Bottom of Cage

[chase31157]

I recently got a female veiled chameleon. She is about 6 months old. When I first got her, the person at the local pet store suggested that I put moss on the floor of the cage becuase it holds humidity. I have a cage that is about 30x30x12 (38 gallons). It has screen doors on the sides and top, and the bottom, front, and back is glass. However, after only one week there were puddles of water on the bottom of the cage. This is because I have an automatic mister in the cage, and I also spray the fake plants a few times a day. The moss was not absorbing the moisture very well. It just looked really messy and I am afraid that bacteria could grow in the water. Also, I later read on this forum that no substrate should be used, unless it is just paper towels, but it seems to me that paper towels would just fall apart and would need to be changed out every 1 or 2 days. I had an idea and decided to try it today and was just wondering if anyone thinks there would be a problem with this. I laid a chamois (pronounced "shammey," the leather towel you use to dry your car after you wash it) in the bottom of the cage. I thought this was a good idea because it is really absorbant and can just be rinsed out and re-used when it gets dirty, unlike paper towels, which would be costly to replace so often. The only concern I have is that it says it is "cod oil tanned." Does anyone think there would be a problem with this being at the bottom of her cage? Just a note: I have not yet seen her go all the way to the cage floor, so I doubt she would even have direct contact with it.

 

[zombiepixel]

I don't know about the chamois, but I personally have no problem with the paper towels.

I only need a couple in the enclosure and I change them daily. What I did to manage all the excess water was to create a interior water tub.

Basically I took one of those Glade storage containers and hot-glued some screen on the top. I place it under the misting nozzle since thats where the bulk of my excess water comes from. At the end of the day I dump it and replace the two paper towels I have in there.

I have the Habba mister (spitter) it goes off every 3 hours for 30 seconds and I hand mist in the morning before work. My humidity stays around 50% in between and around 70% during sprays.

 

[cutecham03]

Instead of putting something on the bottom you can just put cage carpet it is easy to clean and you don't have to worry about your Cham looking for food or accidentally swallowing substrate!