Speckled Pygmy chameleon

[Sophia]

yesterday morning i saw that my Pygmy chameleon was speckled with light and dark browns. Last night he was pale brown with no other colors on him. In the day he spends most of his time on the bottom of the tank near the water bowl. At night he climbs to the top of vines and sleeps. This is my first time owning a chameleon and I read that the vibrant colors often mean he's sick or stressed. I make sure that his tank is perfect. He has lots to climb on and the temperature and humidity are just right. What does the fluctuation in colors mean? I don't know what else to do.

 

[cswan19]

I'm also new to owning chameleons I just got a veiled for my first, while finding info and doing research I got some advice from this forum. One bit if advice I received was not to keep a water bowl in the enclosure for two reasons, the first being chameleons won't recognize still water only moving water (ex. Dripper, mister, water falling off of leaves) and the second being sitting water in a bowl can harbor bacteria that may make your Cham sick. If I were you I would trade in that bowl for a dripper, they're fairly cheap of you wanna buy one from a local pet shop or they're also very easy to make. I'm sure they're is a thread on making a dripper somewhere on the forum. Like I said I'm new to this as well so I'm in no way an expert. Not sure if the bowl is part of the problem or not but hopefully someone who knows more will chime in soon.

 

[qdude46]

You may just have spooked him but remove the water bowl, this isn't the cause for him coloring up like that but they don't use it and pygmies can drown easily and the water will just spawn bad bacteria

 

[Chameleon88]

I have some pygmys and male male changes his colours quite alot. He tends to have a few more stripes than yours but i don't think this is anything to worry about. Im pretty new to this though, so maybe check with someone else. But yes remove the water bowl.

 

[Sophia]

I just removed the water bowl and I will look into it more. Thank you so much for your help.