Carlson8607
Member
Hey everyone, my name is Carlson and I live in Brunswick Ga. In a junior in college. I came to this website because I recently got my first veiled chameleon last Saturday and I wanted to make sure I was doing everything right. Make no mistake, I've been wanting a chameleon for a long time! And I have been waiting/doing HW on chameleons for over half a year. I got a forty breeder a few weeks ago, built a stand, and got everything I needed. Then, I just had to wait until I moved this past weekend. I bought my veiled from PetSmart vecabec they were having a sell ($50) and they have a healthy juvenile veiled which is exactly what I was waiting for. Now, I'm done with the boring background part. The tank is 40 gallons. I know that it isn't ideal for it to be horizontal vs vertical bc they like to climb but so far he seems to be doing great. Also, I know some prefer screen over glass for airflow, but my fogger uses a pretty powerful fan to push new air into the tank Everytime it cuts on. The fogger I have cuts on 13 times over a 24 hour day and runs for thirty minutes each time (too much?) I have an incandescent bulb for basking, and three uvb bulbs, not all the same wattage. I haven't gotten an automatic misting system yet but I am planning on getting a repti rain asap, partly because I don't want the chameleon to associate me with misiting the tank down, but rn, I'm misting the tank down manually around 10 times a day. There are always some visable water drops on the leaves. As for substrate, my research led me to believe that paper towels were pretty much the best way to go, so I went with them because I also use them for my leopard gecko. I know this is getting boring but don't worry I'm going to post lots of pictures. As far as the chameleon goes, he is doing great. I have cup fed him a couple times but I heard that it is good to let young chams catch food on their own for exercise, which he also does well. Today, he also started to take crickets out of my hand! Rn he is eating around ten medium-large crickets a day, pretty much whenever he is hungry. The crickets are eating flukers cricket cubes as well as bananas and other fruits and veggies. They are drinking water from a gel high in calcium. I dust about half of the crickets in phosphorus free calcium and I also have calcium with vit d3 to give him twice a month. I have a temperature probe in the middle of the tank and it stays around 72-78 degrees getting closer to 90 under the basking lamp. The lights cut on at 8:30 am and off at 8:30 pm. The lights and fogger are both on timers. Please let me know anything that I may be doing wrong! I also remove any poop that i see when I see it.
