question about screen cages

cham420

New Member
we are buying a screen cage for our 2 jackson chams cuz we have glass ones and need to get rid of them.. how do you keep the humidity in the tank??? and also how do they drink because ours love to drink off the glass and with having all screen they wont be able to please answer
 
The answer to both you questions would be live plants and Misting. Both will provide water and humidity. Chameleons drink off the leaves. A drippier will also provide water all day. The mist will also collect on the screen when you mist. My Chameleons drinks off of the screen sometimes.

A ficus and Umbrella plant are the two plants I use.
 
oh and one more question.. and how do i keep the humidity in.. we have a one bedroom apartment and the air conditioner is in the living room where they are kept
 
I love them

Hello, I have two chams and they both have screen cages. You can do a couple of different things, depending on how much time you have with them...

1. If you are around them all day long (like if you work out of your home) you can mist them every time you think about it. I personally mist them ALOT because my chams are my passion and I think about them night and day! We actually built a beautiful custom cage (palace) in to the corner wall of my office at home which is a converted bedroom. But, you WILL have to mist them alot more than a glass cage. Lots of live plants too...they help capture and keep the moisture.

2. If you are not around much of time I would suggest purchasing a electric warm water mister. (Not a humidifier, but an actual mister.) We got one and bought some tubing from home depot. We placed the tube over the top of the misting nozzel to direct the moisture towards the bottom of the cage. Plug it in to a timer and have it activiate 2 - 3 times a day for about 15 - 20 mins each depending on how humid of a climate you live in. It works great for us when we're going out of town on vacation and don't trust the watering to our house keeper! (Just in case!)

3. Otherwise, if you are in a really dry climate and don't have the extra time or means to do either of the above, you need to be very careful when switching to them. Moisture, moisture, moisture!

As for the drinking suggestion...I have tried lots of fandangled waterers and ideas, but the best thing that works for me is to prick one TINY hole in the bottom of a plastic or styrofoam cup, place water in it and put it on top of the cage so it slowly drips on to the leaves. The vibration and leaf movement stimulates their desire to drink. (Like it's raining in a rainforest) If you have drainage problems, place a "catcher cup" the same size right below the main drips to catch the water as it flows off of the leaf. Be sure and discard the catcher cup inside asap. If it sits too long it can harbor bacteria.

Repeat 2 - 3 times a day!

Hope this helps,
Brenda.
 
You probably be better with ultrasonic humidifier turned on in the living room (not the cage).
With real plants, misting, and a humidifier in the room. For sure, you won't have any problem.
 
yes we have 2 jackson chams and we actually do have an automatic mister cuz we have a shore house and go their for weekends so we dont need to worry about finding a babysitter for the weekends. so we are good on that but it isnt one that warms the water its just room temp.. so i think we will be pretty good when we get this cage going.. we do have the mister go off every 3 hours for 15 seconds does that sound good?
 
my mister is set on for five minutes at 1 and a half to two hour intervals. keep my relative humidity between 50-60 percent during the off time and spikes it up into the 70s and 80s when i goes off. so on a given day i mist between 5-7 times depending on what time i get up and allow the sunshine in my room to turn on my battery to my mister. i also have an ultrasonic humidifier in the room becuase simply put, it keeps the humidity high. i live in phoenix where the relative humidity is around 30 percent so i have to continually make sure mine is high. do what you want to do but 15 seconds sounds like an awful short time, especially since you have high humidity chams like jacksons.
 
we do have the mister go off every 3 hours for 15 seconds does that sound good?


you need to have the mister on for a longer period of time. often it can take a couple minutes for chams to get over the intial shock of the mister to realize that it is just water, and then start drinking. mist for a minimum of 2minutes.
 
What is the ambient humidity around your home? having hygrometer will tell you how often you would need to mist...plants help to keep moisture in your enclosure as the damp soil as well the wetness on the leaves will also help.

The ultrasonic humidifier is a great choice. (dodolah beat me to it) Some keeper in dryer climates will keep their chams in the Bathroom as the humidity from a hot shower will help too.

If you're misting the cage and have an automatic mister, you should do fine with humidity, but the best thing would be measure and adjust freq and duration accordingly... in general you should do fine.

Hope that helps

OPI:p:D
 
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