veiled question

[adamofsound]

hi all,

my male veiled (about 6-8 months old, not sure, just an estimate)

seems to be quite dark all the time. I see a lot of reddish outlines and his yellow bands are not very rich during the day.

when he sleeps at night he shows brilliant colours. very nice rich yellow bands, some blues, and some reds.

I am just wondering if this is normal behaviour of if there is something in my husbadry that is lacking or I have overlooked.

he is 6-7 inches svl ( held a tape up beside him outside his cage so this too is an estimate)

he eats and drinks regularly, and I give him crickets, silkworms and small supers as staples.

he has a dripper that supplies water for about 6 hours a day

he is in a 100 gallon flexarium (4 ft tall, 18 inches deep and 3 ft wide)

his basking spot ranges from 98-108F and he has various vines and branches at different levels an orientation to the basking spot so he can pick a comfortable temp at any time of day.

I feed him using a jar, so wantering feeders shouldnt be the cause of this

the temp drops to 72F on the coldest nights.

he gets UV from an exoterra 8.0 flourescent tube that stretches the width of the enclosure.

this is my first cham, but I beleive I did my research thoroughly.

any ideas would be appreciated.

of course, I could be just paranoid and this might just be his neutral colour, becasue when I reach in he can turn much darker and much more threatening colours


let me know what you think. if I am still worried after a few replies I will make atrip to the vet.

thanks,
Adam

[peterm15]

the darker colour USUALLY means stress.. there may be something in his cage that he doesnt like..

i have the same prob but my cham seems to have gotten slightly better since i added a second floresent light just to make it better.. i dont use a uv bulb.. just a regular.. this might help.. also you could try raising the cage to the highest possible hight by putting it on a table.. this may help..

i also read somewhere that some chams are just naturally dark.. and as long as you dont see colours like on this page you should be ok..

http://www.ssnakess.com/forums/showt...threadid=62978

just try these and see what happens.. oh and also try covering the inside of the cage with fake plants to create ALOT more cover..

[Collide]

i think if u were to post a pic of the colors that would help us determine if it is a normal color or a unhappy color. here are some pics of my cham in his normal colors







generaly speaking veilds are not fired up yellow and bright all the time although some do tend to have brighter colors then others.

here is one of them all mad u can see the dif i hope this can allow u to give us more feed back or mabey at least something to compaire too



Cheers

Brandy

[adamofsound]

thanks so much for the pics, that really does clear things up.

Id say I have nothing to worry about. Ill post some pics tomorrow just to share and make sure some experienced eyes get to back me up, or alert me to a problem

[peterm15]

when its feeding or sleeping time they tend to get a BEAUTIFUL bright green to them eh..

[ATBlover]

nice chams guys...makes me want one!....LOL..Connor