Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hello... i post in other forums allot but not so much in here.. my name is brandon or Meaingless Endeavor in the other reptile forums.

question.. what sort of systoms do you guys with adult niles use for draining the watter out of your cages? i am planing to build my monitor its adult cage in another month or two and im trying to get a few ideas before starting construction. It will be 8'4'4 with two feet of that being for beding. i would like to use one of the small pond liners from home depot as the water sorce but they dont have drains in them so i was thinking about getting a drill and some PVC to test my plumbing skills and try to put in a drain... have any of you done this? if so i would love to see some pics of what you came up with so i can get a visual... thanks for you help in advance.

ive attached a pic of the little guy from a few months ago.. (he's now around 3 1/2 feet.. coming up to 4 in no time)... he was under a foot when i got him in JAN... i love how fast they grow
Link

i linked it wrong.. here is the pic... (again this is a few months old.

Ok, Ive asked this sorta question in the past, and heres the response Ive gotten:

Dont use drains with large monitors- the mass amount of feces (especially from something like a large Nile) will EASILY clog any sort of draining system you install.

This leaves you with 2 general options.

1. You can go the simple route, which in and of itself has 2 ways to go. Both are basically just using a large water container(generally at least large enough for the animal to submerge/swim in) that can be easily removed for cleaning. These are the 2 basic ideas:
A. You can just use a large feature and position your cage so that its easy to remove and dump/clean.(this greatly depends on where you keep your animal in the home- if you have it in your bedroom, this may not work as well as if you have it, say, in your basement)

B. You can use a large feature and, using a siphon pump (pretty cheap at most auto-stores; got mine at pep-boys), remove most of the water without drawing in too much feces.

(Note: The problem with this that Ive found, is that over time SOME particles of feces and substrate DO manage to make their way into your siphon, which makes it nearly useless if you dont clean thoroughly after each use)

2. You can go the expensive route, and install a pump with a backflow that can pump out any sludge/poo that gets clogged in the drain- all the same, im told it still results in constant maintenance to keep working.

My suggestion?

Either use a singular large water feature that can be removed easily or, what I do, use a relatively small water feature (only JUST big enough for the animal to fit into in case it wants to soak) and offer a humid hide.

Offering an equivalent water feature to an adult nile or other water monitor species is going to result in TONS of mainanence, and constant water changes. While its nice to think of offering some massive setup, if you cant properly maintain it you might as well just forgoe it.

In this case, if you cant keep the water clean (without too much stress to you or the animal), you need to find a new strategy.

Keep in mind- this stuff is NASTY and you want to be VERY careful about handling monitor poop (ALWAYS wash hands, etc.).

i did same thing for my waters cage. I used a 100gal plastic pond liner from Lowes, picked up a kitchen sink drain and some PVC lines to run with a ball and socket shutoff at the front of my cage. Then i picked up a few feet of thin rubber fireman hose type of stuff and ran it into the floor drain in my basement. No back ups yet. and its going on 3 years. I look at it as the dead rat logs that float down that floor drain are no larger than the human logs that fly down the drains.

Where i F'ed up was (1)building i should have shimmed the bottom of the pond to slope to the drain. (2)was hard to tighten the ring up on the sink drain at the bottom of cage. I should have built that first then the cage. But i was building on the fly with no plans.. just pics in my head.

WOuld send pics of the drain and how i did it but searched and dont have any. this is only pics of pond not finished.

I have done the sink drain thing in the past with same type of pond and I am currently working on a cage with a smaller pond utilizing a shower drain. I plan to pipe it out to a water spicket to run a hose outside when I need to drain it as my plumbing skills are not good enough to pipe it into the house plumbing. The strain on the shower drain is good enough to keep most debris from clogging the piping to the hose. I will take pics as my work progresses and post them when I figure out how to do that.