My pygmy enclosure - Page 2

roocat71 · 04-05-05, 07:13 PM

Very nice! Yeah that's charcoal.

-roo

vipervenom · 04-05-05, 07:23 PM

Is the charcoal in there to help the plants grow? For some reason I always figured it was deadly to chameleons and so always stayed away from it.

galad · 04-05-05, 11:09 PM

Hey just a question about the leaf litter. I've been collecting the fallen leaves of my alli fig. It's should be ok to add them to a Vivarium shouldn't it?

I've also heard from some people in anouther forum that if your collecting wood and leaves in a pesticide free environment you shouldn't need to go through all the trouble cleaning it. Just make sure it is a clean solid piece and there is no evidence of any bugs, such as holes. Especially if your collecting really thin twigs. Also throwing freshly collected leaves in with the little bugs still in, is good for the natural environment of a vivarium. Adding a small food source for your pygmies, or frogs.

Oh by the way meow the set up is looking much better now. You had me worried there at the start lol

peace

roocat71 · 04-06-05, 08:02 AM

The charcoal acts like a filter and like any other filter it will need to be replaced (for me it will be in a year). I am not concerned about any health issues it may cause. Charcoal is a common ingredient in aquarium filters and lots of people use it for dart frog setups. I can’t see any pygmies digging down to get at it. There is a piece of window screen that separates the charcoal from the top soil layer.

galad – I still think it’s important to clean and bake sticks, bark, and leaves. Most of it I find on the ground and some of it is starting to decompose. So it makes me feel warm and fuzzy to clean and bake this stuff so that I know anything funky growing in or around it is dead. I am not concerned about bugs; I feed wc insects to my pygmies all the time – just no spiders or anything that could harm them.

-roo

galad · 04-06-05, 12:50 PM

Yea hey roo its all up to you. IF you don't mind spending the extra time then go for it. Nothing wrong with being overly protective of our animals. But why use stuff thats allready decomposing? Mabe adding it for a more natural set up but why do all the cooking and stuff. You could have prob had some cool mushrooms growing on there if you didn't.

So for people who are worried about spending too much time cleaning. JUst take extra care in selecting the wood you use and where you collect it from.

Anyone else know if V Vway of growing moss will actually work?
If so thats awsome, saves me time going way out of the city to collect it.
Where did you get that info from V V?

peace

roocat71 · 04-06-05, 01:12 PM

Well its not super decomposed – this stuff has been sitting on the ground all winter so it’s a bit dodgy looking. I wont pull branches off the tree – I am not a “tree hugger”, just think its bad karma.

Quote:

So for people who are worried about spending too much time cleaning. JUst take extra care in selecting the wood you use and where you collect it from.

I am going to politely disagree with that to some extent. The general consensus in the cham community is to clean and disinfect items before they go into the enclosure. I’m not sure about the shrooms either. I am all for having a natural looking environment too. Shrooms scare me a bit though (going back to my much younger years), I don’t want to come home to find my pygmies rifling through my old Jefferson Airplane albums.

As for vipervenom’s yogurt potion, it’s probably worth trying. Just not in the actual enclosure. I would probably “test” this somewhere. Sounds interesting though - kind of like a chia pet.

-roo

Chris_Anderson · 04-06-05, 01:57 PM

I wouldn't put that moss growing idea to use in a chameleon enclosure. Might look like moss but mold might be a better name for it

Letting yogurt rot and confining my animals in a small space with it isn't my idea of a good idea.

Chris

vipervenom · 04-06-05, 02:53 PM

Lol, thanks Chris. I was just told for some reason it made the spore in moss grow very rapidly.

What if I put it on an object first and then set it in the cage once all of the evident yogourt and moss is gone?

meow_mix450 · 04-06-05, 05:06 PM

i was wondering how do they find food? With all the leaf little and such?

Meow

roocat71 · 04-06-05, 07:04 PM

My brevs are active in the morning and sometimes in the late afternoon. I typically feed them in the morning and treats like wax worms, moths, butter worms and small silk worms in the evenings. I place treats near by them and some of them I can hand feed. Morning feedings are things like crix, flies, roaches, and fruit flies. I usually dump them on the foliage where the brevs typically are. If they get hungry enough they will head towards the bottom of the enclosure to find food.

Inevitably some of the feeders don’t get consumed and grow large – especially the **** roaches. At night a few hours after lights out I go looking for the large feeders that are too big to get eaten. I use a small pocket flashlight and 8 inch feeder tongs. I basically creep up on the feeder and grab it with the tongs real fast. Sometimes I think a nocturnal gecko would come in handy here.

-roo

roocat71 · 04-06-05, 07:05 PM

LOL ... guess roaches is all you can say.

-roo

meow_mix450 · 04-06-05, 07:28 PM

haha seems like it. Thanks for the info

Meow

galad · 04-06-05, 10:32 PM

Jefferson Airplane albums that is too funny, lmfao.

Hey by all means take any precautions you feel necessary.

To each there own.

And now that I think of it chams would prob trample the shrooms sooner then later anyways. Shrooms are probably more of a dart frog vivarium type thing.

peace

vipervenom · 04-07-05, 01:57 PM

I have never had a problem with food insects being left and getting too big. So far I have only fed the chams fruit flies, 1/8 crickets, small silkworms, house flies, and maybe the odd sowbug. Feed a few at a time. I often find the crickets run around the cage a while before settling down, and since these chams are often active even before the lights are turned on, and the crickets are nocturnal, they usually get the rest of them.

The nice thing about house flies is if you clip one wing, they travel the entire cage, and will not hide. Also, when the weather gets nicer, some pesticide free field plankton would be great.

newticus · 04-18-05, 02:34 AM

How many pygmies would fit in a 33 gal, 36x12x18. The other thing is, if i get a male and a few females, how hard is it to breed them, and how do you find the eggs in such a dense enclosure? If you don't take the eggs out, will the adults eat the babies??

thanks