Is feeding a chameleon a nightmare?

[SirToppemHat]

Hi all, I've been reading up on Chams for a few months now. I'm a former coral reef tank owner. I thought I was ready to get a panther, but after reading on crickets and keeping them I wanted to ask...Is it a nightmare keeping up with feeders and having to clean all the time?
Thanks!

 

[raven1139]

I had a reef tank prior to my chameleon. It sounds bad at first but I usually get crickets once a week. I enjoyed looking at the reef tank but the maintenance was crazy. Way more can go wrong too, and the money invested was insane.

 

[xraygirl]

It's really not bad if you have a spare couple minutes. I work full time and have class 2-4 nights a week. I breed my own dubias and tend to them 2-3 times a week, mainly to get rid of old fruits/veggies and make sure their water crystals stay damp (about 5-10 minutes), and check for babies. If I get babies then I'll take the time to get them out and put them in the other container of babies to grow and feed off. I buy about 100 medium crickets at a time and they're yucky. If you don't try to keep up with them a bit more they'll stink. Silkworms and hornworms are easy peazy in their 'pod cups', just dump the poop out of the cup and go.

 

[Psychobunny]

Even with 4 chams to feed, keeping cricks is not that much work.
You do have to clean the bin regularly, and of course, buy fresh fruits and veggies to gut load them, but one gets used to it, and it becomes routeen.

Cham owners usually keep several kinds of feeder bugs. Dubia's are easy to care for, silkies need to be kept clean, which can be a bit of a PITA because you need to keep them on a screen floor, so the poop falls through.
They dont have immune systems, so if one gets infected, it can wipe out the whole colony

I raise my own cricks, so I have a seperate tub for the pins when they hatch. But it's not hard to maintain cricks, just takes a few minutes of your time to clean and such.

 

[SirToppemHat]

Yeah there seems to be a few of us crossover reefers here Radar. My tank was very automated with medical dosers, controller, even had a water changing valve that sent the waste water outside. Hopefully I'll pay my dues and get a good set up on a cham.
Thanks for agreeing with me on the nastiness X I appreciate the replies everyone, seems like a great forum here.

 

[kgallego]

Hi all, I've been reading up on Chams for a few months now. I'm a former coral reef tank owner. I thought I was ready to get a panther, but after reading on crickets and keeping them I wanted to ask...Is it a nightmare keeping up with feeders and having to clean all the time?
Thanks!

Other options such as Dubia Roaches and Superworms make feeding much easier than crickets.