Mistakes made????

KarmenCham

KarmenCham

Member
Nobody does everything right on their first Chameleon no matter how much preparation and research they do (just my opinion). So with this in mind I am really curious as to what mistakes you or friends made (case you don't want to admit it was you :) ) purely as a learning tool for myself and numerous others who will no doubt be getting their first chameleon and getting incorrect advice and assuming it is correct :eek:
 
KarmenCham said:
Nobody does everything right on their first Chameleon no matter how much preparation and research they do (just my opinion). So with this in mind I am really curious as to what mistakes you or friends made (case you don't want to admit it was you :) ) purely as a learning tool for myself and numerous others who will no doubt be getting their first chameleon and getting incorrect advice and assuming it is correct :eek:
Click to expand...

Oh dear, first chameleon. Waterfall, substrait, supplement with d3 daily, no basking light only ceramic heat emitter, no gutload for feeders, wax worms. I was such a bad mum.:eek::mad:
 
male veiled - glass fish tank 22 inches high was 3 feet wide though. substrate, red basking bulb, no live plants, dont know what supplementation was like was like 5 yrs ago and i was younger. prob some other missing things but hey he lived 5/6 years
 
KarmenCham said:
Waterfall? Omg thats going to save me some money, was going to get one today.
Click to expand...

Waterfalls do look nice but they are breeding ground for bacteria. Chams poop in them feeders die in them and leaves drop in them. You would need to be watching 24/7 and cleaning it daily.:) mine lived for 2 years:mad:
 
My biggest mistake was not researching before I purchased my first. She was somewhat of an impulse buy. I would NEVER have gotten a female. I constantly obsess about her and the egg laying business. Honestly if there was someone in my area who wanted her I would let them adopt her with all her gear. I am so worried I will miss something with her and she will become ill. Also I didn't address drainage early on and drowned a number of houseplants.
 
Well, lets see...

I used a 20 gallon long aquarium for the first enclosure rather than the enclosure I built, purchased a Monsoon system for misting rather than the MistKing that I have now, Used dirt and live plants not on the "safe" plant list and then moss substrate that my baby cham wanted to burrow through and eat, purchased without doing enough research and then found out what I was doing incorrectly and wasted money, had the wrong UVB bulb for the application, etc., etc., etc.

What I did right was even more important for you to know...

I listened to those who gave great advice and researched even further and made the "right" choices for my cham!
 
Yeah, was hoping to find out what things othsrs have done wrong btw for me losing locusts while trying to dust them in the bag, having nothing but plastic plants which have tried to fix today, but forgot my phone so was scared I would get something not on safe list.


Not forgetting my most expensive thing, I bought what i thought was a 3x3x3 viv which turned out to not be when i ordered it I got the cm-inch conversion wrong
 
Closing my chameleons tail in the cage door! I learned that while looking at your chameleon and closing the door, make sure to check where the tail is!
 
I had my basking spot way too hot. I kept wondering why she never basked, she was trying not to get baked...

When I checked it with a infrared temp gun a week later, it clocked on at 134 degrees. I teed to cook my Cham :(
 
Without meaning to sound pretentious, I don't think I made any real mistakes when I first started. I've either kept or cared for reptiles for years so chameleons weren't as dramatic a change as they might have been if I'd had zero experience. But I was NOT prepared for the amount of water I was dealing with! I feel like no one told me HOW MUCH water I was going to find at the bottom of my cage at the end of the day.

I started off with a WC Jackson's, to boot, and knew he needed longer showers than your typical panther or veiled but I had no real grasp of what drainage was or that I would end up needing it! And it definitely took me years to develop a drainage system that holds up, works well, and that can be torn down and re-built when I move.

Not to say that I didn't improve and fine-tune my care with time and experience, but I never did anything flat-out wrong, like having no UVB bulb or using poor/innapropriate supplements, thankfully. It's the benefit of doing research ahead of time!
 
yeah, having some experience with Other reptiles helps, For myself other than Piranha and Assorted Tropical fish this is my first real pet of any description, ( Allergic to cats/dogs) and love the blog it was one of the ones i read when is tarted researching chameleons
 
Thanks to this forum I haven't made any mistakes.........well........unless you count that time I had George on my head and got to close to the ceiling fan while messing with his cage and his tail hit the fan and got bruised............but other than that.......... :)
 
Thinking i could make an exo-terra terrarium work. cause i got sooo much reptile experience. i can do it no problem. those screen cages are just too flimsy. dumba**. Live and learn. idiot. idiot. idiot.
 
I got my first chameleon back in 1970 when I lived in Addis Abeba, Ethiopia- one of the missionary kids brought a bunch back to the boarding/day school from where ever his parents were stationed- I kept him in a 10 gallon aqarium at night and he had a vine to a tree by his cage and before school I would stick the vine in so he could get to his tree- he also had one of those gerbil water things- after being coming to the forum I don't know how he managed to live for almost 4 years in our care- My mother would spray the plants and him -but he drank from the water bottle too - he would eat flies by being carried around and aimed at them. No UVB- no calcium- no crickets - he would go on walkabouts and end up on the tree he could see from his inside tree and even walk back inside when he felt like it.
 
I had no live plants, which has really helped out now that I do have them. No drainage system. Definitely needed! So much water!! You will never be prepared for all the water! I know I wasn't!

I was told at the pet store that all I needed was a regular 60 watt household light bulb and a red light for night! Wrong answer! Pet store associates, As much as they act like they know what they are talking about, some/most of them do not. One of those associates happens to be a friend of mine. She no longer gives advice on animals she does not own herself or know a lot about. :)

Also, supplements! Calcium, calcium with D3 and multivitamins! Set a schedule and keep it! I had no idea I needed different ones and different amounts of each!

Do your research and set up before ever getting your chameleon and you will thank yourself later! And you will save yourself some money since you will not have all the extra things you really have no use for!

Good luck! :)
 
I was 7 when I got my first veiled and I did most of it right. I read a couple of chameleon books from the local reptile store cover to cover, and the employees, which were actually quite knowledgeable about chameleons, helped me pick out the right enclosure and equipment. I didn't supplement as much/as well as I should have, and I probably could have misted him more, but he had a dripper and drank from that a lot. His cage was a bit small too. Overall, the mistakes I made weren't hugely detrimental to him and he lived to be nearly 7 years old, so I must have been doing something right!
 
Pigglet79: I know I shouldn't be laughing at your post, but I just can not help but do so!!! I have visions of that scene from gremlins only with the chameleon swinging on the fan :)
 
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