Rebuild today

[Timothy]

Hello, my name is Tim and I own a 2year old male veild named Oden. I started him out in a large reptibrezz mesh cage and he was doing good for a while. Then started to have some problums resently. Some of the horns on his back turned black and some broke off. I was devastated, I thought some thing was really wrong with him. Took him to the vet and she said my humidity was to low and it was dry shed that cut off the curculation to the horns. I have been bataling humidity problums since i got him.

The vet said to put him in a terrium it keeps humidity better. It went against every thing I have read. it must be open air mesh.

thats the problume how do you keep humidity in a open air cage, it just escaps. so I wraped 3 sides with plastice in a atempt to contain the humidity.

Then I rememberd I had a old exo terra tank that are same demensions as the reptibreez. So I took the bottom out the mesh cage and took the top of the exo terra out and set one on top of the other and sacured with zip ties. it looked awsome. and added two feet to the encloser.

So now I have a hybred half mesh and half glass. hoped it would help contain the humidity. Helps a litttil bit but not really.

Now I have plans on installing a humidifier system with a humidifier and pvc pipe and all that jazz. Just not in the budget right now. So i just mist as much as i can during the day and put him in a hanging flexarrium in the shower at least once a day for a hour, I dont know how much this helps because it should be constant.

also I felt his cage was to clutterd. so i ripping every thing out today and starting over. I want it cleaner more simple.

Ill be on here all day updating, try and give you better pics too

 

[carol5208]

Before you changed the set up, could there have been a chance for him to get too close to the basking light and he could have burned himself? What are your humidity readings?

 

[Timothy]

it was posible for him to burn him self and it happend last summer. My bulb was to high of a watt and his vine was to close. what i read was that the top vien should be at least 6 inches from the light. seemed fine for a while but i guess one day he just got to close and the top of his crest blisterd. treated it with polysporian and took him to the vet and got him on antibiotics. heeld real nice and he is fine now. he has a bit lower watt now and his highest vien is 11 inches from the light and is off set so he is not derectly under it. the temp at the top vien is 91f.

the humidity is a complete gong show. it bottoms out at 30% when i mist I can get it at between 40% and 45% but only last a littil while. At one time I was lineing the bottom with moss and letting the dripper just drip to the bottom. but soon became a waterlogged mess. but got the humidity to 65% but could not keeep it like that, just to much of a mess.

the dripper is a whole other issue, cant contain the water properly. now it has 5 feet to fall and hits every thing on the way down and goes every where.

 

[carol5208]

Timothy you need way more foilage in there! Not only for your chameleon to hide and climb around in, but live plants can help with the humidity too. Have you tried maybe using a flat cookie sheet to catch the water? Almost like a tray that sits in the bottom and can be removed when it fills up. The dripper should help some with the humidity too.

 

[Timothy]

I know, I just pulled every thing out to re configger the cage. I have a real plant in there right now and another pot for one but can't fill it right now. empty pot near the top. I was going to put back about half of what I pulled out. it all just seemed to resrict his movment to much. do you think i should just put it all back? the picks in my first post is how it was before.