Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Here is my new water monitor. He is very shy now, but still comes out if its quiet and still. in the shop he was in he was the most vibrant social animal out of all his brothers and sisters. when some were hiding he was always out showing off. i have had him for a month now. he is progressively getting more social. he still hides 98% of the time, but thats way less than it was at first. what im trying to say is i do see improvement, its just taking a while. is it safe to say he will return to his awesome self with time? i believe so, just a little impatient. enjoy the pic. and if anyone sees anything wrong with the setup let me know.

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water dish looks a little small.
keep in mind they like to swim.
overall it looks like a good set-up.
should last for about a month or 2 .lol.
just kidding.
a cat litter pan makes a nice pool for a small water monitor.
good luck
--Cody

I should have mentioned that i did change the pan to a full size cat litter box. Also the dimentions are 4x4x8, so this should do for quite a while.

Here I go again, Ok, please take this as its about what is good for the monitor and realistic.

You should understand, these days are different then the old days. The old days had different expectations. They also had different realities. They didn't know how the potential of these great monitors.

Your cage is nice looking for a cage that is "not" about monitors. Its nice looking from a human and petshop point of view.

You do understand, you welcome to ask questions to explain any area of my post. And please do not get mad at me. I am only saying what needs to be said, for the sake of the monitor.

If you want(you don't have to want this) a cage thats good for your monitor. I assume you do. Then you judge your cage on the progress of the monitor. If you allow temps that are normal to monitors, and you feed it, your water will grow to the 4 to 6 foot area, in the first 8 months to a year. Sirs/ladies, that is reality with normal/good/average husbandry. Other husbandry that does not allow that, can be judged as not so good. Of course, great husbandry will exceed this.

So if your successful(I hope you want to be) then your cage is only good for a few months. Understand, this is why most with experience do not recomend Salvators. They get big, if you do a good job they will get big, the husbandry to allow them to get big is here already.

Back to your cage. Its completely a people cage. It looks good to people. A monitor cage would have much more depth of substrate. a couple feet deep, it would have larger branches, so the monitor can go up to the basking lites(those lites at that distance are worthless)( it defeats the purpose of a basking area) At that distance those lites heat the cage and not a basking area. It would have hollow logs or cork bark, for the monitor to thermoregulate in. It would have these hollows going into the substrate. And so much more.

As mentioned, the water. You purchased a WATER monitor, that means, a good part of their habitat is WATER. Their behaviors are all about using WATER. So why do you have a cage with no water. I know, you put a cat litter pan for water. That makes no difference at all. Their behaviors are to swim and more, swimming means to move thru the water, not sit in it. You could have picked a species that only drinks water, then your pan would be fine.

Please understand, these are the realities, not the hopes and dreams.

I do not want to offend you, but you picked the wrong species. Most people do, your not alone. The sad reality is, tens of thousands die each and every year. The reason is, people do not know or care, what they are getting into.

Of course you are welcome to explain you are aware of these things and will prepare yourself for the future. I hope this is the case. Cheers

The lights are just right where they are. They each heat a individual basking area. The bulb to the right heats a basking area to 120*f. The one to the left heats that basking area to 95*f. He uses both of them quite regularly. The ambient temp in the cage at ground level is 80 on the cool side and 88 on the warm side. Temps at night do not fall below 75 ambient. There is 2 hollow logs that are now buried in the substrate, the pic doesnt do it justice. He will eventually outgrow this tank, i do understand this. I live in florida where he can successfully be kept outside. i plan on building a large atrium style cage with a decent size pool. i agree with what you said, and I was already aware of this. I have been keeping monitors for 7 years now, i am far from an amatuer. This is my first water however. thanks for your input, jeff

Those are large basking areas with thick sturdy branches, for him to climb and bask. Im not sure how they look small and insufficeint to you, but they are perfect for him, and will be for the next several months.

Do you have a picture of your cage? I would like to see that. I am actually thinking about getting one, but have not deceided and was seeing what you keep yours in.

Thank you

Jeff
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All my pics are hosted on another site, and its down. Its suppose to be up and running soon.

From your question, U know, What your CAGE is like. I guess you don't know me. Actually I have been keeping and breeding lots of monitors. I have averaged around 200 monitors for the last fifteen years. At one time, mid ninties to early two thousands, I averaged around 500. Yes sir, that includes babies I was not keeping. Of course the actual amount of adults is/was much lower. Never more then 150, and around 50 now. That includes over 20 different species I was successful with. One year, we produced 18 species in one year.

I say that just to make it clear, I am not an average keeper. In such, I do not keep monitors like most keepers. The major difference is, I do not use one cage. For all animals I use a series of cages for all species. Raise up cage, holding cages, breeding cages, nesting cages, etc. Of course any cage can do more then one of those tasks.

I find monitors go stale if kept in any one cage, I do not care how good or decorated it is. And to a point, how large it is. I have cages up to 20ft by 20ft and 10 feet high. And they stale out in there as well, even small monitors. I also have every combination of cages, from outdoors to indoors to combos of those.

The largest monitors I keep now are Lacies(kinda a lot of them) But I have kept and bred Croc monitors. I have kept and bred(got eggs w/o hatching) cumingi as well. V.s.cumingi were suppose to be a smaller water monitor. I raised a male to six foot in one year. I guess size depends on care/support.

I do not keep Salvators because they are much too large for my enclosures. And I have huge cages. You see, my experience taught me, Salvators are only for those few who have special circumstances to house such large monitors properly.

I love monitors because they are a HUGE bag of behaviors, from social, group, antisocial, to bonding, hunting packs, nesting, and a million variations of each of those and combinations of those(and much more). Which means, they are not boring. That is, if you allow said behaviors. In a little cage(box, personal comm, Daniel Bennett) they do little more then eat and poop. To me, that is more then boring, thats torture. Both for the keeper and the kept.

For instance, Argus monitors are nearly as much a water monitor, as Salvators are. But they do not get anywhere the size. Don't get me wrong, some male argus can push two meters(over 6 feet) But are normally much smaller.

Why I posted the first post. It appears that keeper wants to take good care of their monitor. There cage expressed they were willing to do that. But I did and still do not believe they understand the post or the monitor. If you do take good care, your going to have a 7 foot plus monitor that is so strong they can break metal doors(how I lost my female cumingi) And dig thru walls. The person that started the thread, somehow still thinks they have a handle on the situation. But the problem is, they don't, not if they do a good job. If they do a bad job, then no worries.

One more thing. Monitors eat like pigs, the larger they get, the more they eat. Giant ones still want to eat as much as a small ones. Only THEY ARE BIGGER. Can you afford five adult rats a day, or everyother day? get the picture?

Remember, this thread is about taking good care of them, not keeping them in perpetual semi-hibernation, where they become giant fat ticks that cannot walk. Then die at a very young age. Which is the fate of most that reach adult size.

Now think about it again, a monitor normally walks long distances, and with waters, swim long distances. They normally bask in very high temps and have a metabolism near mammalian. So your going to take an animal that noramlly swims long distances, not miles, but meters, and your going to give it a kitty litter pan? I guess we have different ideas of what good is. Please don't take it personal, just stop and think about it. Cheers

I do not question your experience, or your knowledge. I think its good that you paint a true picture for people. I agree keeping animals in small cages is cruel, like sharks, lizards or snakes. However zoos keep them in good conditions, and I say good not great because you stated how long they walk and how long they can swim for, and no ones can replicate that unless you give them an acre land to roam.
I actually do not have a monitor but am looking at getting one, or a tegu, and I have not yet deceided. As you can see I like the large animals, I find them better to work with and I was never for the get a small one and see if you like it then get a big one. I go with what I like and can take care of for a life time. I have read good things about the Water Monitor, but others say Ackie. Whats the difference between the Nile and the Water?
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Honestly if well cared for the only difference between nil’s and water, is that nil’s are way much tougher then waters, I mean this in every sense, heat, cold, food, water.

They do get as big and feed as much, they can become trustworthy or not just as waters. Peoples saying one specie is safer then the other, are mostly peoples who never kept any of these more then a year or 2, as this is the time its takes most nil’s to calm down and trust you. Then you can really see that nil’s have a peculiar spark to them (thinking beings) I haven’t seen in any waters.

My Tanzanian nil’s are sweet harts, they outgrown my Malayan waters by there 3rd year, I truly have a relation with them unlike my waters, witch I cant handle in anyway.

I am not the only keeper with adult waters that cant be touched.
rgds

Please understand, I am not saying they cannot be kept properly. I am sure there are a some keepers doing a wonderful job, In fact, I know of some around here.

I am also not saying it should be against the law. I think we should have the right to keep them. I am saying waters should not be kept by the average keeper. You see, the keepers resources all vary, but the monitors don't.

I think its our responsibility to think about what we are doing, Not go buy a water monitor, mainly because they are cheap. They are anything but cheap(inexpensive)

About zoos, they are pretty much like private keepers, some are very good, some are really really poor. Cheers

Its like anything, really, can be great or can be bad. Whats your thoughts, Nile or Water? Are they similar in size? Personality? In anyones opinion what is the better larger lizard? I am looking for social, and maybe a monitor is not right. Again Thoughts would be appreciated.

All I have now is to compare them to snakes I have. So here is some questions. My Anaconda, they say needs a large water dish (spending most of the time in the water), however the breeder I got him from does not use them, just driking bowls, and has successfully kept them and bred them. One problem with to large of a water hole is that its very hard to keep clean and more bad then good can come from it, and since its parents, parents never where in the wild, the large water dish is not a nessasity. Could the same be said about water monitors? Just a question if anyone has done studies.
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0.2 Rotts
1.0 Super Tiger
0.1 Green Burm
0.1 Ball Python
0.1 Red Tail
0.1 Blood Python
1.0 Green Ananconda
1.0 Emerald Tree Boa

Hmmmmmmm, a couple of things, anacondas are snakes, No legs. They are not active snakes, like racers. A monitor has legs uses them and is very very active compared to snakes.

About what type to get, neither a nile or water, get an argus or gouldi/cross/flavi. Anyone of the gouldi group.

Argus get big enough to be a handful but not so large to require support you cannot supply. The others from the gouldi group are the same only a little smaller.

These guys have so much behavior, you may get crazy. Argus are often referred to as normal monitors(active) on SPEED. Cheers

The size of an enclosure is of little importance if the cage doesn't work for the reptile.

I'll give you an example, and this is something i tend to see a lot with beardie keepers, and also a lot with tortoise keepers. I often see pictures while I'm surfing the web of massive enclosures to house these reptiles. I've seen tons of pictures of 6 or 8 foot enclosures to house a single bearded dragon (and have talked to someone that keeps their beardie in an 8' long, 4' deep, 4' tall enclosure). The cages are huge. The problem however is that the most basic husbandry has been overlooked. The temperatures are insufficient, The cages are almost always completely dry with a very modest amount of poor quality substrate, and I tend to see a lot of enclosures with no hiding areas (or at least very poor ones). There's usually way too much ventilation (full screen tops). They are poor cages. I have seen some good ones, but for the most part people seem to be under the assumption that giving a reptile a lot of space is going to negate the affects of their poor husbandry.

I see the same thing with tortoise keepers. Huge enclosures, but with no humidity (because most of them do not have any lid), and insufficient temps (because the heat lamps are up too high). Often I look at those pictures and wonder about how much better off the reptiles would be in smaller enclosures that offer them everything they need.

So I kind of think it's a combination of things, but a large cage is useless if that's all it is.