Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hello everyone.

My Quebec winter is coming. Cold. Real cold.

I have lived winters with some reptiles already (Mainly waterdragons) but never with Chams. (veilds)

Tomorow I will post picts of my enclosures, (Female in 48x24x24, male in 7'tall48x22 both 90% all screen) but in the mean time, I would like to know this...

1. I want to keep the humidity at a minimum of 60% plus misting. With our heating in the apartment, it gets extremely dry. Obviously plants will help, but I need more. I dont want a automatic misting system, I would need too much water to keep the humidity up. I was thinking about putting a small aquarium (covered with screen) at the bottom of each enclosures. and put a water heater in it to slowly evaporate the water... would that do? Is it safe?

2. What is the lowest/safest temperature the chams could be ok in at night? I might have to bring the temp up a bit, and I know I cant use any red or blue bulbs... anything else I can use?

3. BTW, I have organized my small balcony so that I can heat it up during not so cold winter days, with humidity, so that he can take some sun maybe once a month. Ill have to see how it turns out, I might not do it if its too dangerous.

thank you in advance, im dying to get advise
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Gabriel - Montreal - Ding.
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Get an ultrasonic room humidifier and aim it at the cage. You can control how often it cycles by deciding on how humid you need the cage to be and testing how long the unit needs to run to reach that level. Shut it off and see how long it takes for the cage to get too dry. This is your cycle. Set a plug in lamp timer to cycle the humidifier so it creates humid and less humid periods during a 24 hour day. As for temps, most chams can handle a drop in room temp to 60 F with no trouble as long as they can warm up during the day. If you decide you absolutely need to use heat at night be sure it is not a visible light bulb...chams can see most visible colors and it will keep them awake. Cycle your UVB lights about 12 hours on 12 off, but you'll probably notice your chams are less active morning and evening when it is dark outside anyway.

Don't forget...
They have the ceramic heat emitters that you can use at night - no light, and it plugs into a light socket.
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1. I want to keep the humidity at a minimum of 60% plus misting. With our heating in the apartment, it gets extremely dry. Obviously plants will help, but I need more. I dont want a automatic misting system, I would need too much water to keep the humidity up. I was thinking about putting a small aquarium (covered with screen) at the bottom of each enclosures. and put a water heater in it to slowly evaporate the water... would that do? Is it safe?

Thats a very creative approach, but I don't think the water will evaporate fast enough to add to the overall humidity. You may want to get a ceramic bowl and fill it with water. Put it in front, or over the heating vents for the room. (Ancient chinese secret) Also, get a cool mist humidifier and put it on a timer to run every few hours. You'll have to adjust your cycles depending on your gauge reading.

2. What is the lowest/safest temperature the chams could be ok in at night? I might have to bring the temp up a bit, and I know I cant use any red or blue bulbs... anything else I can use?

If your room is indoors and you don't let indoors get below 60 degrees, you're safe. I wouldn't let the temp get any lower than 65 for an extended period of time. I'd worry more about controlling the entire room temperature than buying night lights for individual cages.

3. BTW, I have organized my small balcony so that I can heat it up during not so cold winter days, with humidity, so that he can take some sun maybe once a month. Ill have to see how it turns out, I might not do it if its too dangerous.

If the balcony has glass, the sun isn't going to do too much good. The light would have to be hitting your cham without passing through any filtration (window)

Make sure that you check your basking areas as the room temp decreases. You may have to add a higher wattage bulb or move the light closer to achieve the same basking temps that you did during summer.

Couple of great ideas here...

I like the one you mentionned about putting ceramic container with water on top of my heater... but will the water actually evaporate?

My setup outside is made out of 1/4 alum. screen, not glass. Thats why keeping the heat and humidity high enought will be a chalenge. The cold wind, too.

Just to help a bit more for humidity, i'm going to hang a whole bunch of plants in my herp room... I might also use a old incubator of mine to raise the humi...

ahhh so much things to try this weed end!!! and 5 feet of snow and -40 coming faster then ever...

Thanks!!!
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Gabriel - Montreal - Ding.
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--I like the one you mentionned about putting ceramic container with water on top of my heater... but will the water actually evaporate?

Yes, when your heat kicks on, the air that comes out of the
vent is very dry. As the air passes over the container, the moisture is picked up. It's not amazon humidity, but it helps put a little moisture in the air..and it's cheap!

This isn't meant to be your only means of producing your humidty.

Your right, it will indeed put up a bit of much needed humidity... might just bring it up 5-7% but thats a good thing to start with, and like you said, cheap.

So what should I buy? Some rectangular ceramic container? how much water into it? (How high in the container)

thanks agian
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Gabriel - Montreal - Ding.
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I think that everyone has a stoneware dish in their house thats currently holding s pencap a paperclip a few buttons and a twisted up rubberband. If you can find your dish, use it.

If not, you can go to one of the many dollar stores and pick up a nice tacky ceramic bowl. Make sure that it is heavily decorated with either red or yellow flowers. Avoid the blue butterfly decorated bowls.

Just keep water in in.. no exact levels are necessary.

This was an old remedy for bloody noses. Winter, things get too dry ..whammo you get a gusher. Put that dish by the vent, and it helps.