Questions first before purchase

Hello All,

My name is Jason and I am new to this hobby. I have been in the aquarium hobby for over 10 years and currently have a 100 gallon reef with my oldest fish being 8 1/2 years old. I started a mixed freshwater tank 2 years ago with a small map turtle who is very mean, but nonetheless awesome. I have been contemplating purchasing a lizard for years but did not know what I wanted until recently. I am leaning towards a panther or veiled and am wondering/looking for any advice you all would give. I am looking at a 16x16x30 cage to start with a live ficus tree and some exo-terra vine and or grape tree branches. Possibly a monsoon 400 for water/misting. Do I need some type of heater? My house never gets below 65 degrees and can sometimes get as high as 95 degrees. Relative Humidity in the home ranges from 18% - 80% depending on the season. If I go with a female I will need to go with a sand bed of about 6" deep for egg laying correct? Basking temp should be around 90 degrees? Any advice of lessons learned that would be helpful in my decision making before I purchase anything would be great.

Thank you all in advance

Jason

Jason

Welcome to the forums! I am envious of your reef tank. I used to have a 55 gallon with softies but I started Traveling for work and was afraid it would crash when i was away so I sold it.

If you look on the left aide of the forum pages there is a link called Care Resources. There are links to the different species as well as set up and care needs. Its a great place to start. Typically in addition to a UVB light we set up a basking light. I use household incandescent bulbs as do many others. The basking temperatures vary by age, sex and species. A temperature gradient is important.

Like managing your reef special attention needs to be taken with supplementation and the health of the cham is dependent on good husbandry practices and attention to detail, which I know you are already familiar with LOL.

Have a look through the care sheets you will find the a answers to many of your initial questions. We all have slightly different ways of doing some things but the basic husbandry should pretty much be the same to meet the needs of your particular chameleon.

Again. Welcome and I would love to see pics of your reef.

One other thing. I would skip right over the monsoon and go straight for an Aquazamp or a Mistking. The reliability of the Monsoon appears pretty sketchy. I have an Aquazamp Raindome system and I love it but am told that it compares with the Mistking. I went with aquazamp for the low profile raindomes.

As the unhappy owner of a monsoon I will strongly advise you to get either the aquazamp or mist king. I have had the monsoon less than a year and have had to exchange it three times because it broke.

You would have a problem with your house getting too hot -not too cold- they do well with cooler temps at night -
I've only had one monsoon - it broke in a month and I didn't keep the receipts so 3 months with a timer from home depot and I got a aquazamp- It died for good two days before the aquazamp arrived.

I would personally start with a bigger cage - though a small one is always good so you can get another chameleon when the first outgrows it. I always suggest staying clear of pet store purchases- and tell people to get one in the classified here. You get a healthier chameleon and one that's had a much better start.

The Care Resources are great- and if you check over the "Health Care" section you'll find most of the problems people have are because they were given bad information from pet stores- or started out with an unhealthy animal and they didn't follow the care sheets- most of the time because they were told different information from the clerk at the pet store.

Hello and welcome to the forums!!!

So here goes... Lessons learned...

1. NO MONSOON (Learned that the cost for one of these is no better than the MistKing - that I own - or the AquaZamp. Both highly rated and well worth the investment!)
2. Arcadia T5HO lighting is awesome!!! (I have a quad fixture, but a dual fixture will provide UVB - 6% or 12% - as well as a plant light - 6500k.)
3. No heat or lights at night! Most species of chameleons are quite happy with temps dropping off at night and it will actually be better for them! A standard incandescent bulb (wattage varies depending on the desired temp) in a reflective dome fixture is all you need to provide a good basking site.
4. Do not listen to pet store advice and assume they know what they are talking about.
5. Chameleons spend most of their time up high in an enclosure. Offer many pathways with branches and vines and make sure to have enough foliage so they can get out of the heat/light if needed.
6. Pictures are extremely important when asking questions about chameleon health, as well as filling in the basic care "How to ask for help" form in the health clinic forum. (This is true, but as an added bonus, you are encouraged to add pics to the general photography section, and your turtle and fish are welcome in the other reptiles and pets section...hint, hint, .
7. Substrate is frowned upon, and so are glass enclosures, but that doesn't mean you can't succeed with them. (I started out experimenting with different types of substrate, but am so much happier now without it!) You just have to be more careful and diligent. The bottom line is that there is no one right answer, but there are some awesome guidelines to aid in your success!
8. Your bugs will eat better than you do!
9. Have a great reptile vet available if you need it! (You may want to interview them to see how much experience they have prior to needing one .)
10. Keep doing research and continue to learn about these wonderful little animals!
11. The last thing I will add is that there are some amazing people on this site and they care so much. The support and knowledge isn't found anywhere else that I've seen and I have learned so much!

Thank you all for the responses. I am definitely not getting the monsoon. I will however look in to the other two mentioned. I ended up going with the 18 x 18 x 36 all screen cage and purchased a ficus tree to fit. I had to prune the tree a little and thin some. I have a good friend that owns a vineyard and is bringing me a bunch of grape vines that I can sort through and put in as well. I have a 50w basking light with dome reflector and a 18" t8 florescent fixture I was going to use for my uvb bulb. I was thinking of going with the 5.o bulb any thoughts? I will be putting my cage into a custom frame made from 80/20 aluminum extrusion, this will allow me to add an acrylic backing on the backside of the screen to keep the moisture from getting on the wall.

Do I go with a male or female? Egg Bound if you do not provide sand?

You've come to the right place for excellent info and advice.
If you do get a female, a laying bin will be needed when she is a little older.
https://www.chameleonforums.com/laying-bin-set-up-educational-video-77225/
Check this out.
Kath.

Sounds like a good plan so far. If the enclosure is only 36" tall you will be fine with the 5.0 for UVB. I have acrylic on the back of my enclosure as well as the front door. Can't wait to see how it looks!

Jberd70 said:

Thank you all for the responses. I am definitely not getting the monsoon. I will however look in to the other two mentioned. I ended up going with the 18 x 18 x 36 all screen cage and purchased a ficus tree to fit. I had to prune the tree a little and thin some. I have a good friend that owns a vineyard and is bringing me a bunch of grape vines that I can sort through and put in as well. I have a 50w basking light with dome reflector and a 18" t8 florescent fixture I was going to use for my uvb bulb. I was thinking of going with the 5.o bulb any thoughts? I will be putting my cage into a custom frame made from 80/20 aluminum extrusion, this will allow me to add an acrylic backing on the backside of the screen to keep the moisture from getting on the wall.

Do I go with a male or female? Egg Bound if you do not provide sand?

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Be aware that grapevine is fairly porous if the bark is removed so you'll have to clean them periodically. I'm not sure how quickly grapevine harbors mold if its wet much of the time.

A 5% UV tube should be good. If your cage is taller than 4' a 10% is better as long as the cham can opt to get out of the direct light.

If you get a female you'll need to consider her egg production in future. Not all females start producing infertile clutches. You don't want to "power feed" her when she's a juvenile, or overfeed her as an adult. This tends to start egg production earlier and the clutches tend to be bigger. This can raise increase the chance for egg binding.

Here is what I have so far.

18 x18 x 36
18" 6500k light for plant
18" 5.0 for uvb
50w basking bulb with dome reflector
ficus tree (washed and most of the dirt changed out with organic)
coconut bark for ground cover
Mistking on order
24 hour timer for all

The MistKing will be integrated into my reef system controller. This way I can turn it on and off as desired for the duration needed. The system will also be set up with what we call in the Reefing hobby an auto top off system. I will plum this into the mistking with the zipdrip solenoid so I never have to refill the container. This will all come from my drinking water filtration system already in place.

A lot of members here will say that any substrate (bark, dirt, small rocks, etc) are no-no's.

The chameleon could potentially swallow it, get impacted, and die. It is a slight chance, but not worth taking the risk.

I would put some large rocks on top, or just go bare bottom and have an efficient drainage system.

Everything else is perfect.

50w bulb might have to be upgraded to higher watt measurement for higher temperature when it becomes an adult, but you get the jist.

Jberd70 said:

The MistKing will be integrated into my reef system controller. This way I can turn it on and off as desired for the duration needed. The system will also be set up with what we call in the Reefing hobby an auto top off system. I will plum this into the mistking with the zipdrip solenoid so I never have to refill the container. This will all come from my drinking water filtration system already in place.

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Thats great to be able to combine the two. Are you using and RO system? That would be great as it would eliminate mineral buildup in your misting lines and pumps.

I would go without any substrate as well. I go bare bottom, and have drilled 2.5" holes and added shower drains to the bases that drain into 5 gallon buckets. I just wipe up with paper towel or use a wet/dry shop vac. Every week when I do a full clean I flood the bottom with just shy of boiling temp water to sanitize and clean and then suck it up with the shop vac (my plants are elevated). Great investment in my opinion.

Bare bottom it is. I will make a drip pan with a drain that will go into a bucket with an automatic boat bilge pump that will pump out into the bathroom sink drain. As you can tell I like automation to some degree. I do already have a 75w basking bulb in case the 50 is not enough.

Yes, I am using RO water. I could use RODI if needed but I will start with RO and see how things go. I do believe he/she will need some of the nutrients available in the water, therefore, RODI will probable be out of the question.

How often and for how long do most run their misting systems. My mistking should be here in a few days and would like to get it set up right the first time. Also should the nozzles be facing down from the top or spray toward the center of the terrarium?

Jberd70 said:

How often and for how long do most run their misting systems. My mistking should be here in a few days and would like to get it set up right the first time. Also should the nozzles be facing down from the top or spray toward the center of the terrarium?

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I use an Aquazamp system.

This is how I have it set up. I use the Raindomes so they "rain" downwards into the enclosures and I get a mix of mist and dripping water.

0730 - 13 minutes (this starts 90 minutes after lights on so they get time to wake up and warm up before shower time.
1100 - 3 minutes
1400 - 7 minutes
1700 - 3 minutes

Lights go out at 6 Pm right now as they boys are usually already tucked in by then.

I just ordered an Aquazamp with the low profile raindome (and digital seconds timer). I'm glad I did my research because I was so close to pulling the trigger on the mistking which is also a great buy but hes in Canada which means more shipping to me and I love the way the Rain trickles down with the raindome and doesnt get all over the walls. One thing I noticed is the site doesnt say how 'long' the raindome is, is it about the size of my 20" Fluorescent fixture?

The low profiles are about 12" long by 4 " wide. You will not regret it. I freakin love it.

Tomorrow morning i will take a pick of the top
Of my enclosures. Don't want to flash and startle the boys to ight