Heating and misting

[poolex5]

I received my 4 month old Panther chameleon last week and I have a couple of questions for you guys.

I have a 2X2X4 reptibreeze enclosure with Mistking nozzles in the back 2 corners and a rain nozzle on top of the cage. When the misting system comes on, my little guy loves it. He either goes underneath the rain nozzle or over to the mist nozzle in the back. Sometimes he even climbs on the mist nozzle while it's misting.

I had the misting system set up to mist for 3 minutes 4 times per day. The humidity stayed around 60-75% during the day and dropped down to 50% or so at night. He seems like he's always thirsty trying to lick the branches in between mistings. I changed the schedule to mist 3 minutes in the morning and 2 hours before lights out and then 2 minutes 3 other times during the day. This brings it up from a total of 12 minutes of misting to 14. Is this too much?

My second question involves heating in the lower half of the cage. His basking spot is near 90 degrees and he hangs out near there most of the day. He wanders around the top half of the cage some, but never goes down near the bottom even though there are several vines and branches for him. The lower half of the cage stays around 70 degrees. Should I use something to try to heat the lower half some to give him more area to roam around?

Thanks for the help.

 

[Mijah139]

As far as misting, you can mist as often as you like as long as you allow for the water to evaporate between mistings (otherwise you will increase the risk of bacterial and respiratory infections).

As far as heating, it is important that the lower part of the cage be much cooler than the basking spot to allow him to thermoregulate his body temperature via traveling a vertical heat gradient. So leave it cool down toward the bottom, dont be worried that he isnt traveling to the bottom of his enclosure, most arboreal species wont

 

[poolex5]

Thanks for the info. I will monitor to make sure everything dries up between mistings. I'm pretty sure they will with 2 hours in between.

I was reading on here the other day that most chameleons don't seem to like the mistings unless they are hand misted with warm water. My little guy loves it. The water is only room temperature, but he always goes over and stands under the water. A lot of times, he will eat when he's getting misted...like it triggers something that makes him hungry.