Light advice

[RobStac]

Hey is it good to have a dark side of the cage where there is not that much light and a side that has lots of light and heat ?

 

[bradley]

Hey is it good to have a dark side of the cage where there is not that much light and a side that has lots of light and heat ?

It is good to have light and shade but with chameleons in a tall setup this happens vertically so the bottom is shady and dark an the top is well lit.

 

[bigcappa]

Usually all you need is two lights. An UVB linear tube light, this provides uvb waves that chameleons need from being indoors and not out under the sun. Also you need some sort of basking light, usually just a household bulb will work, that you can provide some section of the chameleon's enclosure to warm up if he needs to be. To answer your dark areas question, some of the enclosure may be dark, if so that's fine but with two light sources I don't see how much of the enclosure could be dark.

 

[RobStac]

okay thanks, I have 4 lights because its a prettybig mesh cage like 100 gallons like 5 feet high by like 4 feet wide so I tried to cage up the settings because people told me he only needs to lights, but once I switched that my chameleon started going dark and flatting his body to get more heat and he ended up like not moving and staying under the light 24/7 so I don't no what to do should I switch back to the more lights and heat

 

[bigcappa]

Well if you have an enclosure that large you will probably need multiple light or heat sources. Depending on what type of chameleon your have, you need to make sure they have the correct ambient temp range, with a cooler area and basking area. You need to have those dialed in for the type of chameleon that you have.

 

[RobStac]

Yeah I have a veiled, it's about 95 at the peek under his basking spot the temp around the rest is about 85 and the bottom is like 72

 

[bradley]

That sounds like a good temperature gradient to me. A normal 5.0 uv bulb will be no good in a cage that height. I would be using an Arcadia T5 HO 12% uv bulb for a cage this size.

 

[bigcappa]

If he is an adult veiled(1+ year) those temps should be good.

 

[RobStac]

uh he's about 8 mouths old but he loves his heat like no other veiled I have ever seen, I got a 150 watt basking bulb at the top and he gets as close as he can to it and looks like he enjoys it, I know a 150 watt sounds like way to much and I feared that to so I switched it to a 100 watt but it just didn't do it for him, he was all brown and flattened like a sideways pancake for hours under it so I switched it back and now he normal again... maybe hes just a weirdo and loves the heat lol

 

[littlefoot3]

uh he's about 8 mouths old but he loves his heat like no other veiled I have ever seen, I got a 150 watt basking bulb at the top and he gets as close as he can to it and looks like he enjoys it, I know a 150 watt sounds like way to much and I feared that to so I switched it to a 100 watt but it just didn't do it for him, he was all brown and flattened like a sideways pancake for hours under it so I switched it back and now he normal again... maybe hes just a weirdo and loves the heat lol

He's quite handsome!

 

[Yak]

hi did you say 24/7 as figure of speech? I keep the light for 12 hours only, on all my chams.

 

[RobStac]

yeah just a figure of speech I turn his lights off at night