Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i have kept large moniters before niles and savanas but they where always very agresive and as i have gotten older i tend to want to keep less agresive animals and i understand that the tegu (argetine) can become quite persoanble.

so i have got a
4x2x2 meleamine cage
a clamp light with a 100 watt bulb getting a basking spot up to about 105
4-6 inches of orchid bark
and large bowel about 10x10 full of water that is about 5 inches deep
a uvb repti sun 5.0
a large shallow feed bowel so worms crix and pinks can't get out
and large plastic container with a hole cut into partialy burried in the substarte with opening 1/2 exposed for it to crawl into
since i keep bearded dragons and leos crickets and superworms are very plentyfull

so i am all set up want to do some more reading but here is a question where to buy from ? who do you guys recomend that has first healthy well kept tegus and best prices.

i just want it as a pet not a breeder or anything i breed leos and dragons this is just a pet lizzard that is a large guy but not like iguana large and nile mean

thanks
mat price

Yeah I think your on the right track considering tegus. By far most of the argentines and blues are nice. Your setup sounds good except one thing; it's going to be too small for an adult. You can expect an male Argentine to get 4' long. 6' by 3' is really the bare minimum cage size for a 4' tegu.

oh yeah on cage this is a unused beardy cage it would be for a htachling adult cage would 10x4x2 in my sownstairs reptile room.

Mat

question what is better heat mat or spot light for these guys

thanks
Mat

Maybe you would know the answer to spot light vs. heat mat better than I would. I and a lot of people here just use lights. I put a dark tile under 100 watt UV flood and a 40 watt light for 120 degrees. I have noticed now that they're bigger that they have to spend more time basking to get hot enough and when I take them outside they get warmer then they ever do inside. Maybe it's because the dark tile takes awhile to build up heat then they absorb it so the tile gets cooler when they lay on it. In any event they do get enough heat because they didn't go outside for a week here and they still ate numerous mice daily. How was it before with your large monitors? Did you use heat pads? Ever notice anything like this?

I would most reccomend www.agamainternational.com. I've very happy with the baby I got from there and the service/price. I'm also happy with the healthy B&W baby I got from www.bluetegu.com. The one from agama was a little more frightened/skittish as a baby maybe that's because Bert raises them all outside.
The top of picture is bluetegu.com the bottom one is agamainternational.com