veiled, keeping eyes closed

beckaco

New Member
Your Chameleon - Male aprx 5-6months old
Handling - we have yet to handle
Feeding - small crickets and small silk worms
Supplements - calcium poweder
Watering - water fall system
Fecal Description - bown with white "sac" semi solid
History - just bought him from the pet store two weeks ago

Cage Info:
Cage Type - glass 20gal
Lighting - 5.0 uvb reptiglo and a 50w sunglo basking light
Temperature - 90 in basking area, 80- 85 in majority of tank, 75 at bottom. Night tempuratures drop about 5 degrees, never goes under 70
Humidity - we try to keep it at 50% however this takes a lot of mistings to achieve, up to 6 times a day
Plants - one live plant (not sure the type but is the same kind in the chameleon cage at the pet store.) round leaves grows simillar to vines, very common. looks like:
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/syllabi/302/new/graphics/P/philodendron.gif

Placement - on a side table
Location - ontario canada

Current Problem -
We bought a veiled chameleon two weeks ago, it seemed fine the few two maybe three days, then we noticed that it would close its right eye and begin to not eat anything. The situation progressed and now currently he keeps both of his eyes closed. In the time we have had him, we only wittnesed him eating 3 or 4 times the most recent being two days ago, which surprised us but made us very happy. There is always crickets available to him as they just roam the cage, and we will periodically put in some silkworms however he does not show much intrest in eating.
He still trys to be active, he roams blindly about his cage grasping for sticks that arent there, however his eyes are not crusted over and he can still open them. In fact he has begun to open his eyes more within the past couple days however still chooses to leave them shut. He will also buldge his eyes forward, open his eyes slightly and roll them back into place.

As far as I know we are doing everything right but any advice that could help us get this little guy back to 100% would be greatly apriciated. What we are doing right now is making sure his tempuratures are correct and keeping the humidity level up as much as we can. The apartment does seem to be dry, could the reason he isnt opening his eyes be the dryness in the apt? Could it be fixed with say a fog machine in the cage?

For the most part he looks healthy but we are worried and want to fix this before any other symptoms apear.

Thank you
 
Hi, i have currently got the same problem as you.

Your setup sounds fine and that is what was also told to me, i have tried eye drops, excessive misting etc but nothing seems to help. My little veiled is also the same age and is bulging her eyes out and keeps closing them.

I have searched absolutely everywhere and today in another attempt to find some information i came across this (see link below). It has given me some hope and im going to get the vitamin A capsules tomorrow , the post address the exact symptoms of both of our chameleons so looks like this may be an answer!

https://www.chameleonforums.com/eye-problem-27421/index2.html

Hope this helps....

Adam.
 
Your Chameleon - Male aprx 5-6months old
Handling - we have yet to handle
Feeding - small crickets and small silk worms
Supplements - calcium poweder
Watering - water fall system
Fecal Description - bown with white "sac" semi solid
History - just bought him from the pet store two weeks ago

Cage Info:
Cage Type - glass 20gal
You need a screen enclosure for better air flow, or even a terrarium like an exoterra.
Lighting - 5.0 uvb reptiglo and a 50w sunglo basking light
Is this a compact? This could be the problem with his eyes I've heard the compacts cause eye problems. Switch to a 5.0 tube light.
Temperature - 90 in basking area, 80- 85 in majority of tank, 75 at bottom.
Temp needs to be about 80-85 in the basking spot, and cooler in the rest of the enclosure.
Night tempuratures drop about 5 degrees, never goes under 70
Night time should have no lights or warmth, temp's are tolerable in the low 60's. 63-68.
Humidity - we try to keep it at 50% however this takes a lot of mistings to achieve, up to 6 times a day
Live plants help a lot with humidty.
Plants - one live plant (not sure the type but is the same kind in the chameleon cage at the pet store.) round leaves grows simillar to vines, very common. looks like:
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/syllabi/302/new/graphics/P/philodendron.gif
Get more live plants, and vines for highways. Check the safe plant list on the forums here.
Placement - on a side table
Location - ontario canada

Current Problem -
We bought a veiled chameleon two weeks ago, it seemed fine the few two maybe three days, then we noticed that it would close its right eye and begin to not eat anything. The situation progressed and now currently he keeps both of his eyes closed. In the time we have had him, we only wittnesed him eating 3 or 4 times the most recent being two days ago, which surprised us but made us very happy. There is always crickets available to him as they just roam the cage, and we will periodically put in some silkworms however he does not show much intrest in eating.
He still trys to be active, he roams blindly about his cage grasping for sticks that arent there, however his eyes are not crusted over and he can still open them. In fact he has begun to open his eyes more within the past couple days however still chooses to leave them shut. He will also buldge his eyes forward, open his eyes slightly and roll them back into place.

As far as I know we are doing everything right but any advice that could help us get this little guy back to 100% would be greatly apriciated. What we are doing right now is making sure his tempuratures are correct and keeping the humidity level up as much as we can. The apartment does seem to be dry, could the reason he isnt opening his eyes be the dryness in the apt? Could it be fixed with say a fog machine in the cage?

For the most part he looks healthy but we are worried and want to fix this before any other symptoms apear.

Thank you

I made some suggestions for you. There are others, but I'm sure others will pitch in.
 
Waterfalls are very hard to keep clean. They are breeding grounds for bacteria.

What kind of calcium do you use? Do you gutload the insects?

I would also try removing the compact bulb to see if it makes a difference...this site has lots of info about the bulbs...
http://www.uvguide.co.uk/
 
What are you measuring temps with? It happens all too often that people are unsure of their temps and they slowly cook the chameleon in a glass tank. Closing eyes and grasping can be a sign of dehydration.
 
Sadly, our chameleon has died. We took him back to the pet store who checked him out and said that he did infact look healthy, aside from being dead...

Our enclosure and everything was and still is right, as we now have a replacement (sounds bad but we do care) who is doing well.

Thank you for your suggestions but some times they are just born with defects, happens in all creatures.

:(
 
please take the advice of the people on here. if your petstore expert gave you these guidelines for care he is misinformed. if you want this new guy to live you need to change a few things. its just a matter of time if you decide to decline the advice.
 
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