Trioceros Montium - Cameroon Sailfin Chameleon.

Well i recently just bought one and i have been looking everywhere for information and well someone else who owns this majestic cham!... mine is only about 4 months old now.. and eats crickets everyday.. dusted and sometimes not... i am a fairly new cham owner and i am just curious as to specific things like diet. and/or how to go about giving them the food.. i have noticed the tupperware bins with worms and such inside.. do crickets normally stay inside there? because they are small i feel like they can get under the bottom of my tank because i have a fountain inside and need the cord to run out the bottom.. any and all info is appreciated. PLEASE.. pictures are attached sorry if bad quality. but i have everything it should need. humidity is 60-80% range.. are there other good staple feeders other then crickets? and can i feed him repashy crested gecko diet directly? or do i give that to the crickets for gut loading?

Hi, and welcome. I have to run out but you and I have things to talk about. Here is some info to get you started.

https://www.chameleonforums.com/care/chameleons/

Congrats! That's one of my favorite species! I hope he does well for you. You need LOTS more plants in your cage - right now about 80% of that cage is empty space. He is going to want to explore the whole thing and if he climbs up the side of the screen to the top he could fall and really hurt himself. He's so far down that he's not able to get the benefit of the basking or UVB light at the top. At least I'm hoping that's a UVB at the top. You do not need the red light at all actually so you should replace it with a basking bulb. You mentioned humidity but not temperatures. These guys need cooler temperatures than more common species, and definitely need a drop in temperatures at night so make sure all bulbs are off at night. Here's some more information on general lighting: https://www.chameleonforums.com/care/lighting/

A fountain is not recommended so don't worry about the cord because I wouldn't use it. Montiums need lots of water and humidity so make sure he is misted very often. Live plants will help you keep humidity up and provide more surfaces for drinking.

So first order of business is lots more plants and perches and sticks for him to climb on and hide in to feel safe and secure! And make sure lighting and temperatures are correct.

I would not use the crested gecko gutload. Just use fresh greens and fruits.

+1 you need a lot more work on the cage. Fill it up with live plants and branches

Where are you from? That guy looks ALOT like one of my Montiums that hatched out in spring and sold about a month ago. If you're anyone near Toronto he might just be. Anyhow, great looking cham, and yea, he's gonna need alot more foliage and vines. If you are the guy that got him from me feel free to come back and I can give you some more stuff for his cage. Cheers.

ok so update for everyone who posted..

TEMPS they are around 75 F most of the day.. basking temps get around 80... and at night the room get's fairly cool down to around 68... when it starts to get colder outside the temperatures will change i will have to vary this stuff.. as for the bulbs in my tank it is a uvb 10.0 for tropical.. and the red bulb is what i had from before.. i've been told to just use a regular lightbulb or buy the specific "basking" bulb.. but it let's off heat so i figured it does the job. both lights go out on timers and the heat bulb starts 30 mins after the uvb turns on and it turns off 30 minutes before the uvb light turns off. plus i have a cool mist humidifier i am attaching it is in the works.

FOLIAGE i have bought more fake leaves since and i am buying way more live plants plus the fountain wasn't in the with the picture. i like the fountain + girlfriend wants it and it help's with the humidity also it's a for sure spot where he can drink. i am going to buy more sticks and what not. question. how do i go about having this stuff stay in my tank? the fake leaves and such come with suction cups but obviously screen cage i cannot suction them. as for walking all around the screen he does. i find him upside down A LOT..

DIET

he is small so i bought him small size crickets.. now when i got him i just put them in the tank.. and for some odd reason i am finding a couple here and there around the house and do not want this.. so i have a cup i want to say is about 2 to 3 inches tall? maybe? 2? and i have put the crickets in there.. i come home everyday on lunch for 10 or 15 minutes and check on him and i saw him hanging on a branch near the cup and looking in.. but i noticed he is very shy and get's spooked when i come in and look at him and when i left and came back hoping to see some crickets gone. they weren't. could it be they are to big? or can he not reach them down in the cup? i have since then fixed the bin so it can be easier to sit over and get food. now i have mealworms and bloodworms.. will he eat these? i feel the blood worms are to big but i do have a small one. another question is.. bin feeding vs roam feeding. i have read that apparently roam fed chams aren't used to bin feeding. and can i eventually get him to eat from some tweezers? i pulled a meal worm out for him and he was eyeing it and then his neck started to puff like he was getting ready to eat but then walked away..


as for RyU yes i am the person who bought it. and i am going to be getting a ficus tree/ money tree or something and stick it in there so i should be good. thanks though. I did not know you used these forums! great to see you here. i surf this place all day at work haha thanks for the cham!

I use fishing line to hold foliage to cages. Just slip it through the screen and tie parts wherever.

The cham is gonna be very shy, as I kept them in a heavily planted 4' mesh cage and never handled them. If you plan on handling him, don't do it very often. Many chams will not like being watched while they eat or drink. (but they will take a dump while staring right at you) so try to give them some privacy when they eat.

Crickets will escape no matter what you do. My wife goes nuts because we find them in the bathtub. You can always make a trap for them if they are getting away. I fed those guys buy putting a tall container into the cage with a turned over egg thingy(whatever you call those) so the crickets can climb onto it and its not too hard for the cham to catch. Remove the container after 30 mins because the crickets may bother the cham or nibble on him. I even had a cham fall inside once.

I'm glad you enjoy your cham and that you are taking the time to learn how to care for him properly.

fishing line! there we go. duh.. why did i not think of that. oh man.. but yeah i like this little guy a lot.. and yeah as for crickets. it is really wierd where we find them... will he not eat them if they are to big? he didn't eat anything yesterday so i put smaller ones in there. hopefully he eats today. i have small meal worms and blood worms ready too. just want to make sure he's eating. before i put him in this mesh tank he was eating because he shed... and he took a lot of dumps.. and the crickets were really really small.. i can't find pinheads anywhere...

The red light provides heat, but chameleons do not recognize it as a heat source, so all it is doing is heating the cage, while what you need is to provide an adequate basking spot and temperature gradient. Chameleons bask in sunlight to elevate their body temperature and without visible light associated with the basking spot, they will not recognize the heat source for what it is. That is why its been recommended to get a specific basking bulb or a normal incandescent bulb to replace the red light.

As for the fountain, if you clean and disinfect it multiple times per week, it is fine. Otherwise it is a breeding ground for bacteria and can ultimately result in upper respiratory infections. You're creating a lot more work for yourself using it than if you were to remove it, and regular disinfection of the fountain is not something you will be able to safely ignore.

Your temps are alright, but lower ambient temperatures would definitely be ideal. As mentioned, you need a lot more foliage in the enclosure. Here are a couple links for you. The first is an article I wrote on this species a number of years ago, and it includes photographs of appropriate enclosures for this species. The ones after are links to threads I made with information on and photos of this species in the wild, which may be of use (it includes field temperature measurements, for example).

http://www.chameleonnews.com/05JunAndersonEtAlMontium.html
https://www.chameleonforums.com/exo-terra-cameroon-expedition-mount-cameroon-55779/
https://www.chameleonforums.com/exo-terra-cameroon-expedition-2-nyassosso-mount-kupe-56261/
https://www.chameleonforums.com/exo-terra-cameroon-expedition-5-mount-manengouba-pt-2-a-58897/ (we also found T. montium along with the T. q. quadricornis and T. pfefferi in this thread)

Chris

And probably 90% of any useful info I have is probably straight out of a post or article Chris Anderson wrote so I'd listen to what he's got to say -=)

well i figured the red bulb would do because the uvb light is pointing down..(simulating sun) but i will pick up a lightbulb from the store..thanks i was worried about vision and stuff because people said things about bulbs hurting the chams vision. as for the fountain.. i will slowly introduce the idea to my girlfriend.. what a bout the dripper i have seen... it's a leaf with a pump and it pumps the water up the leaf and over..does that apply to that to? it is just a pump in a water dish so it is easier to clean. but i do clean the tank everyday saturday.. so i have been planning on keeping the fountain clean. thank you for the links i will spend my time today reading! i appreciate all the help and can't wait to see this guy get bigger!

Any time you have standing water or water that is being recycled through the viv is a bad thing. Chameleons like dropping their crap into water so it wont be long before its in there. If you want to drip just get a water bottle, some airline tubing, a small air valve, and a glue gun. You can make your own dripper.

i have my own dripper made... just wanted something cool for the viv oh well.. haha i have to figure a way to hang my dripper... i used one of those fat gatorade bottles so it will take a while to empty... just figuring out where to drain the water... don't want the cham falling into a big tub of water...i bought a ficus and the cousin of a money tree and stuck in there now he has tonnes of foiliage i am going to hook the sticks up with fish line after work. and then solve the dripper issue and i should be good.. with the cool mist humidifer it should bring ambient temps down right? when do these guy's fully mature?

Try to have the plant's pot absorb as much of the water as possible. You don't need to keep the dripper going 24/7 just a couple hours a day should be enough..

oh really? ok that's a lot easier to manage.. how about fruitflies.. where can i get my hands on some? do you have any culture i can buy off you? i can't find them anywhere near me same with pinhead crickets.. he ate all the ones you gave me

I don't have a drainage tray in the bottom of my lad's XL Reptibreeze, but I have a Big Dripper that is on for the entire 12 hours that he is awake.

At first, I was happy for the live plants to soak up the water, but they soon got waterlogged and the umbrella plant, in particular, started to suffer.

I scratched my head for a solution, and came up with a large plastic container at the bottom of the cage, the water drips directly into that, but in order to stop the risk of either my cham falling in and drowning or the prey insects doing the same, I bought a cheap pair of nylon stockings and put the container inside the stocking.


Result??? Water drips through fine but nothing can drown. In fact, I have seen locusts using it like a trampoline!!!!!!!!

Delinquentt said:

oh really? ok that's a lot easier to manage.. how about fruitflies.. where can i get my hands on some? do you have any culture i can buy off you? i can't find them anywhere near me same with pinhead crickets.. he ate all the ones you gave me

Click to expand...

Try Big Al's. I believe they get their crickets in Thursdays and you have to pre order them as they don't keep smaller sizes in stock. I have some weavils but they won't be ready for another couple weeks. Fruitflies are abit small now for that cham. I would do a mix of weavils and 1/4" crickets with the occasional mealworm or superworm.

ZiggyStardust said:

I don't have a drainage tray in the bottom of my lad's XL Reptibreeze, but I have a Big Dripper that is on for the entire 12 hours that he is awake.

At first, I was happy for the live plants to soak up the water, but they soon got waterlogged and the umbrella plant, in particular, started to suffer.

I scratched my head for a solution, and came up with a large plastic container at the bottom of the cage, the water drips directly into that, but in order to stop the risk of either my cham falling in and drowning or the prey insects doing the same, I bought a cheap pair of nylon stockings and put the container inside the stocking.


Result??? Water drips through fine but nothing can drown. In fact, I have seen locusts using it like a trampoline!!!!!!!!

Click to expand...

This would work...quite well I would think for a smaller cham. I will have to try it sometime.

ZiggyStardust said:

I don't have a drainage tray in the bottom of my lad's XL Reptibreeze, but I have a Big Dripper that is on for the entire 12 hours that he is awake.

At first, I was happy for the live plants to soak up the water, but they soon got waterlogged and the umbrella plant, in particular, started to suffer.

I scratched my head for a solution, and came up with a large plastic container at the bottom of the cage, the water drips directly into that, but in order to stop the risk of either my cham falling in and drowning or the prey insects doing the same, I bought a cheap pair of nylon stockings and put the container inside the stocking.


Result??? Water drips through fine but nothing can drown. In fact, I have seen locusts using it like a trampoline!!!!!!!!

Click to expand...

haha trampoline nice! that's a good idea i am going to try it..

alright.. i was thinking about ordering small phoenix worms.. how do you feel about these for him? apparently they are better staple feeders then crickets...