First post

[DesertChameleon]

My first post. I know co-habitation is bad but we are in the same room: my bedroom. Meet AquaMan he is a blue barred, red bodied, Ambilobe Panther Chameleon. He is like a dark brown/purple at rest. My question is, is it ok for him to bask until white spots start showing up on his face to the point of all his colors firing up looking like he wears a white mask? He does this every so often but he will retreat to the bottom of the cage on his own but im just worried about overheating. It’s been cold so he basks more often but i run space heaters. I turn off basking light when i allow direct sunlight to hit his enclosure at around 4PM.

 

[DesertChameleon]

oh specifics: T5 zoo-med reptisun uvb. 75watt zoo med basking lamp. The 82 degrees above the light switch is where i keep the space heater by the door so it is hottest between the door and our cold hallway cuz i dont keep the door shut for ventilation.

 

[DesertChameleon]

Here’s how bright he’ll get before he stops basking. Should I be worried?

 

[Beman]

Hi there welcome to the forum I have a feeling your 75 watt basking bulb is producing much hotter temps than you think. Those analog gauges are really inaccurate. The gauge with probe, do you have that tied in below the basking bulb at the branch? For basking it should be 80-85 max at the branch. Where they rise up it will be hotter. You can get a regular incandescent white bulb 60 watt and probably get perfect temps at the distance he is from the fixture.

Per ambient room temps. These you really want to be in the low 70's not hotter. Otherwise they do not have a way to get out of heat to cool down. At night they need the temp drop below 67. If you can get down to low 60's even better for him.

And no worries about you being in the same room as him. This is perfectly fine.

Your overall enclosure set up looks good. I would consider adding some other diameter branches for him though. Smaller grip surface rather than all larger.

 

[DesertChameleon]

yes it is on the branch. i just left the probe there once for a prolonged period of time and it slowed down its climb at 88.7 degrees just so i can get a closer reading to what the temp under the lamp. When i place the probe in the darkest part of the enclosure (his favorite sleeping spot) i get a reading of 74 Farenheit and 68% humidity vs the 88.7+ (40%) at the top. Is that enough of a gradient? It is 60 degrees outside so these temps do not feel that hot to me.

 

[DesertChameleon]

I will give it a try using a lower watt bulb. This is my winter bulb as it is still quite cold.

 

[Beman]

yes it is on the branch. i just left the probe there once for a prolonged period of time and it slowed down its climb at 88.7 degrees just so i can get a closer reading to what the temp under the lamp. When i place the probe in the darkest part of the enclosure (his favorite sleeping spot) i get a reading of 74 Farenheit and 68% humidity vs the 88.7+ (40%) at the top. Is that enough of a gradient? It is 60 degrees outside so these temps do not feel that hot to me.

I will give it a try using a lower watt bulb. This is my winter bulb as it is still quite cold.

So 88.7 at the branch will mean temps of above 90 higher where the cham rises up. In the wild they tend to retreat with these hot temps. Those heaters are going to mess with your ambient temps. I would try to keep his ambient low in the cage more to the 70 side. Maybe switch the heaters to run on low.

If you can please get some pics of him without the screen blocking our view.

 

[DesertChameleon]

He seldom does this if he does it again i'll try to catch a pic of it along with your recommendations.

 

[Gloriawood]

Just want to say hi and welcome!

 

[DesertChameleon]

So after some observation I could not reproduce the issue with him basking too close to the heat lamp. He seems to have adjusted on his own and basks indirectly under the lamp now. I used a laser thermometer directly on his chest and his body temperature comes out to 96.8 after about an hour or so at this spot. Is 96.8+ a good body temp while basking?

 

[DesertChameleon]

he does this prolonged basking after filling up his belly.

 

[DesertChameleon]

He finally left the bask on his own looking like this. His face isn’t all white this time but wow those colors

 

[DesertChameleon]

And just after a few short minutes on the cooler side his colors are already calming down.

 

[Gloriawood]

Yes they will bask after eating as it helps them digest properly, so that’s good! I’m betting the whit you are seeing is a shed coming on. As they get older, they will shed in pieces rather than all at once like babies. So he may shed his face now, his legs another day, his back another day etc…

 

[Beman]

So after some observation I could not reproduce the issue with him basking too close to the heat lamp. He seems to have adjusted on his own and basks indirectly under the lamp now. I used a laser thermometer directly on his chest and his body temperature comes out to 96.8 after about an hour or so at this spot. Is 96.8+ a good body temp while basking?

Ok so yes this would mean it is too hot for him. Those temp guns measure surface temp. So his surface temp being that high means that he is getting much hotter basking temps. The heat bulbs that have the flat bottom and are marked basking bulbs can produce much hotter focused temps.

 

[Lindasjackson]

Hello and welcome! What a pretty boy you have! Beman has given some good advice.

 

[DesertChameleon]

 

[DesertChameleon]

so I took your advice and got lower wattage bulbs. buuuut i got basking “spot” lamps so they are like a focused beam which gets really hot through it’s line of sight so i readjusted the distance of my basking bulb and Aquaman seems to like this. He only basks a few minutes on each side before going to the cooler side. I like seeing him this active moving left n right do not underestimate the strength of these “spot” lamps

 

[Beman]

so I took your advice and got lower wattage bulbs. buuuut i got basking “spot” lamps so they are like a focused beam which gets really hot through it’s line of sight so i readjusted the distance of my basking bulb and Aquaman seems to like this. He only basks a few minutes on each side before going to the cooler side. I like seeing him this active moving left n right do not underestimate the strength of these “spot” lamps

Yeah it is why I will not use the spot lamps... I have seen them actually cause thermal burns because the heat is so focused and hot. I just use a regular incandescent white round bottom bulb.

 

[DesertChameleon]

incandescent bulbs are rare these days