Beginner in the UK

[mrhoyo]

Hi,
The Mrs has got her little heart set on buying a chameleon in the near future so I thought I'd see if anyone has any tips for us. We're in the UK so there are bound to be differences in the care we give our chameleon(s) compared to you in America and elsewhere.
Firstly, ambient temperatures here are far from stable. Average day temperature in the reptile room can be from 15c in winter up to 26c in summer. To help counter this we were thinking of having a wooden vivarium with good ventilation rather than all screen. This also allows us to place the UVB tube and heat bulb inside the vivarium (out of reach) which would give a greater usable output than if sat on top. Can anyone see any issues so far?

Here's a few questions:

Would the new Arcadia t5 tubes be safe to use? I assume so but just wanted to check because I'm not too clued up on the UVB requirements yet.

We both work through the day so we couldn't absolutely guarantee we'd be there to spray numerous times a day. Because of this, a misting system would be needed. Can anyone suggest one that's available over here? The MistKing starter kit looks good and is reasonably priced in $ but I don't know if I could get it here.

What species would you all suggest? We've got 3x2x3 LDH already set aside so I think that gives us a few options. Yemen and panthers are by far the most common here and we're leaning towards the latter based on aesthetics. Any other suggestions would be welcome.

Thanks in advance for your replies

 

[bradley]

Im in the Uk too! The T5 lights are great! You would want a 6% with reflector for the chameleon.A good size cage for an adult veiled or yemen is a 4 feet igh 2 feet square cage. Your cage is a good size but some will say it needs to be higher. Qith regards to misting once in the morning and then once in the evening will be suuficiet with a dripper being used. You can get a misting system and I use pollywog.for your cage 2 nozzles would be fine bt make sure the viv is fully sealed as it will rot otherwise

 

[mrhoyo]

Cheers. I'm sure the vivarium will be fine, it has more volume than a 2x2x4 and is still quite tall.
Do you know how the Pollywog systems compare to Mist King? I've seen the starter kit with a seconds timer for about £130 which is the same as Pollywog.

 

[sandrachameleon]

Welcome to the forum There are quite a few UK members here.
Wooden vivariums with vents work well. Its the enviornment maintained within the cage that's more important that the construction.

 

[bradley]

Cheers. I'm sure the vivarium will be fine, it has more volume than a 2x2x4 and is still quite tall.
Do you know how the Pollywog systems compare to Mist King? I've seen the starter kit with a seconds timer for about £130 which is the same as Pollywog.

I havent compared them but the two nozzle pollywog is cheaper than mistking. my pollywog works really well

 

[growing zoo]

Hi
I am also from the UK.
I have a veiled and we have been together for a year now and you cant go wrong with this forum
I have a repti breeze ( screen cage) and have had no problems with heat or humidity.
As previous post suggests an Arcadia UV is good to use I use a 5.0 ontop of the cage along with a dome light also on top of the cage so no accidents happen with burnt feet attached to a dimmer thermostat.
As for misting, well I started off by spraying twice daily morning and night but you will find yourself tied to a clock all the time eg if your caught in traffic, out shopping or at a friends you will clock watch so you can get back to spray in good time before the timer on the lights goes out etc etc, so I found on ebay a spray system very similar to mistking called Lucky Reptile Super Rain for about £40 !!!!! All I needed was a timer to plug it into which counted in seconds which I found on 888retiles.co.uk
Easy and cheap.
Hope this helps

 

[mrhoyo]

I've read that the reptibreeze aren't great quality and also that non-mistking seconds timers are prone to failure. Is there any truth to these issues?

 

[Benton1576]

The reptibreeze are brilliant quality! Only problem with them is you have to cover 3 sides with shower curtain or something similar to stop from spraying through by accident. Temps in your house should be fairly stable so a 40w housebulb in summer would be fine for heat, 60w in winter. I use the reptiglo 5.0 for UVB. Id go for panthers too! Theres a couple of good breeders i could reccommend if you want to buy quality. Or wait until December and buy one of my ankaramy babies!!! lol

 

[Bernie]

Hi I am also in the UK. You've definitely come to the right place. I wish I had consulted this forum more before buying my first set up. It would have saved me a lot of messing about and saved me some money too.

Firstly, I got a wooden viv. I soon sold it after a few months and changed to a reptibreeze XL. Not only is it cheaper, but its better for ventilation, better for the feeders to free-range and is much easier to set up drainage for in my opinion. Mine was flooding and getting stagnant and the wood was starting to swell. It is also easier to suspend vines/sticks/etc using gardening wire through the mesh. So far I havent had any humidity issues. If you are getting a misting system anyway then you'll be fine for humidity levels. As long as you have a digi thermometer to watch your basking temps then you should be able to provide sufficient temps through the season changes etc...

I have ordered a MistKing from Canada. It cost me about £110 delivered. That was with extra bits for another cage too. So I reckon the starter kit would get delivered for less than £100. Its by far the best system (apparently) so worth an investment from the beginning in my opinion.

I have the ZooMed Little dripper. It does a good job but has a major flaw with the tap on it. I would avoid this product and perhaps make your own. I wish I knew about this before hand as I bought one for each of my vivs and they stop dripping after a period of time. Not good if you are both working all day like our household.

I have both a Veiled and a Panther. Both are fantastic in their own ways and I cannot decide which species I like the most. I love the placid nature of the the Panthers and not to mention their stunning colours. But the Veileds are so funny with their stinking attitudes and excellent character.

EDIT - I would also recommend buying your animals from a breeder too. I had a bad experience with my first Chameleon which I bought from a shop. He didnt live long.

Good luck!

 

[Benton1576]

I have the ZooMed Little dripper. It does a good job but has a major flaw with the tap on it. I would avoid this product and perhaps make your own. I wish I knew about this before hand as I bought one for each of my vivs and they stop dripping after a period of time. Not good if you are both working all day like our household.

Ive also noticed this with my drippers. I think its because as the water empties the void doesnt get replaced with enough air and causes a vacuum effect. I found that taking the lid off helped a lot. I think the hole in the lid is not sufficent. Its also a major pain trying to get the drip right, it only takes a tiny turn to drip too fast, a tiny turn the other way shuts it off. Still better than nothing though IMO.

Im ordering a mistking when i overhaul my reptile room. Im currently trying to get the money together to buy all the equipment i need to make my own cages i have designed then im gonna build my whole room from scratch and add the mistking in there so i dont have to spend so much time misting my 6, possibly 7 tomorrow, panther chameleons. Then i got to design my cages for the Parsonii.