Panther Chameleon Closing his eyes most of the day?

sammseals

New Member
Chameleon Info:

Problem: Leo has been keeping his eyes closed (mostly his left eye) most of the day. Not sure if he is just sleeping but he is still eating and drinking normal. Noticed the problem about a week ago. About 4 months ago he had an eye problem and got debris in it and I gave him antibiotics and it came right out but this time there is no buldge like before. his eye looks completely normal, he just has it closed. When I take him out of his cage he does open it for a bit then closes it again. Could my lights be too bright? I did see a forum about the Zoomed 5.0 bulbs giving off radiation a few years ago. Any suggestions?

Your Chameleon - Male, Approximately 10 months. Ambanja and Ambilobe mix. I bought him in November 2012.

Handling - Every day to Every few days.

Feeding - Crickets, Meal worms, and wax worms. 4 large crickets every other day. 3 meal worms and 3 wax worms on the opposite days.

Supplements - Rep-Cal Calcium with Vit D 2x a month, Rep-Cal Herptivite 2x a month. Calcium without Vit D every day.

Watering - Misting system, sprays 60 seconds every 4 hours.

Cage Info:

Cage Type - Screened 36"H 18"L 18"W

Lighting - Zoo Med Reptisun 5.0 UVB, Zoo Med Daylight Blue Bulb 75 W, Sun Glo Daylight Bulb 60 W. Lights on usually from 10am- 9pm.

Temperature - Basking spot 95, middle of cage 80 bottom 70

Humidity - Having a lot of trouble keeping humidity up. Ranges between 15-50%. 50% is when misters are going off. 15% after about 2 hours after misting. I have a thermometer in my cage that tells me humidity.

Plants - 2 scheffleras, 1 Pothos, 1 Croton, 1 ficus/rubber tree

Placement - Not near any vents or anything. Bottom of cage is a little less than a feet from the floor. Just high enough to have a plastic bin underneath for water draining. Cage is on a metal stand.

Location - I am in Warren, Ohio. (USA)
 
As you know chameleons don't sleep during the day so if that is the case then there is a definite problem. Is there any reason why you have two basking lights in there? Maybe ditch the sunglo and see if that could be bothering his eyes. Most of use white housebulbs without issue. Low humidity could be a problem also. The Reptisun bulbs were not the ones having problems to my knowledge. I believe it was Zilla. Are you using a coil or the tube. There are people that still claim the compact(coil) lights bother their chameleons eyes. If that is the case, I would switch that to a tube also. If he is still closing his eye when you are bringing him out of the cage, then maybe it is not the lights at all. Alls you can do is try and make some changes and see if he does not improve.
 
Hi, some panthers are known not to be able to process the proformed versions of vit A within herptivite. For these panthers products like reptivite or cal plus are a good choice as they have preformed vitamin A.

To correct the issue:
Get some cod liver oil capsules you can buy at any health section of a store. Peirce it with a needle. Smear the back of "ONE" feeder your boy likes with the oil and feed. If the problem is not fixed by the following day, repeat. If the problem exist after 5 days of this. You have another issue on your hands. If the problem is fixed, resume your current multivitamin regimen with the new product.
 
Hello sam, if have almost the exact same porblwm with my 8month old panther chameleon, did you figure out the problem? If you did how did you fix it? I would really appreciate your help
 
You should try to up your misting times. My panther was having a similar issue and when I upped my mister to go for 5 minutes 3x a day, he had longer to wash out his eyes and drink. It's improved his hydration and eye health overall.

I hope your misting setup has a big enough reservoir and drainage to handle that. I've got a 3.5 gallon bucket and mistking with a drainage bucket that's 5 gallons to handle the extra water.
 
Hello sam, if have almost the exact same porblwm with my 8month old panther chameleon, did you figure out the problem? If you did how did you fix it? I would really appreciate your help
In case you haven't noticed the original thread is almost 4 yrs old! So you may not get a response back from Sam, the original poster. I don't think he is on this forum any longer.
 
Chamlov...please start your own thread and post photos of the chameleon you're having problems with and answer the questions in the how to ask for help thread near the top of the health forum
 
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