Reptile & Amphibian Forums

my boyfriend and I are going to be redoing the garage, we'll be getting rid of about 20 melamines out there and getting some visions for his tegus which means I will finally have room to put chameleons out there. First Im not really sure how to insulate the garage and cool it. I know Tyler has a swamp cooler but here we are in a very strict housing association (which has no idea how many animals we have and would freak if they found out we had more than their max of 3). They wont let anything stick outside your house so I was thinking of getting one of those portable $800 air conditioners that just has a tube running outside. Second, Im going to need alot of chameleon cages, right now my chameleons number 24 with 28 eggs incubating and three gravid females. I really like the racks that Reptayls has built for housing lots of chams and the one Tyler has in his garage but I have no idea how to go about building one. I figure I'll need between 30-40 cages. If anyone has any advice I would really appreciate it. Also Im working on building a website, only have the photo gallery started for now. If anyone has and ideas or comments on it please let me know. Thanks
My Website

My hubby can give you instructions for the cages he has built for breeder set-ups... the stackable ones. It's not too hard, we have shipped them before too.

Drop us an email at: reptayls@yahoo.com

As for the cooling in summer - CostCo had a portable swamp cooler - and I know they make them on rollers even. Is there a window or back door to the garage? They make small down-draft coolers (mount on the roof) - can you do that there? We can ask hubby - as he is in construction, and may have an idea.

Talk soon,
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To add a swamp cooler to a garage is pretty simple, and I'm also in a housing association. I'm not sure what they think about swamp coolers (I just did it and didn't ask) but you could put the whole swamp cooler in the garage and have a tube bringing air in. Swamp coolers generate no heat and all they need is air from outside coming in and some way to let it out (small vent or leaving the garage door open 1". Depending on which swamp cooler you get, some of them come made for that, where you can just buy some ductwork and bolt it right on and then run it to the wall. You could set the swamp cooler against a wall, on the inside of the garage and just run the duct right behind it through the wall, and it would only be about 6" of ductwork. They add humidity to the garage (mine's around 60-70 percent) and will keep the garage in the 70's on the HOTTEST of days (110-120) and they only use as much power as a fan. Plus, they cost nothing compared to air conditioners. An A/C would run several hundred dollars and probably the best swamp you can buy would be no more than 3-400. I think mine was like 270. It's small. A/C units also get very hot, even if you have a pipe running out the wall. My parents had a nice big window A/C that they gave me for my garage when I was getting my swamp cooler and I either had to make a bigger hole in the wall to run it through the wall, or try the duct thing and I tried the duct thing and it made alot of heat out of the sides also and top and bottom. For it to work right, only the very front could be inside the garage. Plus, they dry out the air. So now I have a nice big new expensive A/C unit sitting in the garage next to my swamp cooler doing nothing. Insulating the garage may or may not be needed at all. If it's really hot outside, then maybe go for it, but if you're using a swamp anyways, you're hardly wasting power to just let it run. In the summer evenings, the sun hits my garage door and it gets pretty warm, so I went to Home Depot and got a few big sheets of 3/4" styrofoam and lined the door with it on the inside. It probably helped about 5-8 degrees worth. It only cost me about 15 bucks to do. Just the lights in my garage are the biggest reason it gets hot. With 20 spot bulbs they can make a room warm quick. You're not incubating the eggs in the garage are you? I don't think that's what you meant, but I'd keep them in a more stable area in case that it what you meant. A few times I've kept a few eggs from a few clutches in the garage for the first few months, just to see what will happen when hatching time comes. In the summer the garage is warmer than my house and in the winter it's cooler. If you can avoid it, don't build your own cage. The way I did mine looks great, but I have had problems ever since I moved the first chameleon in with escapee crickets and once a roach gets away in that thing I never see it again (I just have bad dreams for a week after). Plus, it's an ongoing battle with spiders and crickets. By the time I had finished it, I had probably spent enough on materials and hours and hours of work that I could have easily bought 10 screen cages to replace it. It's harder to clean, harder to move around and I have to use a ladder to reach the top of it (it's 8' tall) and a bucket or step stool to even reach the top cages. Find a screen cage seller that will give you a good deal on them if you're buying so many. Then get a couple "gorilla racks" and line the cages up nicely. The hard part with lotsa chams in one room is keeping them from seeing eachother. Lined up cages can just have a paper barrier inbetween them, but a line of cages can only be so long. I still need to rig up a shower curtain type thing in there to make my garage into 2 or 3 rooms. So far, they don't seem to notice eachother much as they are all eating and drinking fine and nobody's "flared up." Good luck and ask if you have any more questions.

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Tyler Stewart
Las Vegas NV

The perfect barrier for between cham cages is to get those plastic light covers that go over fluroscents in a kitchen. They typically measure 4' x 2' so they are usally sized just about right to place between cages. Or you can cut them down pretty simply (I used a table saw). They sell them at Home Depot, are inexpensive, and actually look good (especially if you choose one that has a texture or pattern...I recommend "ice".

Good Luck! I hope they get plenty of natural sunlight, too!

~MP
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1.0 Ambanja 9 mos. - LESTER
0.1 Nosy Be 6 mos. - KUBO