6ft Chameleon Bioactive Vivarium

[diablomaster9045]

Hey Everyone!

So with a new Panther chameleon "Skittles" in the house and a want to provide the best enclosure I can for him. I would love everyone's feedback on the build and recommend anything I can do differently to maximize Skittle's home.

Pic of Skittles:

Here are some pictures of the plan and where I am at so far in the build.

So the current dimensions are 6ft tall and the footprint is a 3ft 6in on each side and ~4.5ft across the front.

The plan is to have sliding acrylic doors for the front and a mesh top.

As for ventilation, I have 2 4in duct fans that are programmable for air intake/exhaust. Left side is input and the right side is exhaust. So I can get a nice cross flow on the bottom to adjust the humidity easily.
Link to fans: 4in duct fan

For lighting i have a Arcadia 24in UVB T5 fixture and a 36in Jungle Dawn LED bar.

I am doing a 8 nozzle misting system.

And I have a 6 disk ultrasonic mister for a misting system.

Drainage will be a 3in layer of ceramic beads covered by landscaping fabric and for soil, a combination of sphagnum moss, coco coir, coco husk, charcoal, and earthworm castings.

There will be a 2in bulkhead in the bottom to drain any excess water.


For heating, we have 2 basking lamps and 2 ceramic heater bulbs spaced arround the vivarium.


All of this will be controlled by a Terrarium IO controller so I can track humidity and temperature in multiple spots, Run the fans, lights, heaters, foggers, and misters at the appropriate times and conditions.


Any feedback and recommendations would be awesome!

 

[MissSkittles]

It all looks and sounds great! My only suggestion is to use some organic soil and a bit of sand in with your substrate.

 

[BleuSaphir]

I can tell this project going to be superb!

 

[diablomaster9045]

It all looks and sounds great! My only suggestion is to use some organic soil and a bit of sand in with your substrate.

Awesome thanks for the advice! Any brands you recommend? Or just any bag of organic soil i can find?

 

[diablomaster9045]

I can tell this project going to be superb!

Thanks! Yah I come from a saltwater aquarium background so I am building off of that.

 

[nightanole]

As for tallness. All of mine were like fish, unlimited height, they all stayed within a 2ft area. They could care less about going to the top or the bottom. So you will have to get creative to encourage the cham to use the whole cage.
As for depth. I do not have much more than 2ft arms, so getting to the back of the cage is Very difficult. I ended up having to rig up a way to get into the cage(portable platform step) for cleaning.

And yes i made a pvc netted cage that was 3.5ft deep and 7ft tall.

Though the cham did like it "on top of the cage".

It was fun having a cham at eye level when you walked into the room though.

 

[MissSkittles]

Awesome thanks for the advice! Any brands you recommend? Or just any bag of organic soil i can find?

https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/intro-to-bio-activity.2429/ This is what I used as my guide when I got started with bioactive and I did get a big bag of Fox Farms Ocean Forest. It was a bit too expensive to use for all of my set ups, so I just use whatever organic garden soil Lowe’s has.

 

[Beman]

Hey Everyone!

So with a new Panther chameleon "Skittles" in the house and a want to provide the best enclosure I can for him. I would love everyone's feedback on the build and recommend anything I can do differently to maximize Skittle's home.

Pic of Skittles:
View attachment 368223

Here are some pictures of the plan and where I am at so far in the build.

View attachment 368221View attachment 368222



So the current dimensions are 6ft tall and the footprint is a 3ft 6in on each side and ~4.5ft across the front.

The plan is to have sliding acrylic doors for the front and a mesh top.

As for ventilation, I have 2 4in duct fans that are programmable for air intake/exhaust. Left side is input and the right side is exhaust. So I can get a nice cross flow on the bottom to adjust the humidity easily.
Link to fans: 4in duct fan

For lighting i have a Arcadia 24in UVB T5 fixture and a 36in Jungle Dawn LED bar.

I am doing a 8 nozzle misting system.

And I have a 6 disk ultrasonic mister for a misting system.

Drainage will be a 3in layer of ceramic beads covered by landscaping fabric and for soil, a combination of sphagnum moss, coco coir, coco husk, charcoal, and earthworm castings.

There will be a 2in bulkhead in the bottom to drain any excess water.


For heating, we have 2 basking lamps and 2 ceramic heater bulbs spaced arround the vivarium.


All of this will be controlled by a Terrarium IO controller so I can track humidity and temperature in multiple spots, Run the fans, lights, heaters, foggers, and misters at the appropriate times and conditions.


Any feedback and recommendations would be awesome!

Good plan. Very nice design idea. Lighting should be on the outside not inside the cage. You want aluminum window screen for the top so your UVB penetrates without a further reduction in levels. I think you might have a little overkill with your basking fixtures. I personally do not like ceramic heat bulbs. They can be very dangerous and cause thermal burns. Unless your temps at night in the house drop below 50-55 you really do not need them. They need a good temp reduction at night anyways. I think you are going to find that the 8 nozzles for misting is overkill. I ran 4 on a 4 foot wide x 4 foot tall and 2 foot deep enclosure. It was more than enough to fully coat everything.

 

[diablomaster9045]

Good plan. Very nice design idea. Lighting should be on the outside not inside the cage. You want aluminum window screen for the top so your UVB penetrates without a further reduction in levels. I think you might have a little overkill with your basking fixtures. I personally do not like ceramic heat bulbs. They can be very dangerous and cause thermal burns. Unless your temps at night in the house drop below 50-55 you really do not need them. They need a good temp reduction at night anyways. I think you are going to find that the 8 nozzles for misting is overkill. I ran 4 on a 4 foot wide x 4 foot tall and 2 foot deep enclosure. It was more than enough to fully coat everything.

awesome thanks for the advice. definitely gonna return the heat bulbs and the housing for them. Yah going to be mounting the lights and such on the top of the screen. I got 304 stainless mesh for the top. I will check to make sure the hole size is comparable to aluminum window screen.

 

[diablomaster9045]

Well made some progress on the enclosure. Got the vent bulkheads in, got the bottom drain bulkhead in, sealed up the sides and bottom, and got the rails for the sliding door siliconed down.

Also for plants, I am been picking up stuff as I look around.

 

[diablomaster9045]

Well i have good news! I can now program my 4in duct dans for controlling ventilation from my microcontroller. Just have the temp and humidity sensors left.

 

[Beman]

Well i have good news! I can now program my 4in duct dans for controlling ventilation from my microcontroller. Just have the temp and humidity sensors left.

Just remember with automating humidity if you are, you do not want foggers kicking on during the day. Misting sessions you want to keep for morning and evening when temps are cooler. Daytime humidity you do not want over 50% for a Panther.

 

[diablomaster9045]

Just remember with automating humidity if you are, you do not want foggers kicking on during the day. Misting sessions you want to keep for morning and evening when temps are cooler. Daytime humidity you do not want over 50% for a Panther.

yah the fans are gonna pull air from the bottom when the top humidity is too high and if the humidity up top is too low, <20%, it will push air from the bottom. Yah the fogger is the 1 thing that everyone agrees on is only at night.

 

[diablomaster9045]

Well starting to do the layout for the big vivarium. Does anyone know if you are supposed to treat the wood with anything before hard mounting them in?

 

[diablomaster9045]

Also more plants!

 

[Beman]

Well starting to do the layout for the big vivarium. Does anyone know if you are supposed to treat the wood with anything before hard mounting them in?View attachment 368283

No you don't. You want to really watch how high you are getting your top branches to the screen though. You do not want the cham right on lighting but you also do not want them scrapping their head or spine against the screen.

 

[diablomaster9045]

No you don't. You want to really watch how high you are getting your top branches to the screen though. You do not want the cham right on lighting but you also do not want them scrapping their head or spine against the screen.

So currently I have the branch planned for 6.5in under the mesh. Do you think I should lower it? And if so how much lower?

 

[Beman]

So currently I have the branch planned for 6.5in under the mesh. Do you think I should lower it? And if so how much lower?

So if your uvb or heat will be there then yes you want to lower it.

With a single bulb T5HO fixture, aluminum screen, and a 5.0 or 6% bulb you need 8-9 inches from where the fixture sits on the screen top to the branch to put the chameleon in a 3UVI level.

With your heat source you need to be mindful that the closer they get to it the higher the risk of a thermal burn. So you have to account for where they rise up off the branch.

 

[diablomaster9045]

So if your uvb or heat will be there then yes you want to lower it.

With a single bulb T5HO fixture, aluminum screen, and a 5.0 or 6% bulb you need 8-9 inches from where the fixture sits on the screen top to the branch to put the chameleon in a 3UVI level.

With your heat source you need to be mindful that the closer they get to it the higher the risk of a thermal burn. So you have to account for where they rise up off the branch.

Awesome sounds good! Thanks for the info.

 

[diablomaster9045]

The designing continues!