Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i decided to get screen cages afterall, get rid of the bedding etc ... the one thing i am keeping the same however is i have an aquarium where i will put them when the cages need cleaning
i am sorry if at first i came across as ignorant and stubborn, but honestly i dont know who i can trust online
online, people can say something to you that will kill a cham, so i personally (at first) felt more comfortable talking to the breed which they were purchased from
i would like to thank carlton, bill, and lele for you knowledge and support
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Jason, Ichiro, Mika, & Toki
razior_@hotmail.com

Glad we could help. It is so hard to know what forum info you can trust, as posters are really anonymous and can say just anything they want in terms of experience. Other cham forums have gone through phases when they tried to limit members to those who had certain amounts of time with chams, but then the posts weren't available to the newbies who needed the info most of all. Some of the really experienced cham keepers are simply not interested in answering newbie questions (and have quite a chip on their shoulder IMHO), and many keepers who have kept 1 cham for 6 months consider themselves experts. I'm afraid this will always be the problem. I find a couple of things work for me when evaluating forum advice. When checking a new forum, I look at archives about health problems and keeping. Then I start lurking. There are usually patterns in responses and the more knowledgeable answers will show up over and over. You can also see patterns in the posters...the more experienced will tend to be consistent in what they suggest, cut to the chase, will not use silly language, slang, abbreviate, misspell names of species and other technical info, and will also suggest other reference sites and books that may help. For chams, the classic sites I refer people to are (to the best of my knowledge) the most consistently correct (and have been around for years). They are www.adcham.com, www.chameleonjournals.com, www.geocities.com/ccicenter, www.chamresearch.com, www.calumma.com, and a newer remake of the old CIN www.chameleonnews.com

Hope this helps!

once again, good advice, Carlton. I am so glad you mentioned Lurking! I do it all the time and, as you pointed out, is a great way to see what is going on! I've always felt a little voyeuristic doing it so I am glad to hear that you do/did it too!

I also find that high activity is key. I recently went to the Insect Hobbyist moth forum since they are another passion of mine, posted a few things and every time I went back no one was there- for weeks! I now see in the new forums that it is combined with the butterfly forum so maybe there will be more activity. Anyway, point being - lots of activity makes lurking more fun! I lurked here for about a month before deciding this would be my main cham research forum
lele