Using foggers to hydrate chameleons is a relatively new approach for the mainstream chameleon community, but has been used for many years by advanced breeders. The fogging technique comes from the observations of fog enveloping chameleons in the wild while they sleep through the early morning hours. This replication of the natural condition strives to give them hydration in the way that their body has developed over the ages to expect. The most progressive experiments are suggesting that fogging may be a primary method for chameleons to hydrate. This, of course, is beyond our direct human experience of drinking liquid water to hydrate so is being met with skepticism. A healthy level of critical thinking is appropriate. But more and more chameleon keepers are finding that fogging has made noticeable differences in their chameleons’ habits and has replaced traditional hydration methods such as misting and dripper. From adult Parson’s Chameleons to raising panther chameleon hatchlings, fogging as a hydration technique is being proven out by the general chameleon community. The good news is that you can experiment with fogging in steps and, at no time, does your chameleon’s health have to be at risk while you are doing it.

Note: I am an Amazon Affiliate. If there is a link on this page to an Amazon product I will get compensation at no cost to you

in this set of video podcast interviews we will be doing a closer look into fogging as a hydration technique for chameleons. Petr Necas has been a vocal proponent of fogging not only as a hydration component, but as primary hydration source. And so, I am bringing him and and we are going to be talking about the experiments he has done to show how fogging can be used.

This is a two part interview. In part one we discuss hydration in the wild and answer the question why we would be considering fogging in the first place.

In part two we talk about the details of implementing fogging in captivity.

Note: In the interview, we also touch on Petr’s ideas on over-hydration. When hearing new ideas it is important to understand them. I am still evaluating that concept myself and so I present to you this interview so that you can hear his logic. Whether you agree or not, the only way to be able to make a decision or be able to look at the evidence is to understand the thinking behind it in the first place. I invite you to take a listen and think on the concepts. And I would like to take high level view of this. The one thing that will make us strong explorers of chameleon husbandry is evaluating reasonable ideas and making decisions after careful contemplation. Even ideas that do not, in the end, turn out to be accepted are valuable in that they allowed us to practice deliberate critical thinking. The act of evaluation strengthens us.

The third video I am embedding is the Chameleons & Coffee live session I had with Petr Necas, Sean McNeeley, and James Cross where we talk about our different experiences with fogging. Sean uses fogging with hatchlings and James uses fogging with his Parson’s Chameleon. Together they represent the most challenging hydration situations – a tiny baby and the huge bodied Parson’s!

The best way to start fogging is to simply add a fogger to your current hydration approach. We don’t want to replace a hydration technique that is working until we are sure you have implemented the new hydration technique properly. So, first, establish your chameleon’s baseline hydration levels and, then, add fogging. You want to be able to measure the difference.

It is important to gauge the effectiveness of your hydration technique first so you can measure how adding a fogger (or taking anything away) affects your chameleon. Observe your chameleon when they wake up and when you offer water to understand what their drinking behavior is. When do they drink? How much do they drink. Your reason for getting involved with fogging in the first place is to make your hydration more effective. To this end, if the fogging is working correctly, you should see your chameleon drinking much less. It is common for chameleons to simply stop needing to drink further once a fogging regimen has been implemented. But let’s take small steps in that direction because implementing fogging incorrectly would not give the desired results. Establishing a baseline behavior allows you to measure results of whatever you change. The second way to measure hydration is by observing the poop. The dark feces should be tightly packed and moist while the urates will have a certain amount of orange to them. There is a range of orange that is within standard healthy hydration, but the amount of orange will grow with less hydration and shrink with more hydration. Both the drinking behavior and the poop will vary from time to time so make sure you establish a baseline from many different observations so you get a feel for the average. And as we go forward changing the hydration we change one thing at a time and observe the effect. In this manner we can switch things around with no harm to the chameleon.

Fogging should be done in the cool of the night. There may be conditions where you will have to humidify during the day, but, generally speaking, you are looking to replicate cool, high humidity nights and warmer, lower humidity days. Consult your species care guide for specific conditions to replicate. You can access care guides here: Chameleon Care Guides.

A good fogging schedule, generally speaking, is starting at 1AM and going until 6AM or right before the lights come on. You can adjust this schedule based on what your relative humidity is. If you live in a dry climate then you can leave the fogger constantly on as, even with a hybrid cage, it may be hard to keep humidity up. If you live in a humid area then you may have to cut down on the fogging. You can cut it in half by doing 30 minutes on and 30 minutes off. Because there are so many variables it is difficult to put together a chart listing definitive lengths of time and intensity of fog to use. The best way to figure out how much and how long to fog for your unique situation is to watch the poop. Set the fogger to a certain setting that you think reasonable. I usually just go to the setting which creates a cloud in the cage that produces condensation, but I do not need pea soup fog. You can also use a hygrometer and shoot for 95% to 100% relative humidity. If you get completely white urates you can pull back on the fogging until you get moist poop and 50% white & 50% orange urates.

Also note that when you fog you are putting water into the cage. It will end up on the floor or flow through the lower vents into your room. You may have puddles of water form. Just be on the look out for these. Beware of puddles in cages with a hatchling in it and beware of wet floors if the fog billows out the lower vents on your hybrid cage. If you are using a screen cage then be mindful of the walls and floor around the cage to ensure that mold does not develop. Remember that the standard rule that we want surfaces to dry out in the cage apply to outside the cage as well for the same reasons!

You will soon find out that it is not only the humidity in the room that affects how much you need to fog, but the humidity inside the cage. That humidity number is the same for people with screens cages. And this is why hybrid cages are usually used for the keeper that is aware of a chameleon’s environmental needs. Very few of our homes are naturally able to produce and support the humidity swing that chameleons experience in the wild.

The ideal application of fogging is to create a cloud that slowly circulates. We want to avoid directing a stream of fog at our chameleons. And you will see that if you have a screen cage and put a fogger hose to the top that the chameleon will eventually find its way to sleep in the fog stream. This is okay if it is a gentle fog stream by time it gets to the chameleon, but is an issue if it is a draft of cool fog hitting the chameleon. We are replicating sleeping in a cloud, not being shot with fog. And here is another place where we have so much further to go as far as equipment for our chameleons! I think a funnel would be an appropriate attachment to the end of the fogger hose to dissipate the fog before it comes in contact with the chameleon.

We are attempting to recreate a foreign condition in our homes. Each one of you will have different challenges in implementing any hydration technique. It is important to constantly monitor their hydration levels. And this is not just for fogging! Every keeper should be doing this while misting, dripping, or any other hydration technique! Misters get clogged or get accidentally turned off. You have to be monitoring every part of the chameleon’s environment that you are artificially creating whether you are fogging or not. But this is how you verify that your hydration method is working. Monitor the poop and, occasionally, put a dripper to drip on a convenient leaf and test behavior. A hydrated chameleon will ignore the drip. If your chameleon goes in to drink then you need to figure out what needs to be adjusted.

If you haven’t already, you will soon run into someone telling you that you can’t fog with the lights on or you will make your chameleon sick. There is nothing dangerous about combining light and fog. The danger comes with the heat that the lights generate combining with fog to create air which has a very high concentration of water. The warmer the air the more water it can hold and the harder it is for us to breathe. The same is true for the chameleon.

Now, it is important to understand that you will need to add humidity to the air if the relative humidity is too low for your chameleon during the day. There are times when desert winds blow in and my humidity goes does to 6%. You can bet I am misting and fogging just to keep some moisture in the air, but I also know I have to watch out for being too successful and creating unhealthful conditions.

The three biggest considerations when selecting a fogger are how big the water reservoir is, how easy it is to refill and how the fog is directed. It wouldn’t hurt to add on how easy it is to reach customer service.

1. Reservoir size. The bigger the water reservoir the less frequently you will have to fill it
2. Ease of Refill. Most foggers were bottom fill which meant the water reservoir needed to be lifted off the unit and turned upside down to fill it. Recently, top fill units have become more available and I consider this a great thing! With a top fill unit you just pour water in and you only have to remove the water basin for weekly (or whatever is necessary) cleanings.
3. Delivery. Most units marketed to the reptile community have hoses that can direct the fog to a certain location. Units that are designed as vaporizers or for human humidification will have a port that tries to get greater coverage. The hoses are best for individual cages.

1. 4L Reservoir size.
2. Top Loading

We fog our chameleons because that is a way that chameleons get hydration in the wild. Not only are they breathing in the fog, but the fog banks leave dew on the leaf surfaces. During the wet season this is all obscured by the copious amounts of rain. But during the dry season the fog/dew combination in addition to food is the only source of hydration. So it makes sense that chameleons in the wild would grow dependent upon hydration from fog banks if they were to survive. Though, in captivity, like in the rainy season, water is plentiful in various liquid forms and chameleons can easily adapt to taking in water through these different approaches. But this brings up a valid question. If we can get hydrated chameleons from misters, Dripper, showers, pipettes, or other devices, why evaluate yet another hydration method? Doesn’t that complicate things? What problem needs to be fixed? These are questions that should be applied to any new approach. And for that I give my two main reasons to continue to strive for optimizing chameleon hydration.

The first reason is that misters are not an ideal chameleon hydration technique. Chameleons hate being sprayed. This can easily be observed by most people. And this isn’t too hard to understand. Nobody likes suddenly being sprayed with water no matter how thirsty they are! So, yes, it does provide water and, yes, chameleons do get enough water with this method to be healthy, but, hydration should not also come with stress or discomfort.  And this goes for other hydration methods as well: Pipettes, water cups, fountains, bubblers, or anything else unnatural we can come up with. If we are requiring our chameleon to get water in a way that their body does not expect then they very well may be hydrated, but still not in the ideal way. Does this matter? Yes. Captivity is a series of necessary compromises. Their movements are restricted to a certain cage space, their sunlight is broken up into three different lights, their food selection is down to a handful of choices….and the list of compromises goes on and on. Each compromise adds a small physical or mental stress on the body. These stresses add up. If enough stresses add up then you have a compromised immune system and sickness. Now, we are also removing stresses such as parasitic stresses, predation stresses, and deadly weather variations, among others, so the net effect of captivity should be overwhelmingly positive. Therefore, even if misting produces a stress spike multiple times a day when it turns on our chameleons should grow up healthy. But the reason why we should not be satisfied with just that is that removing more stresses and adding years onto our chameleon’s lifespan is possible if we simply keep looking for ways of getting closer to nature and removing as many of the micro-stresses as possible. Requiring a chameleon to adapt to our hydration delivery system is going in the wrong direction. We mist because that was as close to nature as we understood 30 to 40 years ago. Getting a chameleon to drink liquid water from any of our devices requires the chameleon to get thirsty. But we are finding, with fogging, that chameleons stop having to drink. This means that there is a method that we have discovered that is both natural and appears to proactively hydrate chameleons. It is an elegant solution that replicates the natural condition and answers the question why we see chameleons drink overly much in captivity. It fits a reasonable narrative that chameleons are drinking during the day to make up for what they didn’t get at night. Hydration through fogging explains how an arboreal lizard can stay hydrated even when not exposed to rain or liquid water beyond morning dew. They do get hydration from their food items, but if that were enough we would not have as much dehydration in captivity considering how much we feed and often over feed, our chameleons.

The second reason is that we may discover something we weren’t expecting. It will always be worth pushing to get closer to nature because there will be benefits we do not expect. This has been proven time and again. Understanding subatomic particles was just a scientists playground in the early 20th century, but now that understanding is the basis of the electronics that form the foundation of our society. When the laser was first invented it was called a solution looking for a problem. People didn’t know what to do with it. But that technology has since become integral in today’s industry from space to defense to entertainment. Likewise, the greater awareness of hydration ebbs and flows over the day has already produced breeding success with species that were difficult to reproduce before. Getting closer to the natural condition is a justification in itself. The closer we get the more ideal the conditions can be and we will find benefits we didn’t know to look for.

Of course, when saying this, I have to deal with the inevitable protest that the natural condition includes parasites, predation, and sickness without medicine. And it is strange that people would throw up this smokescreen to avoid the inconvenience of us collectively growing in our knowledge of chameleons and changing the husbandry they have grown comfortable with. The unexpected answer is that, yes, we have to evaluate what benefit these dangerous conditions have for our chameleon. Our bodies evolve to expect certain hardships. In the case of Crohn’s disease the body turns on itself because it has evolved to expect certain parasites to attack and it doesn’t know what to do with itself with nothing to attack. The dry season, which kills many chameleons, also provides half a year of rest. What effect on longevity would we see if we provided that rest without the danger of dehydration? So our exploration and evaluation is to extract the benefits from the natural condition to provide an ideal life for our chameleons.

So, do chameleons need fog? The answer is that fogging may end up being the ideal hydration method. They do not need fogging to live as we have shown they will take liquid water via many different delivery mechanisms. But they may live better with fogging as their hydration method. You have probably heard the very tired sound bite that chameleons should thrive, not just survive. This is usually used by someone who is trying to push a certain husbandry approach that they cannot support with evidence. Regardless of the situation, the one objective way of helping a chameleon to thrive is to push husbandry closer to the natural condition. While “thriving” requires a healthy body and breeding, we also know that animals can be physically healthy and reproduce under substandard conditions. “Thriving” requires the chameleon to also be happy, content, and comfortable. Since there is no way of measuring that, it is too common for the expert keeper to decide their genius approach is producing happy, content, and comfortable chameleons. The only way to objectively optimize the immeasurable is by bringing husbandry closer to the natural condition.

To go alongside the people finding great success with fogging, there are also concerns being raised about the dangers of fogging. These are as general as people saying they see respiratory infections when fogging is used and as specific as concerns about cleanliness.

Fogging is just like misting, dripping, or any other hydration or husbandry technique. If it is done incorrectly or with dirty equipment then it will be a health hazard. But that is a poor reason to reject something that has the benefit of bringing your chameleon’s care closer to nature. Almost everything is blamed for causing respiratory infections. I can find people saying that glass cages cause respiratory infections (RIs), that misting systems cause RIs, that foggers cause RIs and the list goes on and on. It seems that everything  can cause RIs. Respiratory infections come from the body being worn down due to chronic stresses from their environment that weaken their immune system. So, it is true that anything done improperly can eventually result in a respiratory infection. Fogging included. And RIs hold a particular concern for something that you breathe in. But benefits of understanding fogging are substantial and the ways to safely implement what we are discovering is easy to implement. Fogging is not a direct path to respiratory infections. I have been using fogging extensively for years across many individuals, and species with no respiratory infections to report. The appeal to respiratory infections is a argument for heightened attention to cleanliness, but it is not effective to discredit the tool that fogging offers. You simply have to watch people doing it long term to realize it doesn’t hold water that using foggers correctly results in a respiratory infection.

That said, it is definitely valuable to identify how fogging can be used incorrectly and result in problems. Because every technique we use has a point where incorrect use becomes a health hazard. And we would do well to understand where that point is for every product or tool we use. Foggers do get whatever they are producing directly into the lungs so, while fogging itself is not going to cause a respiratory infection, it certainly can be a quicker path to one if used incorrectly.

For fogging the danger points are 1) high temperature fogging, 2) cleanliness and 3) blasting fog.

1. High Temperature Fogging. When is fogging too much for chameleons? Fogging is putting water into the air. There comes a point where there is too much water and it gets hard to breath. To understand this we have to consider the physics of temperature vs humidity. The warmer the air is the more water it can hold. The cooler the air the less water it can hold. This is why 50% relative humidity at 80F has much more water in the air than 50% at 60F. So, the dew point, the temperature at which the air cannot hold any more water and it condenses, goes up when the temperature goes up. This is why you hear the admonishment to not mist or fog when the lights have heated up the cage. It isn’t because light and fog combined are an issue. It is because lights bring heat which then combines with fog to create air which has more water than we are comfortable breathing. Do you notice how it can be hard to breath when you are in a steam room? That is the stress that will cause health issues with a chameleon. We do not want them to have trouble breathing because there is too much water in the air. The solution is to fog in the early morning when it is cool. This is the way it happens with chameleons in the wild so this is what they are adapted to. This also has a convenient way of blanketing the surfaces with dew. So, yes, when used improperly, health issues can arise. The key is that instead of seeing people implementing it wrong as a reason to ignore new ideas, you learn the correct way to use a tool and help people do it correctly to enjoy the benefits. According to our present understanding, fogging is best done in the 60sF, or under 20 Celsius. I expect that we will learn more with years of experimentation ahead of us.
2. Keep your fogger clean. Keeping your fogger clean is an obvious important aspect. Anything dealing with water requires extra hygiene. Your fogger is doing the same thing as the nebulizers that deliver medicine to your body through the lungs. So, yes, whatever is in the fogger is in the body. Although this is sometimes presented as a risk too great, and, yes, it does sound serious, you just have to look at the community that is using foggers and see that they are being used safely with standard cleanliness practices. That and the fact that cool mist humidifiers are used for humans and for delivering medicine. So we should definitely take cleanliness seriously, but we should also acknowledge that this is a tool which can be useful if used properly. Once again, fogging is being presented not because we got bored of misting or just decided we needed something new. It is being implemented because it provides a benefit for our chameleon and gets us closer to the natural condition. Those benefits are worth working for. That said, it really is quite easy to keep your fogger clean. A weekly soak in vinegar and dry is effective. Reference this link for some cool mist humidifier cleaning:
3. The fog blast. I am guessing that the most common issue we will see is the blast of fog. And this is where you have the equivalent of hydrating via fire hose. Remember that we are trying to replicate fog from the wild. There are no jets of fog like in a hot tub. It slowly appears or rolls down the mountainside as a cloud. But it is always gentle. Cut to our foggers and you see that coming right out of the tube is a jet of fog. Point that at your chameleon and you have created an unhealthful draft. Yes, the intensity of the fog dissipates pretty quickly, but if you have that jet over a small cage with a hatchling you can see how that hatchling would soon have health issues. This needs to be on your mind with hatchlings mainly because we tend to keep them in smaller cages. Just like basking, UVB, and misting, fogging needs to be toned down to be in proportion to the cage size. This can also happen in screen cages. You will note that a screen cage quickly dissipates the fog so you end up with about 12” of fog and nothing on either side. Just like UVB, heat, and misters, we do not want to force the chameleon to get too close to the source to feel like they are getting the benefit. Getting too close to any of those sources produces burns and, yes, respiratory infections. One way to avoid this danger is to use hybrid cages that can hold in the fog and produce a miniature cloud. If the chameleon is able to get fogged on its favorite sleeping branch then it won’t have to seek out the source of fog.

So, yes, there are ways that foggers can be used incorrectly. Let’s do our evaluation of a technique at the level that most people are able to execute it at. There will always be concerns brought up for every technique we use. It may be difficult to separate out the ones that are valid and the ones that just don’t make the cut. They all sound reasonable and intelligent when presented! So, this is where critical thinking comes into play. Ask what the world would look like if the concerns were true. For example, if you hear that fogging is dangerous because of X happening then look around to the people doing fogging and ask if they run into X. The fact that fogging is accused of causing respiratory infections, but the proponents of fogging are not seeing respiratory infection is enough to justify much more evaluation of the RI claim. There is a whole group on social media dedicated to the idea that misting causes respiratory infections. The only way that thought process can flourish is when people do not look around them at the overwhelming number of keepers that use misting and do not experience RIs. The lesson here is to listen to the warnings, but do not accept them at face value. Regardless of how many of the concepts you understand (there have been detailed explanations even I am left feeling are hard to follow), you can always ask yourself if what they are warning about is truly happening. It is important that people propose and explore new ideas and it is important that we evaluate new ideas before accepting them and definitely before confidently repeating them! But it is also important that we allow for new ideas to come into our husbandry for us to be able to move forward.

The fact is that, circa 2023, relatively few people have embraced fogging. It is growing more and more so that will change over the years. But there will be few social media groups, breeders, or advisors that will understand foggers and their use. More than that, they are likely to discourage you from using techniques they are not familiar with. Understand this going in. The way new ideas take hold is that the first wave of one or a couple of people bring it up. You saw that happen on the Chameleon Academy Podcast in 2018 when I interviewed Petr Necas, shared my own experience and brought on Mario Jungmann who has been fogging for years. Years later we have the second wave of people who listened, tried it out on their own, and found success. The second wave is now sharing their experiences and the benefits they have found from fogging. Social media admins and breeders who have a set system they have used for ten years will often come along somewhere around the fifth wave. Just realize we are early in the process and there is still resistance from those that are comfortable with their present husbandry. Obviously, any group which follows Petr Necas or the Chameleon Academy will be well versed in the benefits of fogging and will be able to help trouble shoot the situation.

Fogging appear to be a significant hydration technique for chameleons. But we are still working out the ways to turn it into a recipe so beginners, who just follow the directions, can use fogging with as little risk as possible. Chameleons are not simple and there should never be a mindset that believes that everything will be able to be distilled into a nice neat fool-proof package of instructions. But, as more and more people adopt fogging, there will be a greater level of confidence in how not to do it wrong. And that is how things work. A handful of people figure out how to do it right and then the community discovers all the ways to do it wrong! We are in the beginning stages of figuring out all the ways it can be done wrong. So, where does that leave you? Make a judgement as to how well you will be able to gauge your chameleon’s hydration and health. If you are confident enough that you want to try something off the main stream, then fogging is a good choice. I have produced a number of podcast and video episodes on fogging and it really isn’t that hard to be successful with it. The second wave of adopters is now helping the third wave. But if you are not confident right now then don’t worry about it! There will be fourth, fifth, and sixth waves. Just jump on when you feel you are ready!