jannb
Chameleon Enthusiast
Nice, do they seem to be working well?
Yes, I’ve only been using them a month or so but so far all is going well.
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Nice, do they seem to be working well?
That's one of the models I have. I use that on a single cage and have another "Vicks" with a larger reservoir to do several adjacent cages. They've both been running over a month without incident.We bought these and one will do two condos.
https://www.amazon.com/TaoTronics-Ultrasonic-Humidifiers-Humidifier-360°Rotatable/dp/B071F4W9SW/ref=sr_1_1?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1533659392&sr=1-1&keywords=humidifier+ultrasonic+brown&refinements=p_n_srvg_2947266011:2972984011,p_n_srvg_2947266011:2972984011
So, here goes...
First off, I am not arguing against fogging at night. I will bring up the fact that I never did and as the temps in the enclosures went down after lights out the humidity levels went up. This, and the use of live plants seemed to maintain a good level in my situation. During the daylight I have always tried to mimic what might happen during the course of the day. I try to have lights come on gradually and even try to mimic the position of the sun with multiple basking lamps that come on at different times to increase intensity as the sun reaches its highest intensity outside. I imagine how this would create airflow and clouds to form (no, I was not making clouds ) and it would have storms develop and rain themselves out (through misting sessions of varied length). I would have one longer session during the day so the plants would stay healthy and get a good cleaning. I have always believed that the enclosure should not be too wet at lights out because I know it will stay wet a longer time as the humidity levels rise as temps go down without the artificial lighting. I did not want to encourage the growth of mold, etc since I was not doing a bio-active setup.
I was worried that I almost never saw my chameleon drinking and when I did it was almost like he was annoyed that a water droplet was on his head. No signs of dehydration were present. I actually didn't even have a drainage system at first, and only added one after I realized that my plants required more water. I had discussions with members here about how they encouraged their animals to drink and tried many suggestions. Nothing seemed to work, but I didn't see the need and after a while I just went back to what I was doing. I did see little bites taken out of many leaves in the enclosure, and figured that he was getting additional water from that, but even now I am re-thinking that idea. I have seen Petr discuss how even during dry times the animals he encountered were not eating the vegetation for hydration. My chameleon was getting hydrated through feeders and his environment, and likely was maintaining healthy levels despite not fogging at night or having it wet before lights out. If he didn't want to drink then he didn't. If I noticed that he was drinking all the time I likely would have been concerned.
It is after all about keeping the chameleons healthy and offering everything we can to allow them as long a captive life as possible.
So @jannb I don't think you have been doing things wrong, but you are just trying a different approach. Not everyone is going to keep animals the same way. Not everyone can. There is no one absolute answer to anything and each situation has it's own unique circumstances. Who knows, I may try fogging at night. I may not. I bet if I tried to mimic the Moons lunar cycles in the enclosure I'd likely get attacked for having lights on at night . But wouldn't this be part of the Naturalistic Approach also?
Just keep rethinking what we already know and we can keep learning how to best care for these amazing creatures.
Yes, I do live in FL but I have always took my chameleons outside during the daytime with the high humidity and misted them and dripped them during the day when it was hot to cool them, the wrong thing to do. At night I bring them inside because I am afraid for them to be outside overnight due to the wildlife and mosquitoe fogging. Inside we run the AC and it sucks almost all the humidity out of the air. I’ve had chameleons in the past with health issues that were most likely cause from the over watering. I am now trying to correct this problem.
I guess the jump in length of chameleon captive life span would indicate that the fogging isn't necessarily a must. However, I do feel that if millions of years of evolution have made this an important part of hydration for wild chams, this method might further reduce stress on our captive chams. At the very least, I think it would probably be very beneficial for montane species. When I first got my graciliors, Janet pointed out to me that a properly hydrated gracilior will never drink. I have seen this to be a fact since I have been keeping them. It seems to me that this fogging technique will make it even easier for them to hydrate as intended, so I will definitely be doing this for any montane species I keep (unless I develop mold issues in their cages). Once I acquire a fogger and put this method into use, I will be sure to share my experiences with you all.
So, here goes...
First off, I am not arguing against fogging at night. I will bring up the fact that I never did and as the temps in the enclosures went down after lights out the humidity levels went up. This, and the use of live plants seemed to maintain a good level in my situation. During the daylight I have always tried to mimic what might happen during the course of the day. I try to have lights come on gradually and even try to mimic the position of the sun with multiple basking lamps that come on at different times to increase intensity as the sun reaches its highest intensity outside. I imagine how this would create airflow and clouds to form (no, I was not making clouds ) and it would have storms develop and rain themselves out (through misting sessions of varied length). I would have one longer session during the day so the plants would stay healthy and get a good cleaning. I have always believed that the enclosure should not be too wet at lights out because I know it will stay wet a longer time as the humidity levels rise as temps go down without the artificial lighting. I did not want to encourage the growth of mold, etc since I was not doing a bio-active setup.
I was worried that I almost never saw my chameleon drinking and when I did it was almost like he was annoyed that a water droplet was on his head. No signs of dehydration were present. I actually didn't even have a drainage system at first, and only added one after I realized that my plants required more water. I had discussions with members here about how they encouraged their animals to drink and tried many suggestions. Nothing seemed to work, but I didn't see the need and after a while I just went back to what I was doing. I did see little bites taken out of many leaves in the enclosure, and figured that he was getting additional water from that, but even now I am re-thinking that idea. I have seen Petr discuss how even during dry times the animals he encountered were not eating the vegetation for hydration. My chameleon was getting hydrated through feeders and his environment, and likely was maintaining healthy levels despite not fogging at night or having it wet before lights out. If he didn't want to drink then he didn't. If I noticed that he was drinking all the time I likely would have been concerned.
It is after all about keeping the chameleons healthy and offering everything we can to allow them as long a captive life as possible.
So @jannb I don't think you have been doing things wrong, but you are just trying a different approach. Not everyone is going to keep animals the same way. Not everyone can. There is no one absolute answer to anything and each situation has it's own unique circumstances. Who knows, I may try fogging at night. I may not. I bet if I tried to mimic the Moons lunar cycles in the enclosure I'd likely get attacked for having lights on at night . But wouldn't this be part of the Naturalistic Approach also?
Just keep rethinking what we already know and we can keep learning how to best care for these amazing creatures.
That's heretical thinking bro. LOLI was thinking about how to mimic stars and moon light last night a little bit as odd as that may sound. I got to thinking about the fiber optic lights omw home and about how some were sold that "twinkled" a bit. Im not a big fan of blue moon lights but was thinking about how to do "twinkling" fiber optic lights on a larger scale. The ones I remember were fairly dim and around 4000k in color. But, like you, feel like if I was able to come up with a solution it would be an end of the world type reaction to it lol.
I kinda like it. It might be cool on a really nice display cage.
I think it's doable with a retrofit style t5ho light mounted inside a wood cover. Fill in around the retrofit with the fiber optics. Some fans for exhausting air out of the wood cover. Annnddd, now you know why my wife hates me thinking about projects. I just keep going .
Thread got interesting. <popcorn>
For advanced keepers with some understanding of their animals, I'm all for this. I have one cage that I let fog up for three hours a night. No issues.
My comment, and it was only a comment, is that as it initially read I could see a novice thinking they could just fog their animals instead of dealing with the mess a dripper makes, or the work involved in setting up some type of drainage system, etc etc. Using a fogger is fine, but it is not the primary source of hydration in captivity if a keeper is using a typical screen cage. And if they use a glass cage...they better understand about proper airflow and what a URI looks like.
Good discussion, but like Decadancin mentioned, there is more than one way to take care of our critters. It really comes down to the place you live in, what you can provided, and your understanding of your animal. Can you look at it and know if it is hydrated? If it not? To me, and I'm not being a dickus here, to me the first test between a novice and an experienced keeper is being able to look at the animal and tell if it is hydrated.
That is a great idea, but I wouldn't do it with Fiber optics.
You won't be able to cover the whole cage with it for one. For 2, they wouldn't serve any purpose outside of stars.
I would look more at recreating the sun, then the stars. If you are dimly lighting the cage with a T5 or 2, that is where I would look to improve first. People around here complain about not being able to grow hibiscus and that doesn't even touch the surface of a real high light plant lol, hibiscus only needs like 3k FC, there is plants that need 4-5k.
Best bet for your idea IMO, is looking into a DIY LED. That way you can make a large bar, with LEDs spaced as your choosing. Then you can blast with 200ws of LEDs in the day time, complete with Dawn dusk cycles and all. And dim the whites down so low they just barely twinkle with not much visible light, just enough to see it's on at night.
You could go with pre built LEDs but the ones worth a damn, are not in a bar form, but a circle formation or multiples of them, so that kills the stars.