Chameleon beginner

Billytorbs

New Member
Hi I'm just getting a chameleon and I'm getting a screen cage (opinion?) also what vitimans and calcium do I need?? Plus any advice??
 
See the following:

https://www.chameleonforums.com/care/caresheets/panther/
https://www.chameleonforums.com/care/caresheets/veiled/


If you are just starting you will probably want to get a male since females will lay eggs whether mated or not which makes the care a lot more involved. If you get a male, you will need at least a 2'x2'x4' enclosure for an adult, with UVB and heat lamps, and will need to dust the insects with plain calcium at every feeding and with calcium+d3 every other week and multivitamin every other week.
 
When you say every other week do you mean just one feeding a week or everyday for that week using d3 + calcium also which lighting do you recommend?
 
Just one feeding, however many he will eat in one meal.

Lightly dust with plain calcium with no D3 every feeding, dust with calcium plus D3, and a multivitamine every other week.

Be sure to feed (gut load) the feeders with fresh fruits and veggies. You can also use commercial gut loads, like Repashy Bug Burger, Cricket Crack, etc.

Stay away from Fluker's gut loads, both the dry, and the orange cubes.
If you look at the ingredience on their products, you will know why I say this :eek:

Also, try to get your cham outside in the natural sunlight whenever possible.
Just make sure they can get out of the direct sun if they want.
I use small reptibreeze cages, with branches and fake vines to take them outside in.
 
The bulbs I use for basking are just houshold reflector bulbs I get them from homebase, I use the 80w ones on my 4ft screen cage and raise it up to get the right temperature. What wattage you need depends on your room temperature but if it's too hot you can always just buy another one or just raise that one up.

I use these to hold my basking bulbs but you can use whatever one you want I think, I dont think its too important.
http://www.reptiles.swelluk.com/rep...-fittings-487/exo-terra-glow-light-27543.html

I use these for outside of my reptibreeze for UVB light.
http://www.reptiles.swelluk.com/rep...ivarium-canopy-24w-60cm-t5-desert-307407.html
I would only use this is you're going straight for the XL reptibreeze as they are very strong. A t8 bulb or a 5%/10% repti-glo are also good options. To be honest I'm not sure how you'd go about mounting these on top of the cage I dont know if you just put them on a reflector and stand them on the top. I'd recomend going for a flourecant tube over the other options but I'll mention them anyway.

Some use the coil UV bulbs the problem with these is they don't cover much surface area and some people have reported eye problems with them. I'm not positive wich is the best one to use. I would personally go for the 10% desert one as mesh cancels out alot of the uvb so the 5% might be quite weak. You'd need another dome like the first link to mount one of these aswel.
http://www.reptiles.swelluk.com/rep...terra-reptile-uvb-150-compact-lamp-47022.html

Another option is mercury vapour bulbs wich is a combination of UVB and a basking bulb. It sounds very convinent at first having both lights in one but they do have some problems. First off they only come in quite high wattages and can overheat your enclouser. The UV output is very strong and the cham has to be atleast 16 inches away (I think) from the light to be safe. Also your cage will need to be a minimum of 4 feet tall with alot of shade so he can get away from the light. You can't put them on thermstats either and once they're switched off they have to completely cool down before being switched on again and are known to blow up aswel but they do come with a years guarantee. They would need to go into a dome fixture like the one I first linked and it would have to be the largest size.
http://www.reptiles.swelluk.com/rep...s-1480/arcadia-d3-uv-basking-lamp-243337.html

Sorry I didn't give you amazon links, swell reptiles is usually cheaper but you can just search the product name in amazon search and it should come up if you wish to do that.
 
Cheers for the replays, could you give me a list of fixtures that will hold the repti sun 5.0?? would really help please.
 
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