Why is my Jackson constantly climbing on the screen?

Benclark

Benclark

Member
So I juvenile male Jackson chameleon who insists on climbing in the screen of his enclosure and I can't figure out why he isn't comfortable. He has plenty of places to hide, basking temps are 85-90 degrees with an ambient of 70-75, humidity goes up and down all day from 35-60%.
 
Exactly temps are 80-85 for basking no hotter. What temp drop are you getting at night?

Take a picture of the enclosure lights down for us... There may be other issues besides being way too hot.
 
Benclark said:
how can I reduce the heat? I am using a low watt blue day heat lamp.
Click to expand...
You need a regular incandescent household bulb wattage depends most use 60-75 some 100 as long as it provides the correct temps so you can play around with the wattages. Like @ Beman said can we see pictures of the enclosure lights, basking bulb included. I’m pretty sure that’s the wrong basking bulb. Hopefully a Jackson’s owner will reply soon.
 
Benclark said:
So I juvenile male Jackson chameleon who insists on climbing in the screen of his enclosure and I can't figure out why he isn't comfortable. He has plenty of places to hide, basking temps are 85-90 degrees
Click to expand...
Usually, this happens when the lighting is incorrect (either basking bulb, uvb, or both). To reduce your basking spot temperature, either lift up your basking bulb up off of the screen or get a bulb with a lower wattage. To raise up my basking lights, I created a pvc structure that I can drill into as opposed to drilling into the ceiling (I'll post pics below). Others, like mentioned before, get a lower wattage bulb and readjust the basking branch. 90 degrees is way too hot for a jacksons, or any chameleon for that matter. If your ambient is between 70-75F, then I might try going with a 45-watt incandescent. Make sure you buy a true 45-watt and not a 45-watt equivalent.

The other side of the coin could be that your uvb is also slightly off. What is the distance of the uvb light from the branch. What light are you using? When did you purchase the light?
Benclark said:
with an ambient of 70-75, humidity goes up and down all day from 35-60%.
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Typically a range between 30%-50% humidity is recommended during the day and up to 100% at night. Your humidity range seems to fit this close enough that I wouldn't worry about daytime levels. What levels are you getting at night?

Here is my setup. There are many ways to skim a milk.
20210117_104524.jpg
 
Beman said:
Exactly temps are 80-85 for basking no hotter. What temp drop are you getting at night?

Take a picture of the enclosure lights down for us... There may be other issues besides being way too hot.
Click to expand...
So night time temps never get over 60 degrees.
 
Here is the enclosure. I use a t5 UVB lamp and a 6% UVB. I swapped the heat bulb out for a 45-watt incandescent bulb. I also bought a fogger for night time so night humidity is pretty high, 85-100%. The only problem is the reservoir only holds enough water for 8 hours.
 

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Benclark said:
Here is the enclosure. I use a t5 UVB lamp and a 6% UVB. I swapped the heat bulb out for a 45-watt incandescent bulb. I also bought a fogger for night time so night humidity is pretty high, 85-100%. The only problem is the reservoir only holds enough water for 8 hours.
Click to expand...
Fogging for 8 hours is more than enough. Many members on here, including myself, wait to start fogging the cage until midnight or 1 a.m when the temps are coolest. You can start the humidifier sooner, or you can wait to turn it on when you are getting ready to go to sleep if you don't have a timer. Though I do mist the cage for a minute when the lights go out to start increasing the humidity.

You can also try wrapping the sides of the enclosure with something like a shower curtain which will make the humidifier more effective so you don't have to have it on full blast if you don't want it to.
 
Mendez said:
Fogging for 8 hours is more than enough. Many members on here, including myself, wait to start fogging the cage until midnight or 1 a.m when the temps are coolest. You can start the humidifier sooner, or you can wait to turn it on when you are getting ready to go to sleep if you don't have a timer. Though I do mist the cage for a minute when the lights go out to start increasing the humidity.

You can also try wrapping the sides of the enclosure with something like a shower curtain which will make the humidifier more effective so you don't have to have it on full blast if you don't want it to.
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Thank you so much! I have a timer I can put the fogger on so it will turn on around midnight.
 
For juveniles under 9 months I keep the basking temps below 80. I use 40 or 50 watt bulbs and they aren't on constantly. Mine come on a hour after the UVB for a couple hours and then on and off during the day but off 1 hour before the UVB. They like more heat than is good for them.
Screen climbing is a juvenile behavior. You can offer them more branches but ultimately they just have to outgrow it.
 
JacksJill said:
For juveniles under 9 months I keep the basking temps below 80. I use 40 or 50 watt bulbs and they aren't on constantly. Mine come on a hour after the UVB for a couple hours and then on and off during the day but off 1 hour before the UVB. They like more heat than is good for them.
Screen climbing is a juvenile behavior. You can offer them more branches but ultimately they just have to outgrow it.
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You use incandescent bulbs, right?
 
Yes, incandescent bulbs they are getting harder to find. The 40 watts are for bathroom mirror fixtures and the 50 watt are a plant grow bulb. One of our sponsors carries a variety of wattage bulbs https://reptilesupply.com/collections/reptile-basking-bulbs I don't know how reliable they are but found them when checking out the site. The ones I found for 40 watt were Exoterra.

You might also look on Ebay for incandescent bulbs.
 
I use 40 watt incandescents.
Perfect heat and no chance of burns, either.
If you plan on keeping Chameleons for a while, I suggest you STOCKPILE some incandescent bulbs.
They're not being manufactured much any more and are already very hard to find.
 
ZEROPILOT said:
I use 40 watt incandescents.
Perfect heat and no chance of burns, either.
If you plan on keeping Chameleons for a while, I suggest you STOCKPILE some incandescent bulbs.
They're not being manufactured much any more and are already very hard to find.
Click to expand...
B85A671E-C03E-4039-AA55-3334700A44A3.jpeg

Would this work? I found them at homedepot.
 
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