Fogging & Drinking & Hydration

[Fridolyn]

Hello,
After having no problems during the last week's with pooping and hydration, today's the first poop didn't look that good if I can judge it with my limited knowledge:

We still thinking about a fogging system for the night. But as described in the other thread, there is no chance to get the room below 21°C.

Currently we're misting twice in the night for 3 minutes. Once 15 minutes after the lights are out and once 15 minutes before the lights go on. We start to mist during the day, too for another minute.

Drinking is another thing, he does not drink. We tried a dropper, which was ignored. Never went close to the water. He ate the leaves when we stopped the dripper and there was no water anymore.

I tried to give him water through a syringe, dripping water in front of him or let a water drop touch his mouth. Every few days he took 2-3 drops and then walked away. Most of the time refuse to take any.

I looked for horn worms but it seems it's not a common thing in Germany.

So back to the fogger, are there any experiences with higher temperatures? In this thread it seems to work. And watching Bill Strands video it's better hydration and having the risk of infection than bad hydration.

Any other recommendations are very welcome.

 

[MissSkittles]

Just so you know, many chameleons are very secretive about drinking. In the 7 years I’ve been keeping them, I’ve only seen them drink a very small number of times. Most were of my wild found guy who was quite sick when he was given to me and the other was when I unknowingly had a mist head die. I see white urates so I don’t worry about it.

 

[Carlton]

Just so you know, many chameleons are very secretive about drinking. In the 7 years I’ve been keeping them, I’ve only seen them drink a very small number of times. Most were of my wild found guy who was quite sick when he was given to me and the other was when I unknowingly had a mist head die. I see white urates so I don’t worry about it.

This, but it varies a lot. I never caught some of my chams actively drinking but obviously they were as they were well hydrated.

A cham in the correct humidity will absorb some moisture breathing humid air. When the air is too dry, they'll also lose body moisture via respiration.

If your cham is new to you, he may be secretive until he settles into his new environment a bit more. If he has more densely foliated places to retreat to he may be licking more droplets off the cage structure/leaves than you realize. Also pay attention to his behavior when the fogger/mister runs. You may catch him swallowing reflexively right then. That can be a good time to drip or gently spritz some warm water over his head/face. He may start licking the water as it runs off his skin and help him associate you/your hand/the sprayer with something he wants...a drink.

I've trained some of my chams to drink sort of "on command" this way. I'd wait for a misting cycle to start, watch them carefully, then once they started swallowing, I'd offer droppers of water or dribbling it from the nozzle of a hand held sprayer over their head. It actually worked pretty well with my melleri. When they'd had enough, they turned away from me. I had a F. verrucosus who learned to drink water off my hand. I caught him licking a large Pothos leaf like out of a saucer. I started off holding the leaf as he licked it, then slid my hand in its place. Next thing I knew, he was licking my hand instead. It was an honor!

 

[JETNC]

Hello,
After having no problems during the last week's with pooping and hydration, today's the first poop didn't look that good if I can judge it with my limited knowledge:
View attachment 370621

We still thinking about a fogging system for the night. But as described in the other thread, there is no chance to get the room below 21°C.

Currently we're misting twice in the night for 3 minutes. Once 15 minutes after the lights are out and once 15 minutes before the lights go on. We start to mist during the day, too for another minute.

Drinking is another thing, he does not drink. We tried a dropper, which was ignored. Never went close to the water. He ate the leaves when we stopped the dripper and there was no water anymore.

I tried to give him water through a syringe, dripping water in front of him or let a water drop touch his mouth. Every few days he took 2-3 drops and then walked away. Most of the time refuse to take any.

I looked for horn worms but it seems it's not a common thing in Germany.

So back to the fogger, are there any experiences with higher temperatures? In this thread it seems to work. And watching Bill Strands video it's better hydration and having the risk of infection than bad hydration.

Any other recommendations are very welcome.

Like you I was concerned about hydration. From what I understand, they say don’t fog unless temp is below 68F. So then I started to experiment.

My experience with fogging is that I see a temp drop of around 4-5deg F when fogging because the fog is cool.

At night the temp drops down to about 69F by 12am. I mist for about 10 seconds then start fog. The temp usually drops to around 64-65F at this time. The fog cycles 15min on/off until 0630, then at 0655 I mist for 45 seconds. During the fogging on/off cycles my temp fluctuates between 64-66F, the humidity follows the curve between 75-86%. I also run the intake fan whenever the fogger is on, see below.

There are also humidity pockets throughout the cage. When I first set up the cage, the humidity was not staying above 70%. I have 3 Switchbot humidity/temp sensors that also chart history One at the bask spot, one in the middle/center left side, and one lower middle right side. I placed them specifically in those areas. I want the bask spot to dry quick in the morning, and it does. I assume the middle and lower will take longer to dry out, and they do by 10-11am. But, it is also cooler in those areas.

Going back to the low humidity. I could see the fog come straight down the middle and then a lot would roll out of the bottom mesh. The fog head was in the middle top of the left side.

I experimented with a fan on the left side blowing in. This did several things. It distributed the humidity throughout the cage, and it introduced fresh air. I also moved the fogger a little towards the back so that the fog directly lands on a Pothos and then rolls off. This slowed the fog down and it lost some velocity as it traveled down.

I notice that sometimes my Cham (panther) sleeps up high, and then sometimes in the middle of the cage (Dragonstrand hybrid). It seems he decides how much humidity and what temp he wants.

His urates look great, his eyes are normal looking and I’ve seen no health issues in 2 months.

If you want to ping me I can share more.

 

[JETNC]

Like you I was concerned about hydration. From what I understand, they say don’t fog unless temp is below 68F. So then I started to experiment.

My experience with fogging is that I see a temp drop of around 4-5deg F when fogging because the fog is cool.

At night the temp drops down to about 69F by 12am. I mist for about 10 seconds then start fog. The temp usually drops to around 64-65F at this time. The fog cycles 15min on/off until 0630, then at 0655 I mist for 45 seconds. During the fogging on/off cycles my temp fluctuates between 64-66F, the humidity follows the curve between 75-86%. I also run the intake fan whenever the fogger is on, see below.

There are also humidity pockets throughout the cage. When I first set up the cage, the humidity was not staying above 70%. I have 3 Switchbot humidity/temp sensors that also chart history One at the bask spot, one in the middle/center left side, and one lower middle right side. I placed them specifically in those areas. I want the bask spot to dry quick in the morning, and it does. I assume the middle and lower will take longer to dry out, and they do by 10-11am. But, it is also cooler in those areas.

Going back to the low humidity. I could see the fog come straight down the middle and then a lot would roll out of the bottom mesh. The fog head was in the middle top of the left side.

I experimented with a fan on the left side blowing in. This did several things. It distributed the humidity throughout the cage, and it introduced fresh air. I also moved the fogger a little towards the back so that the fog directly lands on a Pothos and then rolls off. This slowed the fog down and it lost some velocity as it traveled down.

I notice that sometimes my Cham (panther) sleeps up high, and then sometimes in the middle of the cage (Dragonstrand hybrid). It seems he decides how much humidity and what temp he wants.

His urates look great, his eyes are normal looking and I’ve seen no health issues in 2 months.

If you want to ping me I can share more.

Just wanted to add that the intake fan placement is on the left side of the bottom mesh. This is where I saw the fog rolling out. I also put two pieces of painters tape about 10” long below the fan directly on the mesh. This and moving the fogger head so that the fog directly lands on the Pothos made the difference. As the fog comes in from the top the Pothos slows it down, then the fan circulates fresh air in and movies the fog around and back up instead of just rolling out.

Also, my room stays at 69-70F all night but the cage itself is 64-66F because of the cool fog.

Interesting enough, last night he slept on the highest branch at the very front. Probably the least humid place with a temp around 68-69 at night. Tonight he is directly under the fog stream on a branch at a 45deg angle facing where the fog will come down.

Last, I have one mist head on the front left corner pointing in, and on the right middle I made a “rain shower” that points straight down. I used to have a mist head on the front right, but he likes to sleep in front of it sometimes and I didn’t want him to get blasted by it.

 

[Fridolyn]

Thank you for all the answers. Especially the great tutorial from you @JETNC a lot to learn and improve.

 

[JETNC]

The thing is you need to experiment a little. I am by no means an expert, but I love to troubleshoot. I manage a team that works on complicated equipment, so we do a lot of thinking…lol

Here are some photos for a visual.

On the right is the “rain ring”, it’s fed from a tee on the left that has a mist head. Left rear is the fog head. I put a hole in a takeout container. The fog bounces around a little inside the cup and this slows it down slightly so it doesn’t “rush” through and out.

The fan on the lower left blows in when fogging.

Overall setup.

I use a Tapo smart power strip, Sensorbot temp/humidity sensors with a hub and everything is connected to SmartThings. This lets me control individual outlets, and make routines. All stored on the hub. If I lose internet but not my WiFi router, everything still runs.

No separate timers!! Lamps, mister, fogger, intake fan all plug into the Tapo smart power strip. With the humidity/temp sensors tied in I can control the environment from my phone manually, or just let my routines run.

Too hot at the basking sensor, turn on the intake air. Chimney affect drops the temp. Or, if it’s not cooled enough in a specific time frame, shut the bask lamp off.

This setup lets me control everything with fine detail, like mist times to the second. Amazon has everything, I think I have about $200-$250 into the automation.