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.