Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I just got a chameleon, as I said before, and I was wondering how harmful it is for her not to have access to a UVB light? I was misinformed, and failed to get her a UVB light. She does have a basking lamp, just not a full spectrum UVB light.

It's been 4 days since I got her and she's had some access to sunlight, and I ordered a light that should come within the next day or so. Is she going to be okay, or is there something I should do while I wait for the UVB light to arrive?

Since your chameleon is getting some direct sunshine (as long as its not through glass or plastic) she should be okay for a few days.

Crap, it has been going through glass.

Is she gonna be okay? The light should come tomorrow afternoon.

She's perfectly active, she eats, and she's been digesting food just fine (judging by the huge piles of poop >

don't worry. As k said, it is a short time. Can you take her outside at all on warm days? Even if it is just on a branch (with you on the other end!) or in a small screen cage (NOT GLAS TANK - you will have fried chameleon) for 15-20 minutes at a time. Once you get the light make sure it is going thru nothing but screen, of course that block as some but not like glass and plexiglass. Even after you get the light, getting her outside is a good thing - if you can. NEVER LEAVE HER UNATTENDED and make sure any latches on cage doors are closed. There have been some very sad stories of folks who "turned away fro a second" and lost their chams. A sunning cage is great.

Didn't read thru all your previous posts, but since you got bad info on UVB you may very well have gotten other bad info. Can you tell us about your setup and feeding regimen to see if there are some changes to be made? Now is the time rather than after she has problems b/c the seller told all she needs is to misted for water or use just lettuce as gutload, etc.....

The link below has all those question so you can get an idea from there what we need to know.

Welcome! have you named her yet?

lele

>>Crap, it has been going through glass.
>>
>>Is she gonna be okay? The light should come tomorrow afternoon.
>>
>>She's perfectly active, she eats, and she's been digesting food just fine (judging by the huge piles of poop >
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Chameleon Help & Resource Info
1.0 Nosy Be Panther Chameleon - Cyrus
0.1 Veiled Chameleon - Luna. She's now hanging from her big jungle gym in the sky
1.0 Beardie - Darwin
1.1 Side-blotched lizards - Ana and Stan for now
0.2 felines - Kyndra and Lita
0.1 African Clawed Frog - Skippy
0.1 Chilean Rose Hair Tarantula - Rosa Leigh, Died 4/21/06
0.1 Goliath Bird-Eater Tarantula - Natasha, donated to science 4/4/06
?.? Pinktoe Tarantula - no name yet

Whew. OKay, the light is coming today, in the afternoon for sure. She'll have light by then and I'll have my girlfriend take her out in the sun for awhile before it comes.

Her name is Simone, by the way. Allow me to describe her set up...

She has a full screen cage, 18 inches long and 12 inches deep. It's 24 inches tall. She has a basking spot near the top left part of the cage, which is open and full of branches (fake). The right side of the cage is dense foliage with a few branches rising out of it. The warm side of the cage is 95F and the cool side is anywhere from 65F to 75F.

I feed her gutloaded crickets I get from a small petstore that specializes in reptiles. They gutload the crickets with all sorts of chameleon treats, like sweet potato mush, lettice, and cham-friendly fruits.

We mist the cage with water we've boiled and then let sit for while. We use ice cubes for a drip system. She has a thick carpet (literally, a carpet square) of a plastic, grassy like material that retains some water.

She has a basking light on for twelve to fourteen hours a day, which we turn off when the sun goes down and turn on an hour or two after the suns comes up (7-8 AM usually). She's very active, she's happy enough with me to eat crickets from my hand, and she displays a vibrant green color when she sleeps and a darkish purple color with gray stripes when she hunts. She climbs and likes to think she's capable of hiding from us while hanging from the ceiling of her cage.

I don't let more than one or two people into the room to look at her, and she's in a room that get's little traffic. No one is allowed to touch her unless they are cleaning out her cage, in which case we put her in a glass cage with a screen top for a few moments.

Is that enough info?

Aside from the UV light, which I know you are correcting and in spite of you feeding her gutloaded crickets, you could/should be dusting her crickets with a calcium powder. Insects have a bad ratio of calcium to phosphorous, so it needs to be corrected to help her grow her bones. Also, if you are going to be keeping her under artificial light (as opposed to sunlight), it wouldn't hurt to dust the crickets twice a month with a calcium/D3 powder. You shouldcould also dust them with a vitamin/mineral powder twice a month.

Make sure that any plants you use in the cage are non-toxic and well washed (both sides of the leaves) before you put them in the cage...and I recommend that you cover the soil so that she can't ingest it by accident or on purpose. Some soils can cause impactions. I also recommend the use of real plants (pothos is a good one) because some chameleons have been known to try to eat the leaves of artificial ones....especially veileds because they become omnivorous at about 6 months of age.

Hope she does well for you!