Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am looking at getting into dwarf caiman, I am looking at palps rather than trigs because I like the idea of the smaller size and less aggressive personality. I live in southeastern Louisiana and since my home literally backs up to the bayou I am quite used to dealing with wild gators up to 11 ft long. the little 4 and 5 footers are everywhere and I have had to take more than one from inside my back yard back to the bayou, so I am confident I can deal with these caiman for their entire lives.

I have a 180 gallon tank to start with for them, is this good for a group of 4?

Is it alright to keep 4 together if the enclosure is large enough?

Is there any inherent problems I have to look out for?

I am reading that they feed on rodents, fish and crawfish, is this a good staple or is there something else I need to get for them? (I breed rats for my ball pythons, so I have no shortage of pinkies and pups for them when they are small and I catch crawfish in my back yard for my family to eat, so I suppose I could keep the small ones for them)

Where is a good place to get them and are there any being captively produced?

Anything else I need to know?

I would love to see the setups which anyone keeps them in successfully. I plan on moving mine out to my 5800 gallon pond in my sunroom when they are about 2.5ft. Any pics I can get for ideas would be much appreciated.
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1.21 ball pythons
1 speckled kingsnake
1 snapping turtle
1.0 argentine horned frog
1.1 English Bulldogs

5800 GALLON pond in a sunroom??

I would LOVE to see that!! I've been thinking of doing something like that - could you post pics of it? even 1 one would be awesome, thanks!!

Mr. F

I don't have it done yet, like I said the slab will be poured here in a couple of months and then I will start building the pond once the slab cures. I am going back and forth on how I am going to do it. I can either put it above ground, building it out of cement block and reinforcing it with rebar. Then painting the inside with a few coats of inground pool paint. Or I can have a large section of the slab not poured (10'x20')and then line it and build a little two block high wall around it so the dogs don't jump in or something. I am still toying with either idea. If I do it above ground then there will be thee seperate ponds. 18'x6'x4' (3200 gallons) and two at 15'x4'x3'(1200 gallons each) plus the filtration system and so on will bring it to just under 6000 gallons.

I have a good friend who has his own construction company. He has built a few big above ground ponds himself so he is comming out in a month and working the numbers with me. As soon as I get it done there will be pics all over the place.
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1.21 ball pythons
1 speckled kingsnake
1 snapping turtle
1.0 argentine horned frog
1.1 English Bulldogs

this is muy dwarf caiman summer enclosure, wich he will share with my spec soon...

best wishes

Rick

and winter enclosure