Glass Tank??

I certainly have no intention to open up a debate of glass tank VS screen cage

So, PLEASE no fighting

I keep hearing about how people outside of US (UK specifically) have been successful in raising adult veiled and panther in a glass tank.


Is there a modification that you guys do in order to keep the air circulates better?
A picture would be nice.

I always kept all my chameleons in a screen cage and have no intention to try out a glass cage. But, it would be nice to know how you guys able to raise them successfully inside the tank for educational purpose.

Thank you.

ive always wondered this too...

i had 2 montium chams a while back and they need 80-100% humidity. They were my first chams (pretty much an impulse buy) so i was just starting to research a lot about chameleons. I was keeping them both together in a glass cage with a screen top, misting around 5 times a day to keep humidity up. The male had MBD when i bought him which i knew nothing about so he croacked pretty early on, but the female did great.

She lived just fine in a glass cage for a while, but then i started reading about how chameleons "need" a screened cage. I didn't want her to get sick or die so i bought a 65 gal reptarium for her with live plants (glass tank had all fake plants). Within a few days of putting her in there she was dead.
I think it was a combination of stress and low humidity that did it, and i definately think if i had left her in her glass set up she would have been fine.

I'm not sayin that the screen cage killed my cham, just that i can't understand peoples' obsession with them. It is so much easier to keep humidity up in a glass tank, crickets can't chew through glass, and airflow is easy to come buy with a screen top/ screen door. So to help you understand how people are successful with screen cages its really simple. Identify what your cham needs: humidity, air flow, temp, etc, and then trick your glass tank out to meet all of those things.

Air Flow: Screen top/door
Humidty: So easy in glass cage you don't need anything but some moss and a trusty squirt bottle.
Heat: People complain glass tanks absorb too much heat, all you do for this problem is raise the heat light to a height where u get a good basking spot and a good ambient temp.
UV: you need to have a screen top, just throw ur UV light on top of it or if you think the screen filters too much UV then put the light inside the cage and use floral wire to rap around the light and thread it through the screen top so the light is basically wired to the bottom of the screen top (it works).

and thats basically all you need to keep your cham alive and well! Everything else like feeding and drinking are the same in a glass cage as a screen cage just make sure you have a screen top and possibly a screen door too.

funny how this topic tends to be so emotional for folks, eh?
I'll try not to be!

I should think that if you live in a low humidty climate, glass is not a bad option, so long as all the true needs of a chameleon are looked after.

Partially screened (at least the top) or with holes high on sides (yes, you can drill holes in glass) and an oscilating fan in the room are quite sufficient for air circulation.

I dont personally use glass enclosures, but I mostly dont use screen either. And my very first chameleon (male nosy be panther) lived to be seven and a half years old, so I cant have being doing things too far wrong.

So sometimes I think all the buzz about screen cages is just hype.

S

Hi,
In Germany the majority of keepers do use enclosures, which have at least glasdoors. We don't use the comercially available Terrariums, because they lack of ventilation, so we are forced to build them our selves or get them made by a specialist. Few use full-glas terrariums, because the sides have to be covered, to avoid reflection, and since glas isn't very cheap it would be a waste of money. Popular enclosure-types are wood-glas and styrofoam-glas.

The size of the ventilation depends on the type of chameleon you want to keep.
For "lowland" species like ch. calyptratus we would make the whole top screen, and at least 1/3 of a side screen, maybe an additional strip of screen beneath the glasdoors to enhance the "chimney"-effect.
For montanes we would make the whole top screen, and one whole side screen.

Full-screen enclosures are only used outdoors.
Our arguments against indoor use are:
*humidity is difficult to keep high
*It is difficult to create a temperature gradient. Heat escapes easily, so you will only have one hot spot at the top and the rest of the enclosure will be cold, resulting in the chameleon sitting under the heat lamp all day
*Chameleons like to have a retreat-area, which is difficult to create in an enclosure which you can look in from all sides.

We still deny you (US) for your lovely Aluminum-screen enclosures though. Here they only sell the flexariums with the stupid zip

Here are a few enclosure-pics from Users of an German-Chameleon-Board (these aren't mine!):



aluminium-wood enclosure (right side and top are all screen)



whole glass-enclosure



This is an old pic of my styrofoam-enclosure. Its got a lot more plants now and
I'm about to build a sort of box at the top to hide the lamps, but I think you get
sort of an idea.

I hope my english wasn't too bad and that you understood the majority of what I wrote.

With kind regards,
albacheck

Off course, we are talking mostly about lowland species where it is more imperative to maintain air circulation to humidity.
Thanks, Albacheck. Your English is fine (English is not my native tongue either ).

Those are incredibly attractive glass cage pics you have.
I see that you guys added some ventilation strips here and there to maintain the optimal air circulation.

ugh i used to live in germany and didnt have a prob with my screen. though i would like to have bought those glass/screen cages.

I have found the aquarium air bubblers work very well even one large one hooked to an actual buble rock (dont know proper name) to keep drafts down keeps all glass terrarium very well ventilated.
keeping tank clean is a necesity.
some small vents in botom with small computer fan blowing acros top for just few min a day keeps things real fresh. and as with reg screen lots of live plants keep air clean as well.
ive had my guys in there for almost 2 years and all r happy

Those are some nice looking enclosures!

would an all acrylic cage (with a screen top and air hole vents in the front) be suitable for a veiled chameleon? not sure how old the chameleon is so please bare with me

FWIW......
When I started keeping chameleons over 20 years ago there were no screen cages available. I used some that where glass with screen lids and some that were wooden with glass doors and screen areas in the top and small vents in either end. (I also preferred the long lower cages to the tall skinny ones.)

I found that if the heat light was placed at one end/side of the cage there seemed to be air flow. (Think of the boxes with chimneys experiment that was done in school when we were kids that showed the flow of smoke in a box where the heat was at one side...same principal.) I ran the UVB along the length of the cage.

You do have to be careful not to allow stagnant water to build up in the bottom of the cage though...but with the humidity here its not usually a problem.

I kept C. chamaeleons in these cages and many of them lived for over 5 years including some of the WC's I started off with. Panther males and veiled males (and others) also lived this long. (Don't forget my husbandry was in the "baby" stages and I had no choice but to buy WC's then too...so longevity may have been shorter because of that.)

I moved to cages that had screen lids and doors and found that it was hard to keep them humid enough during the winter. I would water the cage and within a couple of hours all the water evaporated....so now I am trying the exo-terra cages with the screen lids and vents in the lower front. So far they seem to be working.

Two of my concerns with the all screen cages regarding where I live have been inability to keep the heat and humidity in. I hear of so many people saying "I had to cover three sides of the cage with plastic/material to keep the humidity and heat in" and yet they frown on glass cages. The only advantage to this is that in the summertime you can remove the plastic.
One more thing I don't know how I would cope with if the cage is all screen is the watering/misting. I would certainly end up with mold in the room if I did this.

For anyone living in California, Florida or other warm places I would not recommend glass cages unless their houses were airconditioned and the chameleons were kept inside...but for me, I can't see me using the all-screen cages unless I find a species that really can't do well in the glass.

I have not found that the chameleons are stressed by their reflections. (If they were stressed by this, would they live as long as they do??)

I have no problem with people using screen cages if they work for them but I don't like it when people say you HAVE to get the chameleon out of the glass one. IMHO...what needs to be done is whatever it takes to provide the chameleon with an environment that it can live a long & healthy life in and reproduce successfully.

I'm in the UK and my chameleon lives in an exoterra (with the screen lid and vented section under the doors). I don't think it would be warm enough for her to be in a flexarium. Also I too would be concerned about the cage surroundings during misting with a screen cage - I don't think that damp & mouldy wallpaper and carpet would be good for anyone's health!

Lily is, thankfully, very friendly and likes to be out so she's not sat in her cage with stagnant air/water all day so this is not an issue for us. However I think things might be different if she had the more typical 'nasty' temperament of a veiled and we weren't able to take her out.

In the summer I fix a piece of wire caging material to the front of her cage so that she can have the glass doors open and have some air but still be safe inside her cage. I only do this when I am at home just in case she should try and escape!

She also has a wire 'basking' cage that I put out in the garden in the summer so she gets plenty of natural sun and heat during the warmer months. She really enjoys her 'sunbathing' in the cage!

kinyonga said:

FWIW......
When I started keeping chameleons over 20 years ago there were no screen cages available. I used some that where glass with screen lids and some that were wooden with glass doors and screen areas in the top and small vents in either end. (I also preferred the long lower cages to the tall skinny ones.)

I found that if the heat light was placed at one end/side of the cage there seemed to be air flow. (Think of the boxes with chimneys experiment that was done in school when we were kids that showed the flow of smoke in a box where the heat was at one side...same principal.) I ran the UVB along the length of the cage.

You do have to be careful not to allow stagnant water to build up in the bottom of the cage though...but with the humidity here its not usually a problem.

I kept C. chamaeleons in these cages and many of them lived for over 5 years including some of the WC's I started off with. Panther males and veiled males (and others) also lived this long. (Don't forget my husbandry was in the "baby" stages and I had no choice but to buy WC's then too...so longevity may have been shorter because of that.)

I moved to cages that had screen lids and doors and found that it was hard to keep them humid enough during the winter. I would water the cage and within a couple of hours all the water evaporated....so now I am trying the exo-terra cages with the screen lids and vents in the lower front. So far they seem to be working.

Two of my concerns with the all screen cages regarding where I live have been inability to keep the heat and humidity in. I hear of so many people saying "I had to cover three sides of the cage with plastic/material to keep the humidity and heat in" and yet they frown on glass cages. The only advantage to this is that in the summertime you can remove the plastic.
One more thing I don't know how I would cope with if the cage is all screen is the watering/misting. I would certainly end up with mold in the room if I did this.

For anyone living in California, Florida or other warm places I would not recommend glass cages unless their houses were airconditioned and the chameleons were kept inside...but for me, I can't see me using the all-screen cages unless I find a species that really can't do well in the glass.

I have not found that the chameleons are stressed by their reflections. (If they were stressed by this, would they live as long as they do??)

I have no problem with people using screen cages if they work for them but I don't like it when people say you HAVE to get the chameleon out of the glass one. IMHO...what needs to be done is whatever it takes to provide the chameleon with an environment that it can live a long & healthy life in and reproduce successfully.

Click to expand...

where in Canada do u live? what u just wrote here has helped me out a ton. i was debating whether to have a screen or glass cage and now i think im going to have to go with the glass cage.

dun dun dun

here is a great article i like to share, not my work.

" I finally have some time at least a half hour so will get this longwinded
post sent to the list.

Many of you that know me personally know I make a large part of my living
from breeding birds. I have been a professional aviculturist for more years
then I care to mention. One of the things I learned many years ago was that
you never can really outguess what animals/birds like and just when you think
you have them figured out you don't!

For eons it seemed, bird breeders always built elaborate aviaries for their
birds and lavished heaps of room and other percieved needs on them in order
to get them to breed. It was an accepted norm that birds needed flight room
in order to be happy and feel free enough to breed in captivity. In the 60's
a man in South Florida decided to look at this aspect of aviculture and noted
that many prs of birds he was familiar with bred just fine in smaller and
more enclosed cages in fact many of the then bred parrots were confined to
smaller quarters. Those really were the dark ages back then, it all seems so
long ago now! In any event he began testing his theory about smaller
enclosures, etc., and began to have far more luck in breeding and keeping his
rare birds. After many years of gaining experience his method for rearing
birds has now become the "norm" with most folks and the old attitudes and
ideas are now a thing of the past!

About five or six years ago I spoke to a fellow in the eastern part of the
United States, who kept and professed to have amazing luck keeping
Chameleons. He had several rather unique ideas that seemed really off the
wall but I listened anyway. After telling me that he bred regularly in small
plastic cages he made from containers and old shower stalls I was sure the
guy was full of B.S.! Over time I would observe animals in the wild as well
as captivity and noticed that many many species of Chams just do not seem to
need or want a lot of space as we always thought they did. I would observe
wild fischeri and rudis in Tanzania staying in the same trees in the same
branches for weeks at a time. all their needs seemed to be right where they
were!
I began to put the pieces of this all together and decided to test my theory
starting around three years ago. I went to Walmart and purchased the 64 quart
sized storage bins. These are milky plastic sided containers with green/blue
heavy plastic lids used to store blankets and other materials in. I wanted to
use the same sized container for different test species to see what the
perameters would be.
I cut the end of each container out leaving a 2 inch edge for fastening 1/4
inch wire cloth to by riveting the edges under strips of plastic. Only one
end was cut out along with a three inch wide strip on top to allow airflow
and lighting to get into the container. I affixed climbing branches inside
each container as well as placed a potted vining plant in each for cover etc.
I originally made six containers and then placed one of each of the following
in them:
C deremensis male
C deremensis female
C jacksoni male
C jacksoni female
C. rudis female
C melleri full-grown male
C.pardalis male.

I later made up more containers and added two more pardalis as well as a side
striped and one Flap Necked Chameleon.

I kept the animals in these containers for a period of up to six months and
still have one old male deremensis still in its original container nearly
three years later! I know Steve and Chad have seen this animal here at the
house.

What I found out from this experiment is this. Chameleons do not need roomy
enclosures to live and thrive in fact they seem to calm down and feel right
at home in these containers. Only one animal seemed to not like the enclosure
at first and then later quieted down. I also have seen animals that seemed to
me to be very secure and not nearly as schitzy like you will often see in a
screened enclosure. Even the fully grown melleri did fine in what was pretty
cramped quarters and when I do this again I will definitely use a larger
enclosure for the larger species.

The advantages to me seem to outweigh any perceived disadvantages at this
time. This isn't for everybody no doubt but for us who keep multiple animals
and need controlled environments that the animals can be watered and fed
easily in, this solves a lot of caging problems. The containers are cheap and
you can construct one in a matter of half an hour or so.

I kept my little experiment pretty quiet at first till I was sure I was onto
something. Once I became convinced that Chameleons actually prefer more
enclosed defensible territories I began asking others to run the same
experiment and see what they found.
Two people decided to go along and I believe this group would like to hear
what they say about their experimenting with these containers also. Both Bill
Strand and Joaquin Alameda have worked with the concept and I know in Bills
case he has done a lot more experimenting with lighting and various vertical
and horizontal aspects of the cage system. When I saw Bills setup I was very
impressed by the quality of his caging as well as the animals were all in
perfect shape and seemed totally happy in what some would view as pretty
cramped quarters. I am not sure if Onelist allows attachments or not but Bill
has sent me pictures of his setups that others here might be interested in
seeing. Bill are your reading this and willing to pitch in here and describe
what you have found so far with this caging system? I welcome any comments.

Don

"

{taken from adcham listserve}

here are the responses if you want them
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ADCHAM/message/74

wow are there any pictures of these plastic container enclosures? i would really like to see an example. and is this only safe for people housing many chameleons or can i do this for only 1 chameleon?

this is a very interesting thread. It sounds so common sense after reading every thing.

Personally I think both enclosure have their advantage. If you live in an area where conditions are far different from specs for a cham then you need to set up a micro climate. screen enclosures make this very difficult to do as there is too much exchange going on ( air, humidity, temp).

Glass enclosures should make it alot easier. and obviously our friends in the other parts of the world have been successful.

Here in Hawaii, apparently our climate is perfect with the exception of too much sun, a screen cage works very well. The climate stays pretty constant so there isn't much work involved with setting up micro climates.

This has been a very interesting read...thanks for posting and replying everyone.

OPI

Stagnant water from my misting system and drippers are the main reason i dislike glass.. drainage would be 10 times harder to accomplish.. a big glass/wood 6x6x10 zoo-like enclosure sure would be cool though! Good thread!

You can always drill a hole in the bottom of the cage with a glass bit or cut the glass bottom out of the cage and "glue" in a plexiglass or plastic one which you can then drill a hole though.

phanx...Ontario.

When housing young chameleons in glass or plastic I have had to be very careful in situating the lighting because of reflection issues. One vieled could see itself in the glass, and would also see the reflections of crickets in the glass. It made for a very stressful situation, so I had to change cages.

kinyonga said:

You can always drill a hole in the bottom of the cage with a glass bit or cut the glass bottom out of the cage and "glue" in a plexiglass or plastic one which you can then drill a hole though.

phanx...Ontario.

Click to expand...

that sounds like a very good idea but i am worried that if i do cut out the bottom, i might not seal it back in properly. i wouldnt want my cage leaking ornothing. i might just do the glass bit part and drill a hole into the bottom for drainage. and even if i do this, im afraid i might break the whole glass panel. now THAT would suck