New and Doing HW

[Longhorn1234]

Just an FYI, green banana roaches climb smooth surfaces and are good fliers. They are small and can basically squeeze through little crevices and spaces. They could easily escape and end up in your wife's head when she's sleeping and then she'll hate you for that haha. Be careful if you go with them

 

[NickTide]

If you have a Mistking or similar its doable. For food, you can put black soldier fly larvae in a container that the cham cant see them or get to them until they pupate and fly out. you could use blue bottle flies as well for this. If you dont have someone that can at least stop by once a week and check on things, it makes it harder. In fact it may not be worth it. They dont need to be a cham person as long as they can check / fill water resevoir, maybe throw a few super worms in the cup to unsure they are getting plenty of food (incase you mis-timed the pupating of the flies) and have some common sense to see, "this cage is bone dry and the Mistking reservoir is still full.... there must be a problem."

Super worms are ok for some variation or to get you through when crickets are scarce. Unless money is a non issue, the only real possibilities I know of are crikets, roaches, and black soldier flies. Silkworms aren't so bad in price if you hatch them from eggs. Even buying crickets gets pricey.

I have 2 dogs that arent allowed the room with the chams and the barking doesnt seem to bother them.

 

[JoshD49]

@ James, Wow your setup is awesome. I may get to the point where I want it built up on bio. Are crickets the only ones that will bite the cham or will all feeders do that?

@Jevin, I personally like the veiled and want to start with that. I like jacksons a lot too but the horns are a little creepy to the wife. ( I think they are cool). Panthers would be cool but I don't want to start with something so expensive to get my feet wet. Its like my saltwater tank I wouldn't recommend someone start off with an Achilles tang for $200 and they have a very low survival rate in home aquariums as their first fish. I really like the Casque on the Veiled for some reason. As a bonus I hear they are a little more hardy.

@nick I could probably get someone to fill the water and stuff no problem. I was just more concerned about the food since not many people like to mess with bugs. I would be buying a mistking for sure. I prefer the fine mist and the controller and have heard a lot of horror stories with the monsoon.

Would leaving a dish of larvae for him to immediately eat and then a second one for them to pupate work? I am leaning to having the 2 dishes with one full of bsfl and another with supers. This way neither of these will be able to attack the cham and there should be a fair amount of food to last.

 

[Jevin]

@JoshD49 my first Cham was a veiled chameleon and in regards to misters, I wouldn't recommend the reptirain either. A pressurized hand mister is also a huge benefit to have. I plan on doing a bioactive enclosures when I purchase a house, currently I'm renting so a bioactive enclosure would be difficult to maintain considering I'm moving again after two years in my current place.

 

[JoshD49]

@Jevin, That would be tough to get it all running and then move it.

Another question to add to the ones in the above post would be for the cage. We tend to run the A/C frequently since I live in Socal and I am afraid that using a full mesh would make it difficult to stay warm and humid. I was thinking of more of the glass mesh combo. Thoughts?

 

[Jevin]

A glass mesh combo would work, another option is to get a screen cage and cover it on three of the sides with basically a shower curtain to help keep hear and moisture in.

 

[jamest0o0]

Check out solid side dragonstrands

 

[JoshD49]

I like their stands at dragonstands. They look very nice.

I was considering the exoterra or reptibreeze mesh ones and can add some sides like Jevin said. The dragonstand seems to have that option already. Are the tall exoterra glass ones with vents a no go? I like that it would keep the water mist in. I know they need a lot of fresh air so I wasn't considering this originally. I have also seen some mesh with a glass door which seems nice. The main thing I like about the mesh ones is the little tray service door on the bottom that the glass ones don't have.

You guys have been awesome and I am feeling a little better that I might be able to do this. If I can nail down the food thing I might be able to join the cham club.

 

[Jevin]

An exoterra enclosure you would probably run into an issue with water collecting at the bottom, or too much water retention for a bioactive setup. Also I believe the largest exoterra enclosure isn't large enough for a veiled, panther or Jacksons chameleon. There is also the option to build your own enclosure like many of us on the forum have done. In my case, I managed to build my own enclosure that was larger than anything I could buy, and it cost me less to build it than to buy one. This is my setup for my panther chameleon that the cost to build was under $150 to build and I added a MistKing to, although there are still some finishing touches it needs. Also only have two pothos plants in there but they have grown to be huge, considering trimming them a bit in a few places. Also the forum exists so that people can get lots of help and advice for keeping these amazing animals.

 

[Fiona's Mom]

Back to roaches...let your wife read this. I am a 64 year old woman who HATES roaches. I was going to feed anything BUT those. Well...to make a long story short...I discovered that crickets are actually worse then roaches...they stink bad. I also discovered that Discoid roaches can NOT climb up a glass or smooth plastic container or tub therefore they can't escape. They also do not fly, and...they don't smell bad. I find them to be slow but fairly easy to breed. For a true roach hater that was a big switch. I honestly prefer them over crickets.

 

[Jevin]

Back to roaches...let your wife read this. I am a 64 year old woman who HATES roaches. I was going to feed anything BUT those. Well...to make a long story short...I discovered that crickets are actually worse then roaches...they stink bad. I also discovered that Discoid roaches can NOT climb up a glass or smooth plastic container or tub. They also do not fly, and...they don't smell bad. I find them to be slow but fairly easy to breed. For a true roach hater that was a big switch. I honestly prefer them over crickets.

Not to mention crickets have cannabalistic tendencies

 

[JoshD49]

@Jevin, Your cage looks great! Would the zoo med 4' tall reptibreeze be large enough? Also will I need to keep upgrading as it grows? I know its cheaper to build your own but I would also have to buy the tools and things and this would add to the cost.

@Fiona's Mom, I totally get what your saying because I didn't want anything to do with either crickets or roaches but as I do more reading and stuff I have gotten over it since I want a cham so bad. As for my wife she dislikes both reptiles and bugs all the same and watching her freak out when she seems them, I do not see that changing. I think once I get this up and running I will be breeding some type of feeder and keeping the tub in the garage to not stress her out. After all the reading I have done I prefer the idea of dubia even though roaches are nasty to me. I think they would be the better route for all the reasons you said and they seem to be better feeders for the cham along with not needing to feed as many. I was just thinking the other types of larvae, worms and silk worms would be easier for her to deal with.

After reading the post about banana roaches and looking them up I will have to pass. to me they look just like a green house roach. Can not do that. Sorry. yuk

 

[Jevin]

@JoshD49, the extra large reptibreeze meets the minimum size requirements for a veiled chameleon and in regards to building your own, there's always the option of renting the tools or asking to use the tools of someone you know. And thanks, I worked hard on it. For my cage all I required tool wise was a table saw and a drill.

 

[JoshD49]

@Jevin Yeah I think my father in law has a table saw so I could probably pull it off but I would need to start with a small cage as it grows correct? So did you build different cages as it got older?

 

[Jevin]

@Jevin Yeah I think my father in law has a table saw so I could probably pull it off but I would need to start with a small cage as it grows correct? So did you build different cages as it got older?

easier just to build the adult cage right off the bat. A smaller cage when you first get it is a good idea. With my panther he had a total of three cages, but the first was temporary until I could get my old mesh cage setup. Then from there he went into the big cage he has now. All cages he has been in were ones that I had from previous reptiles. He only got moved to his adult enclosure when he started to outgrow my mesh enclosure from my first Cham.

 

[JoshD49]

Great info for the cage and I will just go with the big cage and limit the space using plants until he gets a little bigger maybe. A lot of people said they need to have cages that grow with them but I feel that would get expensive.

Ok I think I am happy with the cage stuff. This has been great.

Last question is for the food would it be ok to do the 2 types of worms in 2 different dishes if I leave for a week? I was looking at the dishes that keep the worms in. So the Cham won't need to go far to find them. If I can make it to where the only thing the Cham needs while I am gone is to make sure the mister is topped off and water is good so my wife doesn't need to deal with the food then I am ready to start the adventure.

 

[jamest0o0]

A smaller cage is absolutely not necessary. A larger cage is more beneficial and cheaper since you're just paying for one cage. Starting off small is a myth. They live in trees with excellent eye sight. If they can't spot every insect in an entire room, there's something wrong with them.

 

[JacksJill]

The real danger of buying the small cage and then the larger is that you are going to feel the need to get another chameleon to fill up the little cage once it's empty.

 

[jamest0o0]

I was not a bug guy either. When I first got orangeheads and dubia I thought I made a horrible mistake. They are huge compared to banana roaches and much uglier IMO. I wouldn't even touch them with gloves. And my wife freaks about every little bug. Over time I have become completely desensitized to them though. She is able to ignore them as well, though she won't touch them lol. Once you get over the stigma that the pest species have caused, it's not bad. After dealing with crickets escaping, biting, creating messes, etc you really start to appreciate roaches. They are also *cleaner* than most insects due to their strong immune systems(very unlikely to carry any sort of parasite or bacteria) and preference for fresh food. They will turn down moldy and rotten food just as much as we would. Only eating it if they're starving.

Other pros:
No smell
Don't bite
Cleaning bins is an option rather than mandatory
Reproduce without having to buy more
Gutload very well
All around high protein, nutritious feeder

Just thought I'd play roach advocate


As for the worm dishes, sure use 2, use 5 if you want... chams will see them.

 

[jamest0o0]

@JacksJill that has gotten me 4 times now!