reptile heaters

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November 19th, 2009 admin Leave a comment Go to comments

reptile heaters
I cant get my veiled chameleon's cage hot and humid enough?

I bought the cage and everything that needs to be put in it before i get the chameleon but the temp is only 68F-72F with one 5.0 UVB bulb and one 75 watt ceramic heater. Humidity is 40% and i sprayed the tank 4 times a day. Does anyone have any advice on how to raise the temp? This is my first reptile so i dont know alot but i think the one good thing im doing is not buying the chameleon yet

Phew, there's a sigh of relief, I thought you had the chameleon already and was going to give you an earful.. lol

First off, chameleons are one of the more complicated reptiles and not a good first reptile at all.. Though, if you are absolutely obsessive and committed, you might be able to make it work.
First off, did you buy a screened enclosure? These guys need plenty of ventilation which can make it a bit complicated to keep the heat and humiditiy up. Hopefully your screen cage is about 2 feet by 2 feet and about 3 feet high.
For heating, you probably should have gotten at least a 100 watt, though, if your house is cool, you may even need a stronger one. I keep my reptiles in a small bedroom and just have the whole room heated up then with additional smaller bulbs for basking spots in individual enclosures.
You may want to look into getting a Mercury Vapor Bulb for daytime use instead. That way, when they bask to warmup, they are also getting UVB from the same source, but, I would still use the other UVB Fixture on the other side of the cage. See if you can exchange your 75 Watt ceramic heater for a 100 watt.
Another thing I recommend is getting a temperature gun. They are a Lot more accurate then a dial type thermometer and give you a reading of a surface temperature in a couple of seconds.
I bought one called the PE-1 by Tempgun.com for about $20 on Ebay. It works great and helps me get my temperatures exact. Remember, chameleons won't drink standing Water, so it would be best to have some sort of drip system set up. Also remember that the UVB is most effective within 12" of the lamps, so you'll want perches at about that distance and you'll want to make sure the temps on those perches are correct. That's what you'll need the laser temp gun for. A dial thermometer can't really tell you what the temp is right where the chameleon is, just the temperature of the air around it. The air might be only 80, but the perch could be 115, that's something you'll definitely need to be able to check with accuracy..
I do encourage you to rethink a chameleon for your first reptile. Perhaps save the stuff you've bought and try something easier first to make sure you can keep that species healthy. That will give you experience keeping temps correct and such on a species that won't die the first time you screw up.