Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Ok, 2 days ago I got a new baby savannah. He is right at 7 inches from tip to tip so he's pretty small. Right now i'm keeping him in a 72 gal aquarium. My setup has 2 hides, one big and one small. Well since the first night I haven't seen him come out at all. I tried to offer him food yesterday but he didn't seem interested which didn't surprise me one bit. My question is when to start worrying about him not eating and coming out? I have read quite a few articles and I don't want to pull him out of his hide because I want to try to do everything right with him but I need a to know if this is normal and how long until I should offer food again. Thanks

(1) your enclosure will be too small in the near future
(2) Your monitor will feel more secure if he's hiding underneath (or in) something that touches him on all sides - so therefore a "big" hide isn't as useful. He would much prefer to squeeze into something than take advantage of a larger space. Do some research on "Retes stacks" (thanks Frank) - you should find some pictures and further information on good layouts for hide spots.
(3)It's hard to judge your situation without having more info, like: how was his behavior when you bought him? What are your temperatures like? What are you feeding him? What is your substrate? I know it's been said that monitors are "hard to kill", and I don't know if it's the season, the keepers, the distributors or what, but it seems quite a few savannah's aren't doing too well around here.
Back to your question - offer food every day, but get the crickets out of his enclosure if they aren't being eaten and try again the next day.