Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am moving into a new home and will have one room designated as a chameleon room. I am planning on having one room for storage and will breed crickets and roaches in there. The main room and storage room will both seal completely from the other parts of the house.

the rooms ceiling will mostly be glass and the room will allow in maximum natural sun. It will be heated at 75 degrees yearlong. (?) Or should I design a cold season?

The humidity will be high because I'm going to install an advanced drip system. I will cycle water through the room 24/7. I will probably make it drip down various paths and sticks to a basin on the floor where it will filter and pump up to the ceiling again. I plan on having multiple systems like this.

I plan to fill the room with one main leafy tree that will take up a majority of the room. Remember it is a very tall room. The rest will be supplementory branches and walkwalks and vines.

I think I'm going to release feeder roaches up the main tree as a feeder source. I would rather not let them go like that but I can think of no other way. Any ideas? The room will be sealed and locked at all times..

I'm going to put dirt trays on the ground of continuous egg laying. I will incubate in the storage room, raise the babies in tubs, and either sell off or release them young chams into the habitat room.

Will this work? Please, any comments to my idea here?

Thanks a lot for reading.

PS. I plan on breeding the best bloodline panther chams I can get. How do guys think male panthers will deal with eachother in such a huge habitat?

I'm sure you already realize that UVB will not penetrate glass, but thought I'd throw it out there just in case. Some acrylics will allow UVB penetration (tanning beds. Also, I would think that a glass ceiling would turn the entire room into a large tank and that when the sunshine penetrates the ceiling it would not be possible to regulate the temperatures. Just my thoughts. Diane
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dianedfisher@yahoo.com

My 3 CWD-Avanyu, Tripod and Drago
Valentino, Veiled Chameleon
Chyam, Nosy Be Panther Chameleon

Hey,

In my opinion your plan wouldn't work. You can't house more than one cham per enclosure unless it is very very large. If you are putting babies that hatch in with them, they will most likely get eaten by the adults. As Diane was saying, most glass blocks uvb, and the glass is going to form bacteria and parasites are going to spread very easily unless you clean it very often, which you didn't seem to add to your plan; cleaning. An enclosure that big is very difficult to clean. I am not sure how many chameleons you have had in the past, but to create a room like you are talking about just isn't possible, unless you are very knowlegable in chameleons, and only plan on having a few chams in it; I have heard of keeping more than one cham in together, but not males. It would have to be a pair, or a trio, and even that should be left up to the experts. Even the stress to the females will be a lot expecially when they don't want to breed or are gravid. Creating a room such as you aretalking about is also going to cost a lot. You are going to need to spend either alot of money on special lighting, or special uvb transparent glass/acrylic(if you can get it). You will probably to make drains in the floor to excess water. It just seems very unpractical to me. But these are just my opinions, and people might disagree with me.

If I was you, I would think of investing in some cages. Will make life alot easier.

-Adam.

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Email Me!

It can be done....

At a hiiiiiiiiigh price. But, if you are willing to pay it, then go for it. Once I'm well off and all that financial stuff, I plan on designing a very very very large room to keep chameleons and some other reptiles and amphibians in. It would have to be outside in a yard, not even a room but a 'building' of sorts.

I went to the botanical pyramids in Edmenton (or maybe it was Calgary) in Alberta, and I got a lot of inspiration from how they have it designed there. If you can go to tropical botanical gardens, do, and you'll see the size and scale and amount of plants you'd need. They have these large glass pyramids that are botanical gardens, with hundreds and thousands of plants and trees youd find in a rainforest. That's where all your money would go, into the plants. You'd probably end up spending from 2-10 thousand dollars (based on the type of plants you wanted) to get all the plants that would be neccessary for a room large enough for multiple animals to inhabit.

One large tree would definately not be even close to enough for this, you'd need at least 3 large large trees, and then you'd need hundreds of various tropical plants all over everywhere else.

You'd need special glass to allow UVB penetration, or at least provide good gutload around the room for the freeroaming roaches. You'd need humidity fans, the ones that have a sprayer that blows mist in front of the fan, and just add more as you figure out how the temperature works. You'd need drainage, or maybe a waterfall/pool area where all excess water would flow and then cycle back into the misting system so it was just cyclical and low maintenance. You'd need a tropical species of roach that can breed in the room, and if the population gets out of control, you'd need to get some giant day geckos to control it, and you'd also need some smaller species of flies and gnats for baby chameleons, that would probably hatch without you knowing eggs were even laid. You'd need a LOT of ground cover plants/smaller plants for babies to hide in. You'd be better off putting substrate through the entire room, you'd need at least 4 or 5 feet of it for the roots of the trees, unless you've got those in huuuuuuuuuge pots.

It would be EASIER to do it how ankinc does (who has some of th emost amazing Ankaramy's around, envy envy), but it would be very very rewarding if you made a room into a rainforest.

If you're serious about doing this, like I am, then wait until you can seriously afford doing it and don't fall short on any expenses, do it all and do it 100%.

You could ALSO open it up to the public, and horticulturists (and herpetoculturists) would LOVE to come and even pay to see how you've done it all. You'd have to splurge on getting lots of rare orchids and whatnot in order to get the horticulture enthusiasts, and you'd probably have to have a few species of reptiles to get the herpetoculture enthusiasts.

Wow I write a lot. I hope that was good advice for you.

-Brock