Struggling with heating in the UK

[grayson]

Hi everyone! I’m quite new to Chameleon husbandry, I’ve just rescued a few month old Panther Chameleon.

I’ve got a 150w Arcadia basking bulb but I’m really struggling to keep up the temperature in a mesh enclosure.

Do you guys have any recommendations to help keep the heat in? I live in the UK so it’s always cold!

I’ve looked at attaching perspex to the sides and back, but I’m not too sure.

Thanks!

 

[Gloriawood]

Covering the back and sides does help with keeping it warmer, but it will also keep in the humidity. What are your temps and humidity at right now?

 

[MissSkittles]

Hi and welcome. What temperatures are you trying to achieve and keep? For an adult male panther, you want basking temp to be no higher than about 29c. At night, you do want a good cooling off period. I don’t know if it’s available to you there - I imagine it would be - but insulating shrink to fit window film might be a good choice to put on the back and at least one side if not both. You do want to leave the front open for good ventilation. If you absolutely have to cover the front, you must at the bare minimum leave a good gap (I’ll say 10 cm) at the bottom for the chimney effect of ventilation.

 

[Beman]

150 watt is going to be very extreme and high risk of thermal burns.

 

[grayson]

Covering the back and sides does help with keeping it warmer, but it will also keep in the humidity. What are your temps and humidity at right now?

Currently struggling to keep 23°c during the day and around 20°c - 18°c at night. Humidity seems to be fine at 60 - 80% during the day and 90 - 100% at night

 

[grayson]

Hi and welcome. What temperatures are you trying to achieve and keep? For an adult male panther, you want basking temp to be no higher than about 29c. At night, you do want a good cooling off period. I don’t know if it’s available to you there - I imagine it would be - but insulating shrink to fit window film might be a good choice to put on the back and at least one side if not both. You do want to leave the front open for good ventilation. If you absolutely have to cover the front, you must at the bare minimum leave a good gap (I’ll say 10 cm) at the bottom for the chimney effect of ventilation.

Hello and thank you! I’m looking at getting it to 30°c for basking, 27/28°c for ambient and then 23°c ish for night times.

Definitely going to get something for the sides as it’s a real struggle to keep the heat in over here. It gets so cold!

 

[grayson]

150 watt is going to be very extreme and high risk of thermal burns.

Hi. Can you elaborate on that please? Here in the UK it gets very cold and it seems quite common for 150w bulbs to be used here (going by what’s online). My local reptile breeder/shop actually recommended it because I can’t sustain high temps

 

[Beman]

Hi. Can you elaborate on that please? Here in the UK it gets very cold and it seems quite common for 150w bulbs to be used here (going by what’s online). My local reptile breeder/shop actually recommended it because I can’t sustain high temps

So that would produce extremely high temps. And depending on the distance from the cham to the bulb you run a very high thermal burn risk. We see it when people use 100 watt bulbs at a distance of 8 inches as well. You want to know what your real output is so depending on how you are determining this it is going to vary. The most accurate way is a temp gauge with a probe at the basking branch directly below the heat fixture.

So basking temp for a Panther you want no higher than 30c. Now your ambient temps that you need to reduce. You want 22-23C. They need to be able to move out of the heat to cool down. Otherwise you will see consistent gaping.

I think this is part of what your having issues with is your trying to pull up the ambient heat too high with a basking bulb.

Now to help contain temps/humidity. You can either use plastic corrugated panels cut to size and then use command strips or velcro to hook them to the frame of the outside of the cage. Put on the sides and the back of the cage. This will also contain over spray from misting. You can also use something like duct window film. Same concept double sided tape that comes with it goes on the outside on the frame.

Per your humidity for a panther you really want this no higher than 60% during the day as a max level. 50% is good. Night time it can be up to 100% but your temps have to drop below 20 C for this. I never let my night temps drop below 15C though.

Let me know what questions you have. I know this is a lot of info.