heat lamp directly on top of the screen can lead to serious burns when they walk up-bout like that, but those burns can be prevented by raising the heat lamp an inch or three off the top of the cage.

My other suggestion would be to add some additional foliage along the vines and branches so that he's not exposed as he walks from area to area. That may just be personal preference since you've got what appears to be a happy and healthy boy who has some nice areas of vegetation to hide in, so hopefully some more experienced folks will chime in on.

 

[Kat_72]

Hey we have the same Sire! Half brothers! Quelle is our Dam. Seems poppa was a busy boy lol. He is beautiful! I'm not sure what my Guy will look like but Poppa was a Beautiful boy!

 

[Kat_72]

42 watt 620 lumen basking bulb Is that a normal bulb? I'm running a reptisun deep dome 5.0 and daylight combo that stinks. I just popped over and got The light at 40% off thank you very much. Now what am I replacing my daylight basking bulb with? Lol

 

[rainbowsprinkles]

Hello there, my favorite flavor of sprinkles! Sticky is GORGEOUS!! It seems like you've done a lot of research and it paid off tremendously with a top notch cage and a healthy little boy. Plus, you're raising some very polite children, who wanted so much to help you unpack the cage If you don't mind my making a couple of suggestions...

Chams are known to walk upside down on the top of their screen cages. Sitting the heat lamp directly on top of the screen can lead to serious burns when they walk up-bout like that, but those burns can be prevented by raising the heat lamp an inch or three off the top of the cage.

My other suggestion would be to add some additional foliage along the vines and branches so that he's not exposed as he walks from area to area. That may just be personal preference since you've got what appears to be a happy and healthy boy who has some nice areas of vegetation to hide in, so hopefully some more experienced folks will chime in on.

Haha thanks! I love the positive corrections and suggestions. I'm new to chams but spent many many years running a successful reef aquarium podcast and mulling over forums for that hobby so please any positive suggestions are great.

I agree on the light, but I have yet to see an example of a decent looking clip on cross brace or hood. I'm picky I guess, but I have a full hood design in mind that will allow me to raise it a bit and still be top vented for air and heat. Strand needs to offer a hood, he's amazing Cept when I have to redo his work from my kids destroying the screens, maybe his build kit needs to come with duct tape and rope for them

Also agree on the hiding places, although I had more vines and Sticky seemed to be more annoyed when they were in his way. I'll try and design something for more hiding spots that is less obtrusive to his daily path of chameleoness. He admittedly loves sleeping upside down hanging from his pothos hidden. He's a boy after my wife's heart, about 2 hours before his lights are out he's already in his spot ready for the darn timer to let him sleep (wife goes to bed super early too).

Thanks for the thoughts and suggestions, I need 'em!

 

[rainbowsprinkles]

Hey we have the same Sire! Half brothers! Quelle is our Dam. Seems poppa was a busy boy lol. He is beautiful! I'm not sure what my Guy will look like but Poppa was a Beautiful boy!

High five for half brothers! I didn't catch your's name but we'll have to keep in touch. His markings are awesome.

 

[rainbowsprinkles]

42 watt 620 lumen basking bulb Is that a normal bulb? I'm running a reptisun deep dome 5.0 and daylight combo that stinks. I just popped over and got The light at 40% off thank you very much. Now what am I replacing my daylight basking bulb with? Lol

You are welcome, glad someone else took advantage, that's a great deal.

So here's thing on my light. After a TON of research and many many years of experience with SPS reef aquarium lighting (which is FAR more complicated than reptiles lighting), everyone seems to have an opinion. Some people say you have to have a SPECIFIC basking bulb, others claim it must be a a certain style or brand of UVB, etc etc. Here's what I can say in my very limited experience thus far: at the end of the day, light spectrum and temperature is my goal and that's it. I am picky on color of light but that's left from another hobby all together.

I use a regular incandescent light bulb from any store for my basking bulb. I knew that Exo Terra uvb was crap and in my experience the combo basking/uvb style that you mentioned aren't very good either (there are many combo style bulbs for reef aquariums as well). I bought the white kind of bulb, not clear as I didn't want that unfiltered light source on my animal (dunno if that really matters) and I bought 3 different wattages/lumen ratings to try for the right temps. I will likely use the 53w for the winter and the 42 summer. I live in north Texas so temp swings are pretty big.

Now that you have a decent UVB T8, I would do the same thing for the basking and try and get a wattage that creates the right temp in the basking area. I would also take RedMountainHome's advice from above and raise the light off the cage a few inches before landing on the wattage/temp. I will be upgrading my T8 bulb in 6 months when I need a new bulb anyways, likely to the ReptiSun 5.0 bulb.

 

[Kat_72]

You are welcome, glad someone else took advantage, that's a great deal.

So here's thing on my light. After a TON of research and many many years of experience with SPS reef aquarium lighting (which is FAR more complicated than reptiles lighting), everyone seems to have an opinion. Some people say you have to have a SPECIFIC basking bulb, others claim it must be a a certain style or brand of UVB, etc etc. Here's what I can say in my very limited experience thus far: at the end of the day, light spectrum and temperature is my goal and that's it. I am picky on color of light but that's left from another hobby all together.

I use a regular incandescent light bulb from any store for my basking bulb. I knew that Exo Terra uvb was crap and in my experience the combo basking/uvb style that you mentioned aren't very good either (there are many combo style bulbs for reef aquariums as well). I bought the white kind of bulb, not clear as I didn't want that unfiltered light source on my animal (dunno if that really matters) and I bought 3 different wattages/lumen ratings to try for the right temps. I will likely use the 53w for the winter and the 42 summer. I live in north Texas so temp swings are pretty big.

Now that you have a decent UVB T8, I would do the same thing for the basking and try and get a wattage that creates the right temp in the basking area. I would also take RedMountainHome's advice from above and raise the light off the cage a few inches before landing on the wattage/temp. I will be upgrading my T8 bulb in 6 months when I need a new bulb anyways, likely to the ReptiSun 5.0 bulb.

Thank you so much.

I have also been doing research on saltwater. We wanted the Red Sea reefer for ease of set up for newbies. I grew up in Texas so I get ya on temps. Sorry off topic.

My daughter named our Cham "Finnly James" every pet here has first middle and last names a tad OCD anyway. Your guy is so colorful!
The Kammer's are amazing! Thank you seriously this guy is my Baby!

 

[RedMountainHome]

Well then, welcome to a fellow reefer! I was a regular poster on reefcentral for years, but got out of reefing when I moved away from the beach. Anyway, if you can hang with that crowd then you'll love this hobby and this forum, too.

Which podcast did you run?

 

[rainbowsprinkles]

Which podcast did you run?

I started Reefcast with Melev