lighting ideas for a 7' tall x7' wide x3' enclosue

[philscichlids]

Well I'm taking my time building 3 huge enclosures . I don't wanna make any foolish mistakes in any aspect of the enclosures . Each one is roughly going to be 7' tall without counting the base ,7' wide and 3' deep . All of them are going to be built out of 3/4" birch plywood " the two sides , back walk , ceiling and floor , not sure if I'm going to make screen doors or glass doors ?" What is going to give me the proper lighting for the chams ? I wanna do a cage of Jackson's 1male and 2-3 females , a cage with a pair of Panthers , and then some veileds . Do you think I should mount everything on the inside or should I cut a opening out and have it all sit on the top and just screen over the holes ? Also will the lighting for the chams be sufficient enough for a bunch of plants ? I would like to put a larger ficus tree in the center of each cage and a few other small things here and there . Sorry for so many questions.

Thanks

 

[Lathis]

If all your sides are wood with no ventilation, you would need to use screen for the doors. You might want to consider adding vents to the sides also to promote air movement. Lights on the outside, no question. Burns are far too common to consider otherwise - check the Health Forum where they pop up weekly.

Plus, I'm not sure that size will be big enough to house multiple chams. They can be very territorial and in the wild, their natural ranges would be much larger than 7x7. I think you should reconsider co-housing (unless you are very experienced, then ignore me). I think that sounds like an amazing size for a single cham - especially Jackson's. My little guy likes having a ton of space. Maybe other folks can jump in with some advice?

 

[TreeTopChameleons]

My advice is simple. Do not house multiple chameleons together. Many have tried and most have had very little success. If you really want multiple chameleons I would suggest reducing the cage sizes to roughly half what you intended and double the number of cages. This will allow you to have a pair of each chameleon and not have to worry about their safety.

 

[philscichlids]

How would you breed chameleons ? I know not to put two or more males together . I also planned on putting several vents in the ceiling part so I can hopefully have better control of the humidity

 

[bradley]

All you is place them together, let them breed then separate them again.

 

[SaintJimmy]

No matter how big the cage, it is definitely not wise to house two chameleons in the same cage. Regardless of gender or temperament.

It is just not a good idea.

For breeding, make a big cage and then put the two chameleons together to breed... then put them back in their own adult sized cages when done really... I'm not an expert on breeding but just never leave them in the same cage.