what is better?

[camaleonte82]

which is better? having a cage set up with a simple bottom thats easy to clean/drain or having the same set up with dirt, and plants growing from the bottom? seems to me that the natural forest floor one would be easier to care for but you would also have the problems of plants dying and rotting, fruitflies developing, and the cham eating dirt. this would be for a male so im not worried about eggs. i just dont want to spend the time and money to make the bottom of the cage like a real forest floor and then have more trouble because of it

 

[reptilover]

Plain ol clean empty floor by far. Substrate always poses a Impaction threat. Plain empty floor is much easier to keep clean with a quick wipe down nightly. And plants seem to me to do better in pots with all the water coming down from misting. And with how large chameleon poop is. Picking it oit of substrate would prove difficult and manifest alot of bacteria.. JMO

 

[AllFallDown]

which is better? having a cage set up with a simple bottom thats easy to clean/drain or having the same set up with dirt, and plants growing from the bottom? seems to me that the natural forest floor one would be easier to care for but you would also have the problems of plants dying and rotting, fruitflies developing, and the cham eating dirt. this would be for a male so im not worried about eggs. i just dont want to spend the time and money to make the bottom of the cage like a real forest floor and then have more trouble because of it

Speaking personally, I think a dirt bottom would be really cool, but I would be concerned about him eatting something nasty. I know zoo med has a calcium carfbonate based sand that I might try for my beardie. I would be open to trying this for the cham. My only concern would be calcium carbonate is water soluable.
I would not be so worried about fruit flies. I think what you are referring to is fungus gnats. The key there would be to to keep the soil moisture down. I would not be so concerned about the gnats themselves- they are more of a nusance than anything else. Some BD based product could also help with that and I suspect would be safe but I cannot say for sure. BD is a type of bacteria used in mosquito larve killing products like "Mosquito-dunks". I use them to kill off fungus gnats in my carnivorous plant collection. They destroy seedlings (fungus gnats that us)!

So my personal thought, I would skip the dirt but have been thinking about it lately.