White From Mary Janes Nose....

[allgreen]

My chameleon, Mary Jane, has white crystals coming from her nose. Ive have read and read and read on what this could be, but I keep coming up empty handed. At first we thought it may be our lighting, but upon researching we found that we do in fact have the right lighting sources. Maybe we are over lighting. We have a 5.0 UVB light and a heat light that we keep on during the day. This keeps her home at about 85. When we tried using just the UVB it did not provide enough heat. At night we keep an infared light on her and her home stays about 70. We have a waterfall and we spray often keeping her humidity level around 60 at all times. She is eating 10-15 gut-loaded crickets a day. We dust them once a week. Still we are having the white from her nose.....what are we doing wrong?

 

[FFSTRescue]

Its the salt that builds up in the salt gland. When there is too much sodium in the blood, it goes to the salt gland and is excreted. That means you need to increase water intake. Spray more and make sure you actually see her drinking. This is mainly seen in desert reptiles but chams have this too, though it isn't observed as often because of their high water consumption.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_gland

 

[Carlton]

My chameleon, Mary Jane, has white crystals coming from her nose. Ive have read and read and read on what this could be, but I keep coming up empty handed. At first we thought it may be our lighting, but upon researching we found that we do in fact have the right lighting sources. Maybe we are over lighting. We have a 5.0 UVB light and a heat light that we keep on during the day. This keeps her home at about 85. When we tried using just the UVB it did not provide enough heat. At night we keep an infared light on her and her home stays about 70. We have a waterfall and we spray often keeping her humidity level around 60 at all times. She is eating 10-15 gut-loaded crickets a day. We dust them once a week. Still we are having the white from her nose.....what are we doing wrong?

The white is most likely evaporated salt. It can be a sign of slight dehydration.

How old is she? Species? If she's older than 6 months that is a LOT of food unless the crix are tiny. Dusting once a week is not enough. Dusting with D3-free calcium lightly each day is better. In addition, dust with calcium with D3 once or twice a week, and dust with herp vitamins once every 4-6 weeks. Is your water fairly hard or high in minerals? Sometimes misting chams with very hard water can cause a bit of this too, but you would also probably be seeing white deposits on your cage leaves.

Get rid of the night light. The red light will keep her from sleeping and unless your home gets colder than 50 F you don't need it. Chams need a 10-15 degree drop in temp at night.

If the whole cage reaches 85 F that is too warm. If this temp is just under the basking spot that is OK. There should be cooler areas for her to retreat to if she wants to cool down. More lights just dehydrate her, and one sign of this can be white salts around the nostrils.

The waterfall isn't a great idea. Unless you sterilize it every day or so they are bacteria breeding grounds and they also don't raise the cage humidity all that well.

 

[sandrachameleon]

I agree with Carlton

I dont think the white crystals around her nostrils are worth worrying about. But cant hurt to check your gutloading and the mineral content of the water being used.

 

[lemurian25]

White Nostrils

My 4-month male chameleon has just gotten two white nostrils too. The misting machine is using water filtered by Britta. I have been relunctant to interrupt his life too much by watching him when he is eating or drinking, but now I think I'm going to have to watch continuously until I see him drink (which I've never seen before). He is clearly eating, and I've seen that on occasion. He seems to look good. Any more ideas?

 

[kinyonga]

Try dripping water on the tip of his nose at the rate of a drop or two per second. Be persistant and he will likely start to drink.