RAINBOW JACKSONS CHAMELEON care

ZEROPILOT

Avid Member
I have 3 male Veiled Chameleons in 3 separate cages.
My house has A/C 24/7 and is 73°.
My Veileds are doing great with a MISTKING, a T5 5.0 uvb strip and a 40 watt spot lamp for heat.
My question is, would a male Jacksons need a heat lamp too? Or is the 73° temperature ideal?
He will also have a MISTKING and a T5 5.0 uvb.
The sides and backs of all of my cages are covered with opaque shower curtains to stop drafts and so that they cannot see each other.
They are all REPTIBREEZE XL cages that drain into buckets.
The Veiled Chameleon are all doing great with much help from this group.
I want to have this fourth cage ready to go before the Jacksons comes home.
 
It seems as if my biggest issue is the night time temperature drop.
My cages get up to 78 degrees by the basking bulb and down to 67 degrees at night when the MISTKING turns on.
But I can't easily provide a lower temperature reliably except in the winter time when it is cooler outside.
I live in south Florida.
I don't use the houses heating unit. And the house can get down to 60. But that might be less than 10 days out of the year.
 
73 degrees is perfect for ambient. But they still need a basking spot of 80-83. @JacksJill has jacksonii jacksonii, but their care is the essentially the same as xantholophus. Night time temps should at least get down to 65 degrees though.
I can accommodate everything else.
But that low of a drop at night.
I could install a small fan on a timer.
Could that work?
 
A fan moves around the ambient air temperatures but doesn't cool it. You should look into portable or window ACs (depending on if you have an HOA). Or try ice packs (something that @JacksJill does to lower the cage temps). I personally have a portable AC and turn it on when temps get too high.
 
So.
I can have a basking area of about 82. And I do have an ambient of 73.
I can get a night time drop of 65 with a combination of a small fan drawing air out of the enclosure and with added humidity in the form of several MISTKING applications of 30 seconds each at 11 pm. 2, 4 and 6 a.m.
It was the water evaporation that I thought might drop the temps.
 
Well, if you can get your temps down to 65 at night with a humidifier and fan, then you should be fine. I like to drop my temps lower than that. But the care sheets say that is an okay night time temp drop. Seems like everything should be okay.

If you can consistently get your temps to 65, then you should be good.
 
It sucks.
The house is perfect for a Veiled or a Panther.
A Jacksons might not be doable
I know what you mean. There are some species out there like jacksonii merumontanus, the mt. Meru jackson's chameleon, that seems so incredibly awesome, but they require night temps into the 50s year-round. Those are temps that I just can't get here in California. Some animals are just not made for everyone to keep.

Though in your case, it seems like you can manage to get the temps down to 65.
 
My question is, would a male Jacksons need a heat lamp too? Or is the 73° temperature ideal?
73 F is fine for your ambient temperature. I use a 40-50 watt basking bulb for jax over 4-6 months but only part of the day. I run it a couple hours in the morning and a little here and there thru the day. You are looking to create a 78 F basking spot for juveniles and females and ~80 F for males never over 82 F.
 
For your night time drop if you can get to 65 F reliably and use an ice filled fan it is doable. If your humidity tends to be low a cool mist humidifier gets me another degree or two drop. I keep the ice packs for use in the summer and just set them above the sleep spot on the cage top. I have so many now I'm having to just use the AC or open windows most of the year to get a decent drop.
If your comfortable sleeping under a bunch of blankets you could let your house drop down to 60 F in the winter and your veiled will like that too, Your family may not go for that but it will save money on heating.
 
I've just ordered one of those "ARCTIC AIR 2" portable air conditioners.
I'm going to freeze the filters and switch them out every night. I've ordered 2 spare filters.
I'm going to place it up against the side of the cage with the air pointed upwards. (Cool air sinks) on a timer to cut on at 10 pm and off at 6 am.
These don't work very well for a room air conditioner. But they might pull down the temperature of a 16 square foot cage that has the sides and back covered with a shower curtain.
I may have to tweak my timer or the fan speeds, etc. Maybe make a shower curtain cover for the front also. To use at night.
Fingers crossed.
I'll probably make a separate post about it, if it works out.
I'll have everything by Saturday the 16th.
My 24 hour ambient temperature is 73. I think this will get me well down into the lower 60s
 
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This sounds extremely interesting. Let me know how low it cools the cage. As long as you have a temp probe to check the temps, then that sounds fine to me.

If you make a separate post. Tag me in it. I would like to know how this works.
 
27 degrees at the basking spot, 24-25 ambient temperature, 16 at night. No fans it draws humidity and chameleon avoids wind draft. Get a AC if you can.
 
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