Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My veiled chameleon has never really liked his cage sprayed and I have never seen him drink the droplets off the plants. I have alwas had trouble getting him to drink. He gets most of his moisture from his feeders, but I occasionally put him in the shower. If he looks really bad, I have a syringe with a cathider(SP?) on it and when he opens his mouth, I squirt water in. The breeder I bought him from had a little fountion thing in his cage. I thought I would something similar to that in his big new cage. What I am going to do is put a submersable pump in a bucket on the bottom of his cage. I would route the tubing up to a ceramic planter that would serve as a basin for his little drinking fountain. Another tube would be used for drainage. I am not sure how to seal up the bottom of the planter. Could I use hot glue or something? I have heard of aquarium glue, but I am not sure if that would work. Is there some sort of a cork I could use? Would my chameleon try to climb on the tubing? Thank you for your help, jrbl

Not too many of our chams like to be sprayed either - however, they get sprayed with WARM water at least twice per day anyway. We keep veiled, panthers, deremensis; quadricornis; jacksons; melleri and stumptails currently.

One thing most folks don't do is heat the water... this is easily accomplished by placing the sprayer tank or jug of water in the microwave. The water should be hot enough so that when sprayed it is slightly warm on the wrist (sort of body temperature).

Our chams get a drip at least twice per day too. This water can be warmed too. You can use a margarine tub with a pinhole in the bottom (sit the tub on the top of cage), and let the drip fall onto some leaves near a perching branch. The motion of the moving leaves will attract the cham to investigate and will soon discover the water. This usually does not fail - as this is the natural ocurrance in the wild (rain or dripping morning dew).

You could try the ceramic planter idea - and seal it with aquarium silicone - but I would try the simple drip first. Any container of water (fountain) will need to be constantly disinfected - as insects will drown in it and other contaminants will get into the water. And, yes - the chams will climb anything, so the tube is a perfect target.

Hope this helps,
-----