Opinions on my ZooMed 10.0 lighting & habitat

I'll add in some pictures later of my habitat.

For those here who I have not met yet I'm goofy herp keeper with over 30+ years of experience, mostly with Chams. As such my habitats are rather elaborate and I was looking for some input from other Cham keepers here. I can still remember the days where trying to find another Cham keeper to talk to was difficult let alone a whole website full of them.

In my home we have a full bedroom converted to the "Reptile Room". Tiled floors etc. etc. The closet for this bedroom was removed and I converted it into a very large habitat. The interior walls and floor were lined with bathroom tile. I replaced the closet doors with a set of glass sliding patio doors. There is a fine silver metal screen seperating the lighting from the cage below. The cage itself measures 8' long by 30" wide and 6 1/2' tall.

For lighting I have a 4' long 10.0 ZooMed bulb paired with a standard sylvaina bulb. I found that these did not really provide much light to the habitat for the plants and added a dual socket fixture with a ZooMed 10.0 compact flourescent bulb paired with a cheapo flourescent compact bulb that provides a bright natural light. The compact bulbs are horizontal above the habitat providing maximum surface area. The Chams have a basking spot 14 inches under the compact bulbs and of course can go up to 7' away from the lights if they want to. I'm keeping Four-Horned Chameleons currently. Temps range from 73-80F and the cage is on an auto mister which sprays everything down 3 times a day for 15 minutes a pop. Air circulation is assisted by a powerful vornado mini fan located above the screen.

I'm under the understanding that my lighting is filtered by up to 50% with the screen, I figure between that filtering and the cage height my Chams should not be getting too much UV lighting. Thoughts?

Thanks

I wouldn't think so, no. But my biggest question is. What do you do for the drainage problems, how do you clean those darn things? Auto misting for 15 minutes, 3 times a day. Dang that's a lot of water. lol. Btw, even without the pictures, just imagining the setup, it sounds AWESOME!!! I can't wait to see the pictures.

Well, the cleaning isn't really that bad. All my live plants are in pots and I simply pull them out and give them a once over. The fake plants are all easy to remove and wash as needed. Branches are just as easy to clean, we're not talking a burmese python sized mess when it comes to these little fellows.

Drainage...ha. I could give you a few funny stories about the testing process prior to getting the chameleons. The mister nozzels are the finest I could buy and really don't soak things, it's real light but brings up the humidity and lowers the temps a bit. In the summer I'll have some problems keeping them cool and will most likely add ice to the reservoir.

With the air circulation I'm finding that the water is evaporating in a reasonable amount of time, add in the bathroom tile is sealed and the water is staying where it should be. I'm at work, after I head home I'll post a few pictures tomorrow. The lighting is what I'm worried about a little bit.

The only thing I'd be worried about is that 10.0 compact.
Have you been reading all the recent info concerning the compact UVB fluorescent bulbs and the harm they have caused?

-Brad

p.s. would love to see pictures of this enclosure!!!

Yeah, on the compact I did some serious reading (thanks to a link I found on this site) before buying it. The compact is only in one corner, so it's a small portion of the habitat as a whole. It seems alot of the problems this light causes involve small habitats where the animals can't regulate their own exposure or are close to the bulb (less than 12").

The silver metal screen really filters out alot of my light I've noticed and some articles indicate it may be filtering as much as 50% of my lighting and the animals can be anywhere from 14" to 7' away from the bulb.

your enclosure sounds fascinating.
do you mind posting some pics?

Sounds awsome...one thing you may want to watch out for in the future is your sheet rock under your tiles...most the time in bathrooms with a lot of moisture they use water resistant sheetrock like durock or aquaboard. Definately now that it is done and tiled don't worry but if you notice any kind of mold (no matter how often you clean if it gets in the sheetrock it will keep coming back) or if any of the tiles start falling off or the walls appear to get wavy then you know how to fix it and what it was caused from. But the lighting, I think you will be fine with UVB 10's with that size enclosure.

-chris

I'm not that great with computers but after being told my pictures were too large for posting I think I resized them to where they are still worth looking at. If you're really good you might even be able to pick out the Quads, then you'll know how big this is for them.

/bump for those asking for picts

I'm not too smart on the whole lighting so I don't have much input there.

But I like the way you made your Chameleons that habitat. I don't know of many people that would do something like that for Chameleons. Its pretty awsome.

Zoey said:

I'm not too smart on the whole lighting so I don't have much input there.

But I like the way you made your Chameleons that habitat. I don't know of many people that would do something like that for Chameleons. Its pretty awsome.

Click to expand...

Well, we have a four bedroom house and one room was converted into the Herp room so the closet had to be used somehow.........

Thats true. Its still pretty amazing.

You might want to think about investing in a UV-B meter so you can check the levels for sure.

Very nice set-up. I like the assortment of climbing devices, and all the greenery, too. Tile makes for very easy cleaning, and water resistance.

LaserGecko said:

You might want to think about investing in a UV-B meter so you can check the levels for sure.

Click to expand...

Anybody know a good one that isn't prohibitive in price? I'd like to still have money left over to feed my Chams

OldChamKeeper said:

Anybody know a good one that isn't prohibitive in price? I'd like to still have money left over to feed my Chams

Click to expand...

After googling this for about 10 Minutes It looks like you are going to pay at least $100 bare minimum for a decent UVB reader sadly. There is probably one out there for cheaper if you do enough looking around but for a decent one It looks like these babies range from $120-$200 and more.

Well, I found a small problem with my super large habitat.

It's not the lighting, so far it seems great.

It's not the misting or drainage, the air circulation seems to help it evaporate nicely.

It's not any problems with the plants or climbing areas, the Quads seem to be making use of everything while keeping their distance from each other.

Of all things, the problem seems to be getting them fed. Despite having two bowls they can see into and access easily they seem to ignore the food. However when I take out a single food item and place it on a branch they then choose to eat. Add in that they are WC and scared of me makes sitting there and feeding each of them one item at a time incredibly time consuming. After I place the food item on a branch in front of them I then need to get out of their sight or they won't eat.

Their current diet:
Hornworms
Crickets
Butterworms
Phoneix worms

Over time I know they'll get used to me from past experiences. Yet getting them to be willing to take a food item from a bowl with 5-6 items in it seems to be the problem. It just goes to show no matter how much you plan for something stuff still happens.

Ideas?

My Male doesn't eat when I am standing right there with him. Normally I dump his food in a cup, put it in front of his face (Making sure his eyes focus on it) then slowly lower it to the place that it goes so he can eat. After I ste away he normally climbs down to get the food.

Have you tried doing something like that?

Yeah Zoey, They've seen me place food in the two cups and they'll stare at the food items but not single out one. After I take out one and put it on a branch they'll go for it if I get out of sight

I seen an enclosure that looks just like yours www.calummaparsonii.com in the enclosure section.
I think its a closed site.