Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am not a reptile noob, just new to chams. I current house a 4foot green Igunana, 5foot boa, and 2 red ear slider turtles.

I purchased a Jacksons chameleon and have asked the seller to not ship it till mid next week. I wanted to have the time to set up the cage, and to try a few things out with heat, and humidity levels. Well today I goto setting things up. The cage is think might be kinda on the small side(36"tall, 20" wide, 12" deep) And at the momment all that is in there is 2 ficus plants. One on the floor, and the other stagered up on a 50CD spindle cover. Currently I have a 40watt bulb resting ontop of the screen. 4" from the top of the cage Directly under the bulb it hit 91deg. At the bottom of the cage oposite corner that the lamp is on its at 76deg. With the lamp off right now both are at 75deg. My questions about heating are.....

is 91 to high for a basking spot?
and is 75 to warm for a night time temp, and if it is how do i manage to get it colder then when my room temp is?

Now about humidity level. This will be tommarows task. It was 45% in the empty cage, once I added the ficus its uptoo 50%. I know thats still way to low. So I have a few options at my disposal. I have a driper(is the driper used more for a water sorce), a cool mist humidifier(wich might help with my low temp problem). I will used the humidifier externaly and channel it into the top of the cage using custom PVC ductwork.

Then the last big problem I am thinking about is feeding location. Should a feeding dish be suspended in "mid air" or can it be on the bottom?

I think thats all I have for now. ANY kinda input and suggestion would help out a TON! I have looked threw the forum, the gallery, and google. But non of the setups I have looked at say what kinda chameleon its for.

Thanks in advance!
soon to be new cham owner.
YaY

A couple of questions first: is this a baby or juvenile jax? Is your setup a glass tank or a cage?

If it is a juvenile that size is OK, but you might eventually want something bigger. Bigger cages give you more options for the thermal and humidity gradient. A solid sided (glass or plexi) won't work for older juveniles or adults. The glass can create reflections of the cham and stress it out. Also, chams don't understand why they can't walk through the glass and can spend hours pawing at it.

Basking. That temp is OK, don't go hotter. But, it is safer to be on the low side and have the cham bask a bit longer to reach "operating temp". Put a couple of perches at different heights so he can choose. You may have to adjust this in winter if the room temp is cooler. If your room can't cool off more than this you may have to run a small AC, cool mist humidifier, or fan blowing over some blue ice packs to cool the cage down farther. You could put a pile of blue ice packs around one area of the cage and set a fan on low to move the chilled air into the cage.

Humidity. More plants will help with this. Drippers don't do much to raise humidity, but your cool mist humidifier will. Channeling it into the cage is great...works well and saves the humidifier unit from moisture damage.

I didn't hear anything about a UV light. What are you planning to use? A ReptiSun 5.0 is a good choice for a jax as it doesn't produce a lot of heat. Brands are important...most don't produce the same amount of useable UV as ReptiSun.

I'd hang the feeding dish in the foliage. Use a larger dish than you think you need. Sometimes small cups worry chams who don't like hitting their tongues on hard surfaces. Also the insects will be more active and visible.