What cage should i get?!?!

[thepope77x]

hi i need to move my cham out of its crappy 10gal aquarium. I got him off a friend who also just got him but is leaving for the army, so hes mine now mahahaha! any ways its a senegal cham and im thinking he prob needs a 18x18x18 so i am told. my issue is that he lives in my room and i use misting for his water and stuff. If i get an open air cage ill be afraid the water will be all over my stuff and i worrie that he will not have the humidity or warmth that he needs because of the open cage. will my repti glo 5.0 uvb and 25w heat lamp still be ok? i dont have the money to get new lights right this sec just cage. OR should i just spend and get the 18x18x18 NEW TEMPERED GLASS VENTED REPTILE CAGE TERRARIUM ECO SYSTEM (REPCT3) my thoughts where on the terrarium because he has to be on my desk in my room only place for him/she and i feel it would keep the humidity a little better. The house probly never gets colder then low 70s more mid to high 70s in the day i would say(i live in FL if that helps)
thanks plz help

 

[creddjobs]

You can get a all screen cage and use live plants to keep up humidity. I use a regular household bulb and adjust the closeness to the cage. Ive heard of people using partial screen cages to keep better humidity. I think screen cages are recommended. Do a search on "drainage" it will bring up all sorts of drainage options.

 

[thepope77x]

I take it your cham is also inside your house or room? and hes keeping warm in the open screen with the air on and stuff? If so that would work out way better for me i just worrie about it geting cold.i guess i could use my same light setup that i have now on a 18x18x18 screen? sorry for all the ? just trying to learn lol. Seems i messed up with the tank and im trying to fix the situation as fast as i can. Thanks

 

[creddjobs]

I have pasted a caresheet my good buddy Brian (reptoman) gave me. I hope he dont mind me sharing it but it has some good info. Check it out!!!

Screen cage size , location, and stress factors:
Cage description and size-
Panther chameleons should be kept in an all screen enclosure. This provides adequate ventilation. For babies, it is best to start out with a smaller screen cage. For a single baby of 3 months, 24x24x24 or something close is a good starting point. The reason for this is so they don't have trouble finding their food. If you can successfully cup feed somewhere near and below the basking spot and they know where the food is, you can keep a baby of 3 months in a larger cage but you don't want to risk starving the baby. The minimum cage size for an adult male panther (8 months and older) is 24"x24"x48" tall. For adult females, minimum cage size is 18"x18"x36". These are the minimum requirements and it is always acceptable to go bigger.
Substrate in a chameleon enclosure is not required and should consist of no more than a layer of paper towels or a plastic tub to catch dripping water. It is important to keep your cages clean of fecal matter and dead feeders at all times!!!
Location-
Placement of the cage is important for several reasons the most important of these is stress. Stress for a chameleon is a killer. For this reason, you must look for the optimal stress free environment to ensure a long life for your cham. Cages should be located in a low traffic area in your home so that the chameleon is not constantly stressed by outside stimuli. Chameleons are solitary creatures. It is important to not only house them individually, If you own more than one cham, but also keep the chameleons from being able to see each other. If a male can see a female in the cage next to his, he will constantly want to mate with her, causing stress, and it could cause a female to produce an infertile clutch prematurely which could outright kill her or at least shorten her life. Likewise, 2 males in close proximity that can see each other will view it as a threat to their territory and significantly shorten their life due to stress. I use a bath towel between my cages as a visual barrier but anything will work. Just make sure the barrier can withstand moisture and will not breed mold or bacteria. Other things to consider are drafts from windows, and heating/cooling vents. The cage should not be place directly across from a heat/ac vent to avoid constant drafts. Drafts can lead to URIs (upper respiratory infections)
NOTE: After the age of 3 months, 2 males should never be housed together in an indoor cage. This will lead to fights, constant stress, and significantly shorter lifespan if one does not kill the other in a matter of hours.
A male and female should never be house together. The constant attempts to mate by the male will cause stress on both male and female and will lead to an early death for both.
On rare occasions 2 females can be housed together but there is always risk of aggression and the fact that one may get all of the food leaving the other to slowly starve. There is also the risk of constant stress that can lead to health problems and a shorter lifespan.
Lighting, temperature and humidity:
Equipment-
First off, you should invest in a $12 digital temp/humidity gauge with a wire lead and a probe, from Lowes or home depot. They sell these in the gardening section. Another item to get right away is a cheap lamp timer to set your lights on a schedule. I have my lights come on at 7am and go off at 7pm. 12 hours on, 12 hours off.
Basking spot temp-
A basking spot should be established in one corner preferably in the top rear of the cage that should reach no more than 83F for a baby, and stay between 85F -90F for an adult (10 months at least). The difference in temp is because a baby cannot easily thermo regulate its temperature and can easily overheat. The basking spot is the only heat source your cham needs. Under tank heating pads are useless for chameleons. The basking light can be a simple clamp light from home depot with a 40W to 60W household incandescent light. Play with the wattage of the bulb to achieve the desired temp for the basking spot. Try to affix the clamp light to the cage so that it does not sit directly on the screen top. This will prevent burns on your cham. Chameleons thermo regulate their temp by moving out of the heat into cooler areas in the cage so they need to have a lower temperature gradient in lower parts of the cage. Something in the mid to low 70s is good for lower parts of the cage. Unless your room where the cham is kept drops below 65F at night, you do not need a heat source at night. Chameleons need a temperature drop into the low 70s to upper 60s to sleep comfortably.
UVB lighting required!!!-
The most commonly used UVB light source is the Reptisun 5.0 UVB linear fluorescent. To be certain the UVB output is sufficient you should replace the Reptisun 5.0 UVB every 6 months. The fixture is not really important and can be an 18" to 24" fixture from Lowes or HD. The most important thing to know about UVB is that UVB does not pass through glass or plastic. This is also true of natural sunlight. Your cham will get no beneficial UVB from sunlight passing through glass so placement of the cage near a window is actually bad for drafts and will give no added benefit unless it allows sun light to shine on the cage unfiltered (like through screen or nothing at all). If you get a fixture from a home improvement store, make sure to remove the plastic diffuser before placing the light ontop of your enclosure. Placement of the UVB light should be 6"-12" away from the basking area. This ensures that the cham will be getting enough UVB throughout the day. UVB is required for a chameleon to produce vitamin D3, which will allow his body to absorb calcium. Without UVB and supplements, your chameleon will most likely develop MBD (metabolic bone disease). The best way to provide UVB is unfiltered (except through screen) natural sunlight and as long as you can keep the temperature within the require range is the best way to go.
Humidity and water source:
Humidity-
The best way to keep humidity levels from dropping too low is to have live plants in the enclosure. There are several safe plant lists available on chameleonforums.com and elsewhere on the internet. I find the easiest to keep in a cage is pothos or schefflera. These are safe, require minimal light, and can take over watering well. Pothos also provide many vertical and horizontal pathways for your cham to walk on. The entire cage should be heavily misted 2-3 times daily to ensure humidity levels are where they should be. I am able to keep mine around 50% most of the time, going up to 70% after misting. I am in Texas and humidity is always a challenge here. If you are in an extremely dry area, an ultrasonic humidifier is a good way to keep the relative humidity from dropping too low. 50 to 80% is a good range to shoot for.
Water Source-
Chameleons do not drink water from a bowl. They require moving (dripping or misting) water or droplets formed on leaves of plants after misting. The easiest way to create a dripper is to take a plastic cup and poke a tiny hole in the bottom. Fill the cup 3/4 of the way full and place it on top of the cage so that the drip lands on a leaf. Try to get a steady drip with a 1 to 2 second interval in between drips. The dripping motion will stimulate your cham to drink. In addition to the dripper, the rest of the water your cham will need will come from the 2-3 mistings per day.
Waterfalls look nice but are not a good choice for a chameleon cage. They are the perfect breeding place for bacteria and can eventually cause your cham to get sick.
The following pictures are examples of a planted cage with varying diameter branches for horizontal pathways for climbing. They also show placement of the basking and UVB light sources.
Basking light with UVB flourescent 6"-12" away. Note the UVB bulb is exposed with no cover.
Hanging Pothos and branches create plenty of horizontal and vertical pathways
Feeding and supplementation:
Schedule-
Feeding schedule for babies should be as much as they want to eat within 10 minutes, 2 to 3 times daily. Remove uneaten insects before the lights go out. Crickets can chew on chameleons and cause more damage than you can imagine, especially babies.
Around 8-10 months a panther will slow down its eating and my need to go to every other day feeding. At that point they will need to eat 5-6 appropriately sized items every other day.
NOTE:Appropriate size insects should not be bigger than the space between the chams eyes. This is to avoid choking! An exception to this would be soft bodied feeders like silkworms or hornworms. Hornworms can grow quite large so use common sense when feeding these to your cham.
Feeding a variety!!!-
Variety is important to keep your chameleon healthy and happy.
Food items should include the following as staples in a chameleon diet: Crickets, Dubia Roaches, mantids, stickbugs, grasshoppers. These should constitute 80% of the chameleons diet. Panthers rarely
will eat vegetables but some will if offered. You might try a thin slice of apple or yellow squash but use tongs when offering this to your cham. They have teeth!

 

[creddjobs]

The other 20% of the diet should include any of the following: Bluebottle flies, Silkworms, hornworms, superworms, butterworms, cabbage moths, painted lady butterflies. Silks and hormworms have a high moisture content and are great for keeping your chameleon well hydrated.
Other items that should be offered less often are mealworms and waxworms. Mealworms have more chitin (exoskeleton) and could cause constipation or impaction if offered too regularly. Waxworms should be offered as the occasional treat as they are high in fat.
There are many sources on the internet that show the nutritional value of all of these feeders.
The preceding list is what I have used and is working for me. Any items outside this list should be researched thoroughly to make sure it will not cause harm to your cham. If you plan to collect wild feeders for your cham, make sure you get them from a source that has a low risk of pesticides.
Gutloading your staple feeders-
Gutloading refers to feeding your chameleon food. Your cham is ingesting whatever you feed your insects. I use a commercial dry, high calcuim cricket diet, along with fresh fruits and veggies. Fruits and veggies are offered to the insects 3-4 hours before feeding my chams to ensure they get the benefit of the gut loading. Use of fresh veggies also give the insects a better moisture content to aid in hydration. Gut loads to avoid are tomatoes, broccoli and spinach because of the high amount of oxalates they contain that impede calcium absorption. Some people use dog or cat food to feed their crickets but this should be avoided. Too much protein in the cham diet can lead to health problems like gout.
Supplements-
I use 4 types of supplements: Rep-cal calcium phosphate free without D3, Rep-cal calcium phosphate free with D3, Rep-cal Herpivite mulit-vitamins, Miner-All I (indoor formula). Below is the schedule I follow.
Nearly every feeding- Rep-cal calcium phosphate free without D3 with light dusting! Do not overcoat the feeders. A light dusting is all that is required. I skip 1 or 2 days a week with no dusting and give straight insects.
Once a month - Rep-cal calcium phosphate free with D3 again lightly dusted.
Once a month- Rep-cal Herpivite mulit-vitamins lightly dusted
Once a month- Miner-All I (indoor formula).
I alternate the supplements for the last 3 on Friday of each week as follows.
Friday week 1- Rep-cal calcium phosphate free with D3 again lightly dusted
Friday week 2 - Rep-cal Herpivite mulit-vitamins lightly dusted
Friday week 3- Miner-All I (indoor formula) lightly dusted.
Friday week 4 -Either Rep-cal calcium phosphate free without D3 lightly dusted or straight insects.

 

[thepope77x]

thanks that was really helpful and i got some good stuff on plants and misting but alot of it is for a way more hardcore cham then what i have. I have a senegal cham. I know i need to be gutloading better now so i switched the crickets food to carrots and im trying to think of a good hard food, any ideas? I had dog food but i see that's not good. i need to get some good stuff to dust my crickets in maybe theres a dust that has a combo of all the vitamins?