Baby Veiled Chameleon really weak

[RMannn94]

So starting yesterday my baby veiled chameleon seemed really weak, he didn't react to when I misted the tank when he usually does, doesn't move when I try to pick him up, and he just slouches around and he practically sits there and sleeps unless I open the tank then he just opens his eyes. He's like a paleish light green color and has black spots randomly appear on him.

Chameleon Info:
Your Chameleon - Male Veiled Chameleon, had him for about 4 weeks

Handling - I handle him about every 4 days

Feeding - Gut loaded crickets that are fed with Fluker's High Calcium cricet diet and coated with Flukers D3 About 15 at a time and they are in a dish at the bottom of the tank and cannot get out. Sometime ones escape and I see him eat them

Supplements - Flukers Cricket diet and Flukers Calcium with Vitamin D3

Watering - Mis the tank and have a drip system. I see him drink regularly but for the past 2 days I haven't seen him

Fecal Description - Brown with white in it

Has this chameleon ever been tested for parasites - no

History - When the chameleon was shipped to me it went through a snow storm and when I got it it was dead and looked frozen, I went to work and came back home to him actively walking around and a nice green color

Cage Info:
Cage Type - Glass exo terra terrarium 24" X 24" X 48" its the tall one

Lighting - Exo Terra UVB 100, Exo Terra Light strip with a day light I believe, a night heat lamp, and an Exo Terra heat lamp. During the Day ill have the UVB on for a couple of hours and have the day light running all day. Ill use the heat lamp when my room gets cold and at night I use a purple night heat lamp.

Temperature - The tank is always at 80 degrees

Humidity - is at 40

Plants - Fake exo terra plants, plenty of hiding space and blocks the glass reflections

Placement - Its on a corner shelf set up high above the floor. Not much high traffic, but my cat sometimes jumps up but I immediately take her down.

Location - Boston, Massachusetts

Current Problem - Not seeing him eat or drink and is a pale color and barley moves now

 

[RMannn94]

Oh also I had a waterfall in its tank for about 4 or 5 days and I found out it's really bad for them so I took it out.

 

[pigglett79]

Hello,

I see a few issues that may be causing your chameleon to have problems.
First here is a care sheet to help you

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

You should be using a plain calcium that does not contain D3 at most feedings and only using D3 up to twice a month and a multivitamin up to twice a month.

The flukers products are not food for gutloading. You should use fresh fruits and veggies along with nuts and other dry ingredients. Sandrachameleon has blogs on various gut loads.

https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/sandrachameleon/nutritional-information/

Also they like it to cool off at night. They do not want any lights at night. If your house temps drop below 55 you can use a ceramic heat emitter, but other than that a drop in temp at night is fine.

Too much D3 can kill a chameleon. That is likely the biggest problem along with the lack of drop in temp at night.

 

[carol5208]

Some things that need to be changed here. Your UVB light should be on for 12 hours a day or you can go with sun up, sun down. Why are you only having it one for 2 hours? No light or heat at night unless your temps are going to go down into the low 50's or less. Do not use calcium with d3 at every feeding. You can overdose your chameleon on this and make him sick. Can you describe your UVB lighting better? They are usually 5.0, 6.0, 10.0 etc. Not sure what a 100uvb is unless you are using a Powersun which would be both a combo uvb light and uva basking in one. You need to gutload your crickets with fresh fruits and vegetables and a commercial gutload such as Cricket Crack or Repashy Bug Burger would be better than the Flukers. Also, your tank temp is too warm. You have too much heat going on. Your basking temp should be around 80-82 or so for baby veild, not the whole tank,

 

[pigglett79]

Some things that need to be changed here. Your UVB light should be on for 12 hours a day or you can go with sun up, sun down. Why are you only having it one for 2 hours? No light or heat at night unless your temps are going to go down into the low 50's or less. Do not use calcium with d3 at every feeding. You can overdose your chameleon on this and make him sick. Can you describe your UVB lighting better? They are usually 5.0, 6.0, 10.0 etc. Not sure what a 100uvb is unless you are using a Powersun which would be both a combo uvb light and uva basking in one. You need to gutload your crickets with fresh fruits and vegetables and a commercial gutload such as Cricket Crack or Repashy Bug Burger would be better than the Flukers.

Yes, you should have the UVB on all day. That is how they produce their D3 to metabolize calcium. Could you post pictures of your set up and chameleon?

 

[RMannn94]

Its Repti Glo 5.0 and how so I upload pics?

 

[carol5208]

Reptiglo 5.0 is fine but it needs to be left on about 12 hours a day. Where did you get it was a UVB 100?? To download a pic, just click on post reply. At the top you will see the white smiley face, and to the right of that is a paper clip. Click on that and download attachment from your computer or scroll down the page and you will see a box that says "manage attachments". Click on that and you can download from there. edit: I think I recall the exoterra uvb100 is replacing the reptiglo 5.0.

 

[symphonica]

I'm also in the Boston area. How old is your cham? What's a "baby" in your book?

No lights on at night, not even the night lights. They need absolute darkness to establish a deep sleep cycle. Temps can get down to 50 at night. It should drop about 10-degrees to help them rest.

Basking temp should be 80 for a baby, rest of the tank should be 70-75. You want there to be a gradient (range), where he can go up to the top to bask when he wants to warm up, and go down to cool off when he's too hot.

UVB needs to be on 12 hrs. 5.0 is fine, but ReptiSun is better than ReptiGlo. Also, T8 tube bulbs are much better than the coiled. If you can afford it, T5HO bulbs are the best.

40% humidity is on the low end. Make sure cage is drying completely in between mistings. Too high of a humidity can cause respiratory infections, but babies are more prone to dehydration, so get humidity up to about 60-70% at highest time, let it drop to 30-40%, and get it back up again.

Commercialized cricket food that franchised, chain pet stores carry do nothing for your reptile. It just keeps your crickets alive. You need to gutload properly: https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/sandrachameleon/75-feeder-nutrition-gutloading.html

Supplementation, a baby cham shouldn't really be getting D3 yet. Too much of it can cause more harm than good, and can get them very, very sick. Once they're older, they shod get it about twice a month. On the other hand, they should be getting plain calcium with no D3 or phosphorus every day.

Not enough calcium and UVB lighting will cause metabolic bone disease.

Other common problems include dehydration or respiratory infection.

Depending on his age and size, that cage is a bit big for him. He's going to have a hard time finding and catching food if they're free-ranged in that big a cage.

To upload pics using computer, click on paperclip. Upload photo in pop-up window. Go back to paperclip and click on the image you want to insert. It should end up saying [IMG ] some #s [/IMG ] or something like that.

Or, you can upload them onto a website like facebook, Flickr, etc. then, right click photo and select "Copy Image Address/URL." Click on the icon with the mountains and paste the URL of the photo that you just copied.

On tapatalk app, there's a + sign. Click on that and then either click on the camera icon or mountain icon.

 

[RMannn94]

So he has his tail wrapped around a vine and is dangling from it at the bottom of the tank and he's not moving at all. I went to grab him and there's he's not responding. Literally yesterday morning he looked fine and was walking around climbing around and it changed so quickly.