Posted by:
Carlton
at Tue Jun 17 12:37:49 2008 [ Report Abuse ] [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by Carlton ]
More suggestions and questions for you: What brand of "UV" light did you get? There are very few combination lights that acutally emit much UV. The brand is important. A good safe combination is a ReptiSun 5.0 fluorescent and a plain old incandescent house light bulb over your basking spot. Determine what wattage you need by setting up a basking area and measuring the temp at the perch. If it's too hot, move the light away or try a lower watt. Too cool, a larger bulb or closer. Get rid of the substrate...no reason for it and it just harbors bacteria, molds, etc. You can keep the cage humidity higher by filling the cage with live plants instead. They will want the hiding areas and can lick water off the leaf surfaces. If you have trouble finding the chams in the cage that is about right. Also, draping the back and/or sides of the cage with plastic sheeting will help with humidity and keep spray off the walls. Your cage is quite small...much too small for 2 chams.
The most important thing about chams is learning to read them visually. In a way, chams give us obvious clues to their condition...we just have to learn the language. Most chams show "bright" colors when they are upset or excited, not really happy. A sleeping cham will look quite different also. A happy cham is fairly quiet colored. Generally, the more intense their markings are the more stressed and if the stress escalates the dark parts of their pattern enlarge, the whole cham looks dark, and they shut down.
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