Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Alrighty, so slowly I am putting together something like a chameleon home. I am using a ZooMed Powersun bulb. At the top of that giant branch the temp is 85 degrees. Do you think I should raise the bulb up so I can fill in that space more with out the cham getting burned? (Otherwise I'd just leave that space empty.)

Yeah, so right now it looks pretty bare. That umbrella was the best-size plant I could find. All the others (umbrella and ficus) I saw where bigger than me! Toward the middle and bottom I am going to put more plants (pothos) to fill in the empty space. Also, more vines or something for perching. I was thinking a trellis-like stand. Kind of like what someone would put around a tomato plant, except wooden, not metal.

That thing hanging from the top is the dripper hose.

This set-up is for a veiled, and I think I am going to get "Benny" from ReptileMax.

Nice looking cage. Did you build that? How tall is it?

And about the plants, if you have an Orchard's Supply & Hardware near you, they almost always carry HUGE Schefflera plants. There are a few in my area and I bought a couple from them that were about two and a half to three feet high out of the pot, no kidding. Other great plants to use are Dracaenas. They can grow pretty tall, but most available are about 48" high and look really good in cham cages.

Personally, I prefer to use Dracaenas, scheffleras, and Boston Ferns in my cham cages. They look pretty good together and give a little bit more of a tropical look and generally look better than ficus trees, in my opinion. Though, the ficus trees that are sold around here aren't taken care of that well. I was lucky enough to find this MASSIVE Boston fern from this small nursery that was so big, I had to do some rearranging of the other plants. It cost about 20 bucks, but it was in awesome condition and it was just enormous.

Anyway, if I were you, I'd consider getting a nice Dracaena or two to fill up the upper half of the cage and you can get them anywhere. Even the Costcos around here have them for sale and I got mine there for about 8 bucks.

Oh yeah, (not to sound condescending or anything) from the pic it looks like your cage is almost on the floor. When it's all together, you'd want to lift it higher off the ground so around the middle of the cage is eye level. The less stressed your cham will be.

But your cage looks really good. If you built that, kudos. I was going to build my cham a cage, but the design I wanted was too expensive to do right now, so I just got the standard 24"x24"x48" screen cage for the moment. How much did that cage run you?

You said something about raising the bulb up so you can fill the empty space up there. The bulb isn't in the cage is it, because that's a bad thing. lol. I doubt that's what you meant, but just in case.

What I think you should do is measure the temperature at the very top of the screening and get that to a good basking temp about 95*F and then put a Dracaena or 2 to fill in the upper portion, like I suggested in my previous post. That worked out for me anyway. Plus dracaenas are super eay to care for.

And Benny looks like a cool goofy little guy and it looks like your off to a good start.

Thats a great start - looks like you used some premium wood too. I would fill in the rest of the space at the top if you can and raise Powersun higher - chams like to be high up -as much as you can give them. I let mine out in this umbrella near a window, he took off when I wasnt looking and I spent 30 minutes looking for him. I remember this happening to someone else and it was suggested to look in high places. Sure enough he was on top of his cage looking down on me - prbably laughing at me looking for him for over a half hour (so they like to be high up). 85* is too cool for the veiled. Babies should have 90* while adults should be a bit warmer (95-100 ?? cant remember). I use a powersun to add heat, light up the whole cage up, and UVA/B - but I use a zoomed 150w bulb for a basking light. You need to keep the powersuns 12" from the animal - at that range my 160w powersun just hits 90* so I dont use it for my main heat source since my veiled is just about 6 months old and likes it a bit warmer. I dont know where you live, but try Wal-Mart or Lowes for 3' ficuses. Really nice cage - make plans and post them!

-roo

Dracaena, that sounds really familiar. I will look for one for sure.

The cage is 18inches above the ground. The enclosure area is 24x24x48. My boyfriend built it actually,haha, I have few carpentry skills. He used pine and all together it was pretty expensive, about $100. Way more than I expected. He had to make it all fancy though. Also it's semi-collaspable; there are 4 pieces that fit together. I will work on drawing up some plans.

I will take the temp at the very top and move the Powersun accordingly. I did know about the 12 inch rule, and I think the temp was 92, so I'll work on that.

Hope I covered everthing.

~Melissa

Thats a really nice cage you got there. I made one just like it my self, and it works really good. I got a idea for you, you dont have to try it if you dont want to. But for a dripper, I used a shoe string. I cut the ends off them. Then I used a small paint bucket on the top and put a small hole in the bucket and ran the shoe string threw it and down to some plastic vines. Then in the bottom I used a small plastic pan. I site another small paint bucket down in side it to catch the water. That way when the wind blows if the water gets blown over a little bit the pan will still catch the water in it. and it works really good. It takes a long time for it to run out of water, so you only have to fill it up twice a day. It drips really slow. So much clean water threw the string keeps it clean. I put fresh water in every day. If you want to try it on a small plastic cup and see how good it works first. Remember only a small hole in the cup, the biger the hole the faster the water will run ok. And the cage is really nice. Lots of hard work went in too that cage so you will injoy it a lot. Good luck.... Scott.....

Thanks, I might try the shoe string with my dripper.

I was working on posting plans for the cage earlier (for roocat), but I need drawings to accompany them, and I couldn't get them to scan, so...I am still working on it.