Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I do not post often and maybe that is because I hear of all the successful breeding projects and I have been shutout on my monitors. I have hatched Geckos but never got monitor eggs. WELL!!! That is no longer a true statement!
I have 7 beautiful Red Ackie eggs laid tonight in a nesting box

FRANK! Thanks!!! We spoke once and your advice was keep them hot feed them allot! IT WORKED>
I will post tomorrow.
Question is the egg box should it be sealed with or without air holes. DO you meaasure the tem in the incubator or inside the sealed tupper ware??
Help appriciated!

Right on with the eggs!! Good luck.

I incubate with a sealed container, and crack the lid once every other day to just get a little circulation in the tub. Measure the temps from inside the container. The temp probe should be placed at egg level. Exact temps I'm not too sure, but someone else here should be able to help with that. Again, good job!!!
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Greg Holland
GM HERPS
www.imageevent.com/gmherps
gmherps@sbcglobal.net

Congrats!!!!
Now comes the hard part.
Good Luck Brother!
Mike
Mike's Monitors!

Congratulations, that is so exciting. I was so happy when mine laid their first cluth, the first babies are extra special. Not that I have much experience, but I was told to put four pinholes in the top and that's what I did. When I added water to the bottom of my incubator, I slightly opened the top of the box for air exchange, and it worked for me. Best of luck to you with your eggs. Hope to see your next post with baby pics. The pics are from my very first babies.

Pam

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2.3 varanus acanthurus brachyurus (Dorado, Oro, Dora, Freckles & Amarillo)
1.1 varanus acanthurus acanthurus (Tabasco & Sprite)
0.0.1 varanus caudoleni (caudolineatus x gilleni-Wizard)
1.1 u. macfadyeni (Amani & Abeba)
1.2 u. ornata (Husani, Zari, & Bintu)
1.1 u. ocellata (Zuhri & Ashai)
1.2 xenagama taylori (Asad, Ayana & Ayan)
1.1 hyla chrysoscelis (Pudge & Squirt)
Herps Are Awesome!

OK Hold on...need to get more details
first

egg box-tupperware??? closed tightly then pin holes?? Did you have a temp probe inside the egg box?? What temp did you use?
I have a hovabator. I guess you mean put water in base of incubator?
What box did you open to let air in the egg box or incubator>>
How long did they incubate>??

hovabators are less than ideal but will work well for one or two clutches if set up right.
dont put water in the base
humidity will be provided by your incubating medium( perlite )
start with a 1:1 raio of perlite/water(by weight)

here are my personal tips:
no airholes needed in egg container-air exchange will happen when checking every few days.
weigh container every few days-add water with a dropper as needed.( with many incubators weekly or monthly checks are needed but I recomend checking more often when using a hovabator)
put the hovabator in a closet or make an additional box for it- try to put it where the temps remain most consistent.

Here is the most important tip when using a hovabator:

surround the egg container with closed water bottles( fiji waterbottles work best because they are square and won't roll)
this will help to hold the temps when you open and close the incubator.(you can also use this water to add to your medium as it is the right temp)
also.
make sure your temp probe is IN the egg box, that is the temp that counts,not the incubators ambient temp.
probably forgot some stuff but I hope that helps
Ben

First, I do not recomend hovabators, toooooo small. Also, I see no reason to add water bottles, that is odd to me. Adding water bottles is merely another secondary method of having mass, and thats whats needed, mass. The medium should be as large as possible. Then theres no need for water bottles. The Perlite mixture(50/50)is both your temperature mass and humidity mass. I also never add water during incubation. If your adding water, that means your losing water excessively. Why would you lose water????? If your losing to much water, then fix that problem, not patch it.
Ben is right about the air holes, I have them in lots of lids and not on others. If i had one clutch, then no holes is fine. If I have five or six clutches in one box, then i use air holes.

Its all about conditions and no one answer. Its also all about your conditions and thats what makes advice on hatching eggs difficult. Heres the real deal, good monitors eggs are very easy to hatch. Bad eggs are not so easy to hatch. Bad eggs come in many ways, from infertile, to dead fertile, to weakened living eggs. The last group has a low hatchrate. The last two groups are based on suitable nesting. But all said and done, a good strong clutch will hatch without incident in all sorts of temps and conditions.

The reason hovacookers are not so good is, they lack mass. So they can and do change conditions, which is not a problem, they just change them to quickly for varanid eggs, they like to change slowly.

ALso, all you can do is set them up, which you have better done already, then maintain them. Which is to not allow to much change. Then all you can do is hatch them or not. You cannot muck with them and have a benefit. Mucking with them usually results in failure. No worries mate, if these fail and you support your ackies, they will throw more at you to muck with. Cheers

I forgot the entire first paragraph, Congrats sir, hahahahahahahahahaha Cheers

I agree that hovabators are not the best, but that's what this dude has.I agree that more mass= better but why not use the water bottles if that is what you have, like you said it adds mass,and it does help hold temps, when you open that sucker up it will lose all the heat( odd?). Again for this reason and many others hovabators are not ideal.

If you have room for water bottles, then you have room or a larger egg box. A larger egg box is more temp and humidity mass. Not just temp mass. See what I mean?

Keep in mind, I have seen all sorts of egg containers, like large monitor eggs in deli cups, etc. Cheers

n