Our Chameleon "Lab"
- Thread starter Chameleons Northwest
- Start date
Treetop Chameleons
Established Member
that is awsome, i actualy just bought a house because it had a finished room that is perfict for keeping chams i will have pics up probably by the end of next month i cant wait to build my own chameleon lab.
westcoastchameleons
New Member
It looks amazing, good to know your girl is in great hands!
Jake Bernstein
Jake Bernstein
Chameleons Northwest
Avid Member
You two did an amazing job! The only thing missing from the pictures of your chameleon "lab" is your microscope/camera setup. I know you have one somewhere. You gave a link for it to Pam. She gave it to me. I just got my new Amscope microscope with camera setup delivered to me yesterday. Thank you so much for that link even though you did not know you were responsible for me getting it! You need a shot of yours sitting on that island counter/cabinet hooked up to the laptop. Congrats on all your hard work. You have some very lucky chams living with you
Thank you for the kind words, everyone. Catherine- Unfortunately I can't talk Elliot into getting a laptop. The microscope set up is in our home office. We cart the little vials of poo into the house to do the dirty work! Perhaps you can talk Elliot into the laptop! I'll see to it that he reads your post. We will be using Microsoft Access to keep track of chameleon data. Without a laptop, I will have to scribble everything down on paper as I take weights/measurements/supplement data, etc. out in the lab, and then carry the paper into the house, hope I don't missplace it, and hope I remember to enter it all into the data base. With a laptop, I would be entering it in real time, on location. But, alas, one step at a time.
CleanLineChameleons
Avid Member
It looks awsome...I am definately jealous. I have one question...what is it that you are using to make the drainage trough?
-chris
-chris
Chameleons Northwest
Avid Member
Vewy vewy nice gesawg. Sowwy I swallowed mw tongwe becawuse youw pictuwes! Awazing wowk!!!
Kidding aside... What do you use the stethoscope for? Lil chams going lub-dub lub-dub lub-dub lub-dub
To be honest with you, here's the deal: I'm something of a worrier. So, when I put one of our girls in the big trashcan to lay her eggs, and she disappears into her tunnel, and doesn't return for a few hours, I like to be able to get down on my knees, with the stethoscope to the wall of the trashcan, and listen to find out where she is under there, and if she is still digging.
Chamero
New Member
Holy Sh*t. That is an awesome room. I envision so many possibilities. Maybe a cham kennel of some sort for people on vacation, a breeding spot, or even a small reptile house for people to come see. Ive always wondered why I never see chams at the zoo. I always love the reptile houses but they never seem like much attention is put into them. Anyone know of a good rep house with chams?
Chameleons Northwest
Avid Member
Here are some details about how I made the drainage trough. I built a frame out of 3/4" PVC pipe. I put a "T" and a cross piece about every 24" to give it rigidity. So the frame looked like a ladder. Then I used a white plastic sheet I bought at Home Depot for the pan. It is like FRP panel which is what I use for the bottom of the cages. But the FRP panel is much too stiff. This sheet is about 30 mils thick and is quite pliable. I cut it to width. For the 16" shelves, the PVC frame is about 15" wide and I cut a piece of sheeting 18" wide x 96" long. Then I screwed the sheet to the side of the PVC frame with short sheet metal type zip screws with somewhat larger heads to hold the plastic. The long sheet ends about 24" from the end of the frame. Then I install another piece of sheeting but it is screwed to both sides and the END also. So that section sloped down to where the first sheet ended. They overlap by 2" and I fill the overlap with silicone and secure the two together with some rivets. Then I cut a hole in the sheet right near the seam to install a platic funnel. This is where the water all flows to. So the whole frame is sloped towards the funnel at about 1/8" to the foot therefoe for 8' of frame, you have about 1" of fall for the water to flow toward the funnel. Under the various funnels I installed 1" PVC pipes, connected them all up and ran that pipe to the outside. I plan to take the line underground to a gravel pit of sorts so all the diluted poop water goes into the ground and not where our beagle can go get a tasty drink of water on a hot day.
From Bothell to our place would be about an hour, I would think, maybe a tad longer. You're more than welcome to come by. It would be great to have you and Ruth and Catherine and her husband over sometime. Later this year we hope to have the Sambava babies, and veileds. If the Melleri do breed it won't happen for a couple of years. They're a little tricky. Next year we should have dwarf Jackson babies, and we will likely breed our little blue guy from the Kammers.
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Chameleons Northwest
Avid Member
Pams Chams
New Member
Very nice setup guys! Hey since their are some of us that have these microscope setups we need to start up a comparison area. What did you end up getting Catherine on the camera? I talked to Elliot and he said the ones we have do take short movies. Did you get the 5.0 micro? O by the way I thought I would share my misting system with you all it is called PAM REIDs hand sprayer. LOL!
PardalisGirl
Avid Member
We do need to share........
LOL Pam...........go down another notch and you have Catherine's hand pump spay bottle system To answer your question about the camera....I got the MD900 which is 5.0 megapixel. Same thing you have, just more pixels. Not sure what more pixels will get me but I don't want to upgrade again. I don't have a laptop. I have a desktop system in my home office. About 1/3 of my chams are also in that room. I have the microscope on my desk next to the computer. I will be processing the poop in my kitchen (don't tell my dinner guests!) since I don't have a great facility like Mr. and Mrs. Gesang I have chams in three different rooms on two different floors in the house. So after collection I have to take them into the kitchen and then take the slides into my office to view. I haven't done much with the new set up yet. I want a couple of days in a row where I can really concentrate on it and do as much of my collection as I can. We do need a specific place to post pictures and videos of things we find for educational purposes. I think more and more keepers will start doing fecals on their own.
LOL Pam...........go down another notch and you have Catherine's hand pump spay bottle system
To answer your question about the camera....I got the MD900 which is 5.0 megapixel. Same thing you have, just more pixels. Not sure what more pixels will get me but I don't want to upgrade again. I don't have a laptop. I have a desktop system in my home office. About 1/3 of my chams are also in that room. I have the microscope on my desk next to the computer. I will be processing the poop in my kitchen (don't tell my dinner guests!) since I don't have a great facility like Mr. and Mrs. Gesang I have chams in three different rooms on two different floors in the house. So after collection I have to take them into the kitchen and then take the slides into my office to view. I haven't done much with the new set up yet. I want a couple of days in a row where I can really concentrate on it and do as much of my collection as I can. We do need a specific place to post pictures and videos of things we find for educational purposes. I think more and more keepers will start doing fecals on their own.
casperpetersen
New Member
indeed werry cool
Chameleons Northwest
Avid Member
I agree. We already know of several more who are doing it. We frequently share our photos with another member of this forum, and he shares his with us. The only problem with sharing our results in an open forum is the discomfort with letting the world know you have a parasite problem. There are those who won't understand that it pretty much "comes with the territory" (especially if you deal with any wild caughts), that it doesn't necessarily indicate poor husbandry, and that it is treatable.
LOL Pam...........go down another notch and you have Catherine's hand pump spay bottle system
Justin Carl
Avid Member
Ha! I have one question for the guys/gals that have setups like these.
What does your electric bill look like each month???
What does your electric bill look like each month???
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