Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have my chameleon in an open uncaged fairly big environment. My question is my backing spot at this time is around 90degrees. I have a 100 watt bulb and my UVB bulb hanging. What else should i do should I:
a)Buy another clamp lamp fixture and basking bulb for more light and heat.
b)Buy the ceramic heat emmiter and a cage clamp lamp for extra heat as opposed to light.I already own a 150Watt heat emmiter w/o the lamp

Is this a veiled? Is your cham spending all its time under the basking lamp? Is it showing "too cool" colors most of the time? What is the temp in the other parts of the free range area? You are pretty close to a good basking temp for veileds now, so if your cham doesn't seem to be cold and the rest of the area is not too cool I don't see a problem. It may just bask a little longer in the mornings depending on how cool the room gets at night. I'd rather err on the conservative side of temps to avoid a possible burn.

carlton im sorry i meant its only 85 in basking and when he leaves his light its about 72 it wont be like this for long im going to the city tomorrow to pick stuff up. i was just wondering if the heat or more light and heat would be benneficial. Although right now he isnt showing colours of being cold and he isnt dark trying to absorb heat. He is a bright green with yellow stripes and baby blue spots

How far away from the basking perch is the bulb? How are you measuring the temp? The reason I ask, is because that temp seems very low for a 100 watt bulb unless you are measuring it fairly far away from the bulb itself. Also, at that low temp your cham would most likely be spending a lot of time warming up, more than it seems like he is. His color sound OK, so maybe your temp readings are off. Simply measuring the temp incorrectly can mislead you. For example, if your bulb is 24" above the perch your cham sits on to bask, the AIR temp around the cham is usually cooler than the cham's skin surface. A regular glass tube thermometer can really only measure the temp of the air around itself or the temperature it's own glass rises to, neither of which is really telling you what you want. If you are using one of those stick on thermometers that is out of the direct path of the heat bulb again you may be seeing a temp reading that is too low. To measure your cham's skin surface accurately (which is kind of the point) the best way is to use a non-contact infrared temp gun. You point it at the cham and it will tell you the skin temp in just seconds. These temp guns are great, and they cost very little these days. You can measure the surface temp of literally anything at any time. There's no need for more than one thermometer for all your setups as you can simply move from spot to spot with it. ProExotics, LLLReptile, and some other frequent advertisers on this forum sell them for around $30. Rather than risk a burn from too much heat, see if you can get more accurate temp readings from the cham itself and then add light if you still need it. Does that make sense?

How far should the bulb be away it is now about 10 inches away from which he can get to should I place it a little closer. I measure temp with those [bleep]ty stick thermometers I am going to buy somthing else soon. But i am going to set up the heat emmitter and see what that does first. i am going to put it even further away than the bulb is so it wont only heat up the basking but the area around it a little bit better. I am goin to set it up at luch hour and see what its like tonight. Although if i can place the bulb closer than i can use the emmiter in a different area to kind of make his daytime timperatures a little bit warmer like 82 or so probably, its at like 73 now. Basking is only showing 85. This stuff is a lot of work but its worth every minute of it. I am liking the free form habitat better than my mesh terrarium. The thing that is a lot bette about him roaming is that he has no way to break any nails. He is missing a couple now that have been broken or kind of sanded off I can still see the a bit of the nail so i know it will grow back and this way he wont keep sanding it back down .

Again, I can't tell you how close to put the light! The only way to know for sure is to check the temp of the surface he's sitting on when basking, or to check the temp of his skin while he is sitting there.