How do you clean chams cage

shadys momma

New Member
I read that chams do not like their cage furniture moved around. How do you clean their cage? Is soap and water okay to use?
 
cleaning cage

Hi shadys momma

Firstly soap & water is ok for cleaning your cage including plant leafs, just make sure its a soap with no added chemicals ( one of the ones for ladys nice soft hands ) Make sure you rince well afterwoulds. I personally use a product called ark klens disinfectant & cleaner( this is made for the job) for a weekly good clean and soap & water the rest of the week.Shady can be put onto a plant outside the cage while being cleaned
 
Neil left some good recommendations. ZooMed makes a few products I see in local stores. That could get expensive though with long term use. There are quit a few different products out there. A friend of mine uses something from BigAppleHerp. Whatever you use, I recommend rinsing well like Neil said. Letting the cage dry out in the sun can help.
 
I read that chams do not like their cage furniture moved around.

Is that true that they don't like things changed around? I thought they would enjoy exploring a rearranged environment every once in a while. I guess I should pay more attention to keeping it the same.
 
It's their territory and they are VERY territorial.
By re-arranging things you confuse and essentially re-locate them....very stressful to try and establish a new territory.
This is of course human projection on an animal, we don't know this for sure, but I often observe things being changed (pooping, sleeping places) after a cage redecoration.

-Brad
 
All I do is spot clean perches and leaves by wiping them down with Nolvasan (viral/bacteria disinfectant vets and farms use). I have plastic bottom with a draining system and scrub them with antibacterial dish soap and a toilet brush. I do all this once a week.

I personally wouldn’t recommend tearing down a cage once week. That would be stressful without a doubt to be doing on a weekly basis. I do a complete tear down maybe twice a year.

They do get accustomed to their homes and it does take several days (with my chams) for them to settle in when I completely rearrange things. I guess I would be pretty tweaked too if every Friday I came home to find that someone rearranged all my furniture.

I am pretty sure that the Zoomed “Wipe Out” stuff isn’t very effective. The only thing I have to back that up with is a comment from a fellow cham keeper who has been in the hobby over a decade.

-roo
 
Forgot to mention that if you are giving the cage time to completely dry out then it shouldn’t get too dirty (mold / fungus etc. growing on things).
 
Exactly!
Clean poop daily and spot clean like Roo said.
These are pretty clean animals you just have to make sure not to leave poop and dead feeders to rot and cause problems.
A good cleaning maybe once a month but I think you could go longer.
I said monthly earlier (maybe in the other thread, there are two on this subject right now) but when I honestly think about it a month goes by pretty fast and I'm pretty sure I don't do it that often.
Remember the screen environment allows great circulation and bacteria has a harder time getting a foothold, as opposed to an aquarium. I'm sure you've noticed there is no "chameleon odor".

-Brad
 
What about the brev tanks?

Roo, (or anyone), how often do you clean the brev tanks? I often can't find the poop to take it out...don't know if that means the springtails get to it before I do, or what. I try to make sure there's no mold on anything, but other than that, and scraping the water deposits off the glass, what should I do to clean?
 
I wipe down the glass once a week and normally dont remove fecal matter since snails, pill bugs, etc. typecially eat it. I do remove the white urates though since they tend to stand out. Gving the the tank ample time to dry out prevent excessive mold and funsgus too.

About twice a year I will remove fixtures and mix up the soil a bit since given time it gets compressed - maybe add some sand to the mix if it needs it.

-roo
 
What do you use to clean the glass? Vinegar? So far I've just scraped it with an aquarium glass scraping blade, and rinsed it. I try to use r/o water, to minimize mineral buildup, but it's there anyway.
 
Vinegar does work well in a stubborn spots where you can feel deposits when wiping with a paper towel but cant see them. I do use the glass scraper too but very rarely since the weekly wipe down keeps the deposits in check. I filter the water through a Brita water filter first and that helps a lot.

Slugs/Snails … I wouldn’t suggest it. Since these things hang out on the ground they are prone to have parasites. They are very common “vehicles” for parasites to get into birds and other animals. So I would stay away from them for your veiled. I remove slugs when I see them in my pygmy tanks since they are nasty things and leave slime everywhere. The snails would be way too difficult to remove completely – they come in on the plants I use are next to impossible to get rid off. They do more good then anything IMO since they eat crap and other rotting material.

-roo
 
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