Getting my enclosure ready.. Feed back please

[Ares05]

If someone hasn't already said... I personally do not like the fake bendy vines. The foam they're made of soaks up water and the paint can rub off. I would just go outside and get some real branches, as long as your trees don't have sap it should be fine, just scrub them with a bit of soap and water. Natural is always better.

-- Looks nice too!

 

[Marisol]

Your numbers will be different hand misting vs mistking.

What is your normal ambient humidity level in your home hun? Sometimes if this is very low the only thing you can really do is up the ambient level by running a cool mist humidifier in the room where the cham is. This is going to increase the ambient humidity without adding water to the cage direct. So that it then pulls up the ambient cage humidity as well.

Yea I realize that the numbers will vary once I get the mistking in. For now I've just been playing around to see where my current numbers are. End of February I'll be getting my mistking and 2nd govee. I'll probably rearrange some items if need be for the mistking. Want to make sure none of my govee will be in contact with water. Plus if I can't get my Basking branch temp to lower I'll have to end up lowering it... good thing I have time to experiment with it. What I love most about this chameleon keeping, its not just an art but a science. I do enjoy doing trial and errors until I get it just right.

 

[Marisol]

If someone hasn't already said... I personally do not like the fake bendy vines. The foam they're made of soaks up water and the paint can rub off. I would just go outside and get some real branches, as long as your trees don't have sap it should be fine, just scrub them with a bit of soap and water. Natural is always better.

-- Looks nice too!

Thanks for the tip! I'll put that in the my notes for my upgrade

 

[Mendez]

Unfortunately though when I built the enclosure I did cover the maintenance door because of the drainage basin. Do you think I can still put the shrink wrap on the door and just not cover 3in from the bottom to allow air flow?

Is the entire maintenance door covered then? If it is only partially covered, then depending on how much is exposed, you could still cover the main door. My main concern with this idea (now) is that the chimney effect works most effectively when the distance between the entrance for cold air to enter and the exit for hot air to escape is maximized. When the distance is too small (such as in an already small cage plus closing the distance between entrance and exit), the chimney effect will be much less effective.

Here is a video that @kinyonga found on the stack (chimney effect). This may help you when designing your larger cage (glad to hear that you are thinking ahead!):

I do have some small branches in the back but I'll definitely add some more. I'll try bringing the heat lamp more up to see if that will decrease the basking temp.

Perfect!

I did talk to my breeder about what supplements he uses and he recommended the Arcadia supplements. I did look into them and I'll probably order them end of February.
I have plenty of time to get ready. The little guy hasn't even hatched yet lol but I want to make sure I'm doing everything right. Plus thing are a little pricy with lights, enclosure supplies, etc..

Awesome! Glad to hear that you are very proactive when it comes to your chameleon husbandry!

 

[Marisol]

Is the entire maintenance door covered then? If it is only partially covered, then depending on how much is exposed, you could still cover the main door. My main concern with this idea (now) is that the chimney effect works most effectively when the distance between the entrance for cold air to enter and the exit for hot air to escape is maximized. When the distance is too small (such as in an already small cage plus closing the distance between entrance and exit), the chimney effect will be much less effective.

Here is a video that @kinyonga found on the stack (chimney effect). This may help you when designing your larger cage (glad to hear that you are thinking ahead!):



Perfect!


Awesome! Glad to hear that you are very proactive when it comes to your chameleon husbandry!

Thanks for the video helped understand the chimney effect. After looking over my enclosure to see if I can alter the maintenance door. I can maybe expose an opening of 6"x3/4". I'm not sure if that would be enough ventilation for the maintenance door. Any feed back would be nice

 

[Marisol]

It’s great that you are getting things setup beforehand! CaskAbove.com has really good Cham info and setup checklist that may be very helpful too. Good luck and welcome to the fam!

thanks for the link! I've been looking it over and been finding a lot of helpful information for when i get my upgrade enclosure started.

 

[Mendez]

How low would this 6'' x 3/4'' opening be? Also, would this be in addition to more room left open above the maintenance door? By itself, I think that opening would be too small. The drainage tray doesn't need to reach too high up as it only collects the water on the floor already--or at least it should. How are you getting the water out of your drainage tray?
Here is a pic of mine down below. I used a washer machine drainage pan, and then cut corrugated plastic to size to make it look a little neater. I used white tape to fasten down the corrugated plastic. I then put shims under three of the four sides to direct the water down to one corner where I drilled a few holes. Under where the holes are, I put a funnel and tubing to catch and redirect the water into a 5 gal bucket. Also, since taking this picture, I have vacuumed the dirty floor and taken out the trash that is shown in the pic . My drainage tray doesn't reach too high up over the maintenance door so I can effectively use the chimney effect.

In this pic I don't have the front covered with window shrink film, but you get the idea. Is there any way to reduce the height of the tray, even just in the front?

 

[Marisol]

how did you put that black stuff on the walls of the cage

I watched a lot of video on youtube on different ways people have build enclosure and terrariums. I took different techniques and ideas from each one but I say this video i found on youtube was helpful in the supplies and application. I am going to say this video is not made specifically for a chameleon. But I used the concept and the material to build my enclosure.

 

[Marisol]

How low would this 6'' x 3/4'' opening be? Also, would this be in addition to more room left open above the maintenance door? By itself, I think that opening would be too small. The drainage tray doesn't need to reach too high up as it only collects the water on the floor already--or at least it should. How are you getting the water out of your drainage tray?
Here is a pic of mine down below. I used a washer machine drainage pan, and then cut corrugated plastic to size to make it look a little neater. I used white tape to fasten down the corrugated plastic. I then put shims under three of the four sides to direct the water down to one corner where I drilled a few holes. Under where the holes are, I put a funnel and tubing to catch and redirect the water into a 5 gal bucket. Also, since taking this picture, I have vacuumed the dirty floor and taken out the trash that is shown in the pic . My drainage tray doesn't reach too high up over the maintenance door so I can effectively use the chimney effect.
View attachment 290211
In this pic I don't have the front covered with window shrink film, but you get the idea. Is there any way to reduce the height of the tray, even just in the front?

The opening would be about 25" from the top, I could add 1in addition on the door. So it would end up being 1 3/4".

I kind of made my own drainage. Its a little hard to explain so I'll try my best. Because of space in my current room I wanted to make a basin so that when water drips it can go down a back corner instead of the middle. I didn't want to buy a stand specifically just for the enclosure because its just going to take up space in my room. I wanted the enclosure to sit on top of a current dresser I have. I filled the bottom with GreatStuff foam and carved out a basin, and added a sink drainage. I glued down thick plastic on the foam to make sure everything drips down the drainage. The back has a drainage pipe that leads to a plastic jug that I empty. I'll try to a
I'll add some pictures so you can try seeing what I did. I'm not that great at explaining lol

 

[Mendez]

Yeah, the idea should still work--especially if your humidity is super low like yours. No need to cut the additional inch. Based on my proportions of my 2x2x4 cage, I calculated that your shrink wrap needs to be about 6 inches up from the bottom. This gives you a 6 inch gap for new air to enter.

The only issue that I think you may run into is the fact that you won't be able to tape the third (bottom) side. The shrink film requires you to put double sided sticky tape to the aluminum frame. Then you peel off the other side of the tape and then put on the shrink film. Since we are starting 6 inches above the frame, you won't have a solid piece to tape to. It may look a little weird, but it would still work if you haven't found another way to get your humidity up. Only tpe three sides, the tape won't stick to the screen.

If you go this option, keep checking your humidity so it doesn't get too high. It shouldn't but still good to monitor.