Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hey, im getting a veiled chameleon this thursday and i have a few questions about setup. i have a 65 gallon reptarium which is about 27.5x29.5x16.5, something like that, which i think will be big enough to house him for most of his life, or at least until hes about 7 months old when i can find a spot to put a bigger reptarium. i already have a bearded dragon whos birthday happens to be today or when i got him last year, and i just have a question. with the actual setup, should i keep the plant in the reptarium in the pot, or should i keep it in the pot and put substrate around it or just keep it in there. i would like to put a pot in there but id think cleaning would be hard as well as impaction and other dangers of substrate for chameleons. if i kept a seperate bowl sort of thing where i would put the crickets, would it be ok to keep substrate in? if so what kind would you recomend? if possible please post as many pictures of your cage, more specifically a reptarium. thank you for reading my long message.

>>hey, im getting a veiled chameleon this thursday and i have a few questions about setup. i have a 65 gallon reptarium which is about 27.5x29.5x16.5, something like that, which i think will be big enough to house him for most of his life, or at least until hes about 7 months old when i can find a spot to put a bigger reptarium. i already have a bearded dragon whos birthday happens to be today or when i got him last year, and i just have a question. with the actual setup, should i keep the plant in the reptarium in the pot, or should i keep it in the pot and put substrate around it or just keep it in there. i would like to put a pot in there but id think cleaning would be hard as well as impaction and other dangers of substrate for chameleons. if i kept a seperate bowl sort of thing where i would put the crickets, would it be ok to keep substrate in? if so what kind would you recomend? if possible please post as many pictures of your cage, more specifically a reptarium. thank you for reading my long message.

The reptarium should be fine until he is half grown. The bigger the cage the better fI personally don't care for them, everything looks so dark and those dang zippers have a habit of breaking. Keep the plant in the pot, it's easier to clean the cage when you can just lift everything out. Don't use substrate, impaction can be a problem plus it's a mess to clean out. Not all chams learn to eat from bowls besides I think they really enjoy hunting down their prey. (Actually we enjoy watching the hunt!)

thanks alot for your info. yea i figured id have to get a bigger cage sooner or later. i really like those reptariums though and with the light on inside the cage its really not that dark. do you have any recomendations with for the types of plants i should put in his enclosure. i leaning mostly towards a benjamina ficus and then put those fake vines that exo terra sells. if you have a picture of your enclosure thatd be great. thanks again.

Use pothos and shefflera plant. They grow really well and are resilient. The pothos grows rather quickly and will grow practically anywhere. I Shefflera plants are really tough and can withstand constant munching from your veiled.

I wouldn't recommend a ficus for a veiled, as veileds like to eat vegitation from time to time. The sap from the ficus that will seep out after he takes a bite can cause eye infections. Hibiscus looks nice, too. It's flowers will improve the look of your enclosure and veileds like to eat the flowers, too, from what I hear. I'm having bit of trouble finding a hibiscus myself.

Also try to stay away from the fake vines. Some people like them, others don't. I, for one, think they're terrible looking and get damaged really easily. I bought some of the exo-terra ones from BigAppleHerp.com and my veiled tried to eat them and messed them up. I threw them out pretty quickly. Didn't really want my veiled swallowing rubber, plastic, and silk. Stick with live plants; it's safer, better looking, helps with humidity, and your cham can snack on 'em. Just a suggestion.