Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello I just saved a veil chameleon and am having trouble with keeping humidity at a good range. I have a 30x30x18 wire cage. I have a dayglo light with a flourescent bulb for UVB. I have 2 live plants inside the cage. It fluctuates from 32-43% humidity. I have raised the basking light a couple of inches from the top of the cage. I mist 2-3 times a day and have a little dripper for constant dripping on the plant.

Are you using any humidifiers?

Misting Systems by John W. Lucas
http://www.chameleonnews.com/year2004/jan2004/misting/misting.html

Watering and Drainage Strategies By Jason Descamps
http://www.chameleonnews.com/watering.html

Humidifiers and Chameleon Enclosures By roo
http://www.chameleonnews.com/humidifier.html
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CANADIAN SILKWORMS

At this point I am not using any humidifiers. I was told that in my region I wouldn't need to. At night the humidity level is about 53%. I am using a little dripper drip system along with manual spraying 3 times a day. I am wondering if I move my basking light another couple of inches from the cage if that would help with the level of humidity. It is staying at about 95 degrees at this point. And also moving my UVB light a couple of inches away, if that would help. I live in Missouri and during the summer it is fairly dry. I don't think I will have a problem in the winter time (I have a humidifier hooked up to my heat pump.

"At this point I am not using any humidifiers. I was told that in my region I wouldn't need to."

Well if your daytime humidity is so low during the day, than logic would dictate that whoever told you that is wrong in this case at that you need to use a humidifier to acheive the correct level of humidity.

Humidifiers if used correctly, can make a huge difference on the health of your chameleon. You should be able to choose some method of keeping the humidity up with the resource links I posted earlier. The site they came from is http://www.chameleonnews.com and pretty much everything on this site is trustworthy, even as far as the controversial care of chameleons goes.

Best of luck.
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CANADIAN SILKWORMS

Thanks for your help. I will try the humidifier today. I went in this morning and it was about 60% humidity. We will see what happens as the lights heat the place up. THanks again for your help. I am sure Carmen will appreciate it.

I just lost my beautiful Male Jackson's Chamy because I was told to be sure he had plenty of humidity in his screen cage, and the higher humidity allowed bacteria to be introduced. So when he got an otherwise harmless hangnail, the bacteria from the mosture in the cage rushed in and made the infection lethal. I know we have to live and learn, but this just sucked.
This was my fault, and I am not making excuses, but these wonderful little creatures have little to no immune system and cannot fight back, so please keep that in mind with all the water you are adding with drippers and all. Live plants are nice, but moist dirt is a breeding area for bacteria. Just a note because I don't want anyone else to cry themselves to sleep because they put their pet in harms way.
Julie

Julie is right. No cage should be under a constant moistend state. It need to dry out completely once daily if not several times depending on the size, materials and of course species.

I recommend cool humidifiers as the hot air huumdifiers are more likely to produce bacteria growth.
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CANADIAN SILKWORMS