Cage: Screen would be best and most recommended to start with. You can always modify the screen cages if humidity retention is an issue. The Chameleon kits that are sold at petsmart are good to start with but are not chameleon ready out of the box... They only include one vine and two fake leaf bundles. Use started with this kit and substituted the vine and fake plants with real plants and better vines of various thicknesses. The cage in the kit is a 18" x 18" x 36" i believe which is good for a young chameleon but you will need to get a bigger cage by the time they hit the 10 month old age depending on how fast your chameleon grows.
Adult cages should be a minimum of 24" x 24" x 48".
Lighting: The kit comes with a dual dome light and two bulbs, a blue basking light and UVB 2.0 or 5.0 (cant remember). Toss the blue bulb out and use a white incandescent house bulb. You may need to play with different bulb wattages to get the proper basking temp on the basking branch. I started with a 60w and that worked in the small cage.
UVB light: Use will be ok for a little while using the compact UVB 5.0 bulb. 2.0 is too weak. Look into investing in a linear UVB bulb and fixture, either t8 or t5/t5ho fixture and bulb. The linear puts out more UVB light over a larger area compared to the compact UVB bulb which has a very focused area that the chameleon will need to be in to get the UVB it needs.
To read temps i use a laser temp gun from home depot. It was under $20 and is more accurate than the thermometer in those kits. I recommend one to everyone.
Misting: This is one of the more important things you'll want to get right first rather than later. A lot of the health issues we see here on the forum is from dehydrated chameleons and its one of the easiest things to avoid. It is recommended to invest in a mist system such as a Mist King or Climist system. You can set the timer to go off when you want throughout the day and the only thing you need to remember is to check the reservoir and make sure its full. Alternative, is to hand mist if you can atleast 3 times per day for a few minutes at a time.
A mist system along with live plants should eliminate any humidity issues. If you are still having trouble with maintaining humidity you can cover one or two (or more) sides of the screen cage with plastic sheet to hold in humidity. With glass enclosures you cant really take a pane out or drill holes which is why most people will recommend screen. Stagnant, humid air can cause respiratory infections in chameleons.
Another big thing is supplements. There are three main supplements you will need to help keep your chameleon healthy.
1) Plain, phosphorus- free calcium powder: Should be dusted lightly on all feeders at most feedings.
2) Calcium with D3: Again dust on all feeders lightly twice per month (or every other week)
Note: Chameleons naturally produce D3 in their bodies by absorbing UVB radiation from the sun, or in our case, the UVB bulb. Since the sun is much stronger than our bulbs, the chameleons can't produce enough of it on their own so we help them out by using D3 supplements.
3) Multivitamin: A good multivitamin should be used twice per month ( or the weeks that D3 is not used).
Personally, I use all Rep-Cal products for supplementing. Green label is the plain calcium, Pink label is D3, and Blue label is the Multivitamin.
I hope I answered some of your questions without creating more questions lol. I left a link below to some articles that helped me out when I first started. The articles, from what I was told, were written and approved by members of the forum. Its a lot of info but take it slow and don't take short cuts.
https://www.chameleonforums.com/care/
Good luck and don't be afraid to ask questions as you think of them.
