Cage Info:
- Cage Type - Cage is Reptibreeze all screen. 61x61x122cm. I covered the back and two sides with Tarpaulin. This is great!
- Lighting -1. Exo Terra Reptile dome 21cm with a Trixie 100W Basking spot lamp. 2. Reptisun Terrarium Hood T5 HO with Reptisun 5.0 UVB. Lights are on at 7:30am and go off at 7:30pm. Great! Where is your UVB placed?
- Temperature - Basking spot 27-29. Cage floor ~ 21-22 . Lowest overnight temp ~20-21C which sadly I can’t get any lower even though I leave the window wide open. I have a thermo/hygrometer with a gauge. Enclosure for your baby is a little cold. You want a gradient from 25 -22. Temps at night are fantastic, if you can get them lower, great but what you have is fine.
- Humidity - Day 40-50%, Night - 50-60%. Night hydration is low, ideally you'll want it to be 80-100%, if you live in a dry area I would consider getting a fog machine and fogging at night when you can get temps down to 22 at night. This is also an excellent way to hydrate your baby.
- Plants - I am using only live plants- Pothos(which is sadly dying for unknown to me reasons), Bromelia, Schefflera(just died as well), Ficus Benjamina, Spider plant. Do you have a plant light? Pothos are pretty hardy. Are they getting too much light? To little light? Too much water or too little water? Lets explore this more and see if we can help you here as well because if you have to keep switching out your plants that is causing stress to baby boy as well.
- Placement - The cage is in my living room, which is sadly a high traffic area. Whenever I walk past I try to go as further from the cage as possble and I look away so I don’t bother him, but I think it’s not working so well. The top of the cage relative to my room floor is 175cm. The height is great. Is there anywhere else you can move him that is not high traffic? I would strongly suggest doing this if you can.
- Location - I am located in Germany, North Rhine-Westphalia
Current Problem - 1. He is extremely afraid of me the last days. I hold his feeding cup in a way he can see the bugs, he runs to my hand, eats, checks if I look at him and if I do he runs away, if I don’t he stays till he eats everything and then runs away, but he doesn’t allow me near him otherwise. Just looking at him makes him run for his life, let alone touch him and I never forcefully took him out or so I’m worried what would I do if we need to go to the vet. Also I have to put new plants in the cage, because 2 of the 5 died and the cage is empty-ish rn. How do I put in the new plants when I can’t take him out and he’s already scared to death ?
2. His colors are super pale as you can see on the photo under my previous message and lately he has been basking longer than what I’ve seen before.
Here’s how lovely green he was till a week and half ago and now….
I would consider getting a feeder run or something that you can place in his enclosure and leave there for him to eat the bugs as he wants/needs without feeling vulnerable. For example my veiled doesn't seem to be afraid of humans, I hand feed her every feeding, she eats from the cup I offer and then just keeps hanging out. My panther is terrified of me, if I hand fed him it would cause a lot of stress so I place his feeder in his enclosure and leave him alone. Just putting the feeder in his enclosure he gapes at me. If he is eating quickly and running away that tells me he is nervous. (pics attached in previous post of my feeding stations to give you some ideas)
How do you have your plants? I have mine in the double pot method so if I need to remove a plant its a quick swap out. (picture attached in previous post). You could get some fake plants to put around the outside of his enclosure to provide extra coverage that way as well.
I would strongly suggest the double pot method, it will take a minute to set up and I would suggest maybe paying attention to his body language, when he is showing you he has had enough pause for a while and give him a break. I attach mine with zip ties through corrugated plastic, you can attach them to sturdy branches in your enclosure as well.
Basking for longer makes sense if his enclosure is colder than he prefers it. Try raising his temps a bit there and let me know how that goes. I'm honestly not sure about him being so pale. I have a jacksons that goes pale when I stress him so maybe those are his stress colors? Hopefully if we can get some of this other stuff squared away he will improve.
Will you share pictures of your entire enclosure including the lights? And you are sure you have a boy correct? Can you share pics of his back feet? The one photo you have of him is just blurry enough when I zoom in that I am still not able to tell..
