r/chameleons advice?

wixard

wixard

New Member
i've been on r/chameleons for awhile now because im looking into getting one. i noticed the advice on their is mostly spot on, except that they praise by using their "clear-water cup" method and say that misting is the death of someone's pet, thats a bit hyperbolic but the mods there seem to be most of the time.
heres an example: https://www.reddit.com/r/Chameleons/comments/uvldm7/_/
there may be right about some of the other stuff but im mainly focusing on the sprayer.
just wanted some other advice on this because it seems no one in that sub disagrees with their method
 
Hi and welcome! 🙂 I don’t know what site that is, nor do I know what the clear water cup method is. I do know that there is a ton of outdated and wrong info on keeping chameleons properly out there. For the most current and correct husbandry guidelines,https://chameleonacademy.com/chameleon-husbandry-program-getting-started-with-chameleons/ is the place. As for misting causing death, ummm…no. I suspect whomever said that has misting and fogging mixed up. The more commonly kept chams (veiled, panther, Jackson’s) need their enclosures to be misted/sprayed for at least 2 minutes, 2-3 times a day. This is how they get their water, as they lap it off the leaves of their plants. They don’t recognize standing water, such as in a bowl or cup. If you fog during the day or when temps are above 68-70, you are increasing the risk for your chameleon to get a respiratory infection as heat + high humidity is not a good combination.
 
wixard said:
it seems no one in that sub disagrees with their method
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That's because the mods remove or ban anyone that does.

I won't even have my chameleon for a couple months, so I'm hesitant to give advice, but from lurking here and watching and listening to the Chameleon academy podcasts, I can tell that /r/Chameleons is a joke. Sure it's been around a while, but with the water cup, misting, removing links to videos from Neptune the Chameleon because "We don't allow for monetized linking like that.", removing all links to the forums, and other bad behavior, it's clear that they aren't the best source of information and /r/Chameleons is probably one of the worst chameleon forums out there.

I want to make a better subreddit, but will probably wait to promote it until I have at least some experience.
 
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yoteango said:
That's because the mods remove or ban anyone that does.

I won't even have my chameleon for a couple months, so I'm hesitant to give advice, but from lurking here and watching listening to the Chameleon academy podcasts, I can tell that /r/Chameleons is a joke. Sure it's been around a while, but with the water cup, misting, removing links to videos from Neptune the Chameleon because "We don't allow for monetized linking like that.", removing all links to the forums, and other bad behavior, it's clear that they aren't the best source of information and /r/Chameleons is probably one of the worst chameleon forums out there.

I want to make a better subreddit, but will probably wait to promote it until I have at least some experience.
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thanks for backing my theory up, really sucks because theres so much confusion for new owners
 
Don't get me started with that sub reddit... It is infuriating and I am banned from fighting with them haha. They are complete morons forcing a chameleon to become so dehydrated it has no choice but to drink from a glass unnaturally. It really pisses me off how many animals they have likely damaged in the process. Their "cage examples" are hilarious ugly dirty barren cages no living thing shout be forced into. Listen to chameleon academy instead and don't go back to that sub.
 
Reddit isn't an inherently bad source of info. It's not a (primarily) one-topic site like this one or other [example-animal] sites are.

Y'all can have your own opinions but trash-talking another site instead of just saying something like "we don't prefer those methods here" is kinda telling. Kind of like when the two different mantis groups I were in were having issues, and one made memes about the other while the other just moved on with their day. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I read both this and the subreddit, and other chameleon sites to form my own opinion. IMO there really is no one-size-fits-all for every single animal and person they live with.

Maybe I'll get banned/my post removed from here for saying it, but I use a water glass with my chameleon and she is far more hydrated than when I was misting alone. Say all you want about me not doing it right or whatever, but she's had a water glass for almost a full year so I would have definitely noticed if she was having issues.

I like reading this site but really don't like when y'all tout it as the absolute perfect source of truth.
 
@natzberg Their arguments for the drinking glass method are backed with zero data except for the single experience of the founding mod. If our goal is to bring husbandry closer to the naturalistic world then we should replicate how they thrive in nature. I have never seen a drinking glass in a tree in their wild ranges. Training a chameleon to survive on our terms and not their own is where I have a problem. Plus all the world renowned chameleon experts hang out here and not the chameleon sub reddit so that should tell you something.
 
That's not true on zero data, there's literally tons of people from the subreddit with data to support them drinking from water glasses for YEARS.
I'm not here to argue on that though since I know that isn't the preferred method here. I just know you all also shut that idea down anytime it comes up. You all literally had someone talking about their chameleon drinking from the pond in their paludarium and deflected really hard.

Bringing them into captivity teaches them to survive on our terms regardless of how you set it up. There's no way around that.

Claiming the experts are only here and not there is something.

Again I'm not here to argue, just want to poise that maybe it's better to have a more open mind or be more polite when dealing with things you don't agree with. My choice is just to read from a ton of different sources and make my own conclusions.
 
natzberg said:
That's not true on zero data, there's literally tons of people from the subreddit with data to support them drinking from water glasses for YEARS.
I'm not here to argue on that though since I know that isn't the preferred method here. I just know you all also shut that idea down anytime it comes up. You all literally had someone talking about their chameleon drinking from the pond in their paludarium and deflected really hard.

Bringing them into captivity teaches them to survive on our terms regardless of how you set it up. There's no way around that.

Claiming the experts are only here and not there is something.

Again I'm not here to argue, just want to poise that maybe it's better to have a more open mind or be more polite when dealing with things you don't agree with. My choice is just to read from a ton of different sources and make my own conclusions.
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I couldn't disagree more. When it harms the animals it's not just a matter of differing opinions. It may be possible to forcefully train a veiled or panther to partake in this unnatural practice by dehydrating them into submission, if you attempt the drinking glass method with a less hardy or montane species you will quickly discover how wrong that method is.
 
DonKeesh said:
I couldn't disagree more. When it harms the animals it's not just a matter of differing opinions. It may be possible to forcefully train a veiled or panther to partake in this unnatural practice by dehydrating them into submission, if you attempt the drinking glass method with a less hardy or montane species you will quickly discover how wrong that method is.
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Very true, my parsons would not touch a dripper or even lick leaves during misting/rain/etc. The ONLY thing he would ever do, and after about 30+ min of continued misting, was open his mouth slightly to allow mist in very small amounts. Coming from a very humid environment this makes sense to me… likely how they would get water from nearly non stop rain and extremely high humidity. The fogging and misting seems best in this case IME.

Another issue with recommending water dishes as the rule is that all kinds of new people come to these sites with varying amounts of experience, species of chams, and chams with different health conditions. It doesn’t seem wise to tell someone they need to switch their Cham to a dish of water… How many of these people are actually going to clean a water bowl as often as they should or even change the water? How many have species that won’t touch standing water? How many have a Cham that is already on the brink and can’t take to a brand new method of hydration that it is not used to? Misting/fogging seems to work with every cham that I’ve ever come across, but I don’t believe the bowl does.

Something to consider, when you(Reddit people) make water dishes the correct way and say misting is wrong(when it has overwhelmingly worked for years with chams far surpassing natural wild lifespans), you’re doing exactly the same as the people that say: you can not EVER use a water bowl for a chameleon.

Lastly, I’m not the person to tell someone that has their panther/veiled(assuming healthy) drinking from a clean dish of water that they are wrong and need to change. If the animal has adapted to that and is doing well, go for it. It seems chameleons do thrive as much or more(longer lives) in captivity than in the wild. So while I personally love replicating nature, Idt it has to be that way as long as their needs are met. Example, BB enclosures do perfectly fine for chams in captivity even though many chams in the wild do travel to the ground to hunt and explore. So it’s unnatural(not that bio 100% replicates, but it is closer), but helpful to many keepers that prefer not to do bio… they’re still feeding and supplementing correctly so it doesn’t seem to matter much, the chams will grow/eat/breed/etc. In the wild they may just do that out of necessity, maybe ground insects offer more minerals than what they’d find in the trees? Doesn’t mean it has to be that way.
 
The biggest problem with /r/chameleons and (reddit in general) isn't just the controversial advice, but that most moderators will remove anything that might contradict or offend that advice. Instead of having a discussion, they'll tap "Remove" right under your comment, or just as worse, it gets silently removed by some hidden filters and nobody ever even sees your high-effort comment.

Hope I'm not going too off topic, but if you ever comment on reddit, see what happens if you put your username here. It'll show you all your removed comments and for most people, it's an awful lot. https://www.reveddit.com/about/#welcome
 
It's literally not forcing them. A lot of people even just noticed their chameleon would go for the container catching water from their dripper. some people also just still use a dripper and clean out the catch bowl every day. It specifically need to be a clear bowl/glass that catches light rays to show the chameleon it is clean water...

It's fine if you haven't read everything in the subreddit but you can at least say that instead of making assumptions about abusing animals...

I'm not one of the mods on reddit so rest assured I'm not one of the (reddit people) like (mayhaps unintentionally) implied :D I think either can work, just the water glass is better for me especially with the room I have.

I really appreciate your answer James as it's not as inflammatory/accusing. I only have a panther so I don't pretend to know as much about other species. Plus most of the advice applies to the big 3 (panthers, veileds, some jacksons) and not really with more specialized species. And yeah unfortunately I see it here a lot too, newer owners don't come until they have a problem with their animal and need to change almost immediately :(

It's fine, I get it no worries I don't want to cause more of a stir than there already is. I'll go back to lurking and just enjoying chameleon content from afar :) I really do enjoy the content here and just wanted to give my two cents!
 
natzberg said:
It's fine, I get it no worries I don't want to cause more of a stir than there already is. I'll go back to lurking and just enjoying chameleon content from afar :) I really do enjoy the content here and just wanted to give my two cents!
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Don’t go lurking again. Keep active, asking questions, and challenging concepts.

I definitely do not agree with water bowls as the main source of hydration for chams, but I appreciate you speaking up. I think a lot of Cham health issues come down to improper hydration, and I think environmental factors play an enormous role in that. Day/night humidity cycles are critical. Live plants (lots of them), misting sessions, drippers, a very clean bowl if they’ll use it maybe?, and nighttime fog all contributes to proper hydration
I lean on nighttime fogging with 90+% humidity and actual vaporized water droplets as the backbone of my hydration, I mist morning and evening, and I run an automatic dripper a few times in the afternoon just in case they’d like a little extra. I think this approaches “natural” hydration which will allows my Cham to function as it’s evolved to as best as I can reproduce

Don’t worry about stirring the pot. That’s the fun part
 
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