Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hey ive raised 6 monitors from juviniles to sube adults at 3 years old. after three years i tought i would know everything i needed to know about the husbandry of monitors. but man was i wrong, i just recently gotten a new xantic savannah (solid white with red eyes and no pupils, sees a wild one) i seen her at a local expo and had to get her even though she cost me a pretty penny. but now shes about 7 mounths and growing quick, eats all the time she very healthy but my question is, how long can monitors hold thier breath under water, becuase i have a large tettra pound in her enlcosure, it used to be my caimans till he out grew it. but anyway she dives right in it and swins all day but at night she sleeps in it too, and often sinking in it and being comletly submerged for long period at a time while she sleeping. is this healthy or should i not worrie about it, i just dont want her to drown. any help is aprecciated. thanks.

Inflate then roll over panicing in attempt to stay upright. They can hold their breath for up to 30 minutes when submerged. They dont like water because its not natural for them. They are found in semi arid to arid grassland/ woodland environments.
3 years old is an adult not sub adult. They can reach 39 inches and or reproduce at a year old. When you see them fall asleep in water, chances are they are letting you know somethings wrong with the cage (temps, humidity, etc). Lets see some pics of this critter, I hope this helps straighten your animals living conditions up some. Any other questions I gladly answer when I get the time to.

itll take a few days to get the pics up, dont have my digital back yet. but heres a quick layout of it, its a large 500 gallon breeder aquarium i had made for my caiman, its got a 100 gallon pound that was cut straight on one side and appoxy to the side of the aquarium and the sealed with non toxic aquarium sealantit has a mixture of 10-40-50 10% sand 40%mulch chips and 50% sterile dirt as substrate, i like to mix my substrates myself becuase it hold humidity when needed it gives em some diggable substrate and it makes spot cleaning easy. if theres somthing wrong with that ype of substrate let me know, i just came across this mix on my own so it might not be as good as i think it is. then it has a strip light with uva-uvb and two 150 watt heat lamps and a weater heater in the pound and i also have milk crates in the pound with ply wood srewd down with some wieght to make it shallow enough so she cant drown.

I use dirt it works great and holds humidity better than you would ever expect (as long as the top doent allow it to escape through a screen (think beek jerky). I use 45 watt outdoor floodlight bulbs because the lower the wattage the lower the surrounding temps are away from the basking spot also they make 130 degree basking spots at over a foot away. Offer them a wide range of temps from one end to the other and dirt deep enough to dig and tunnel in (a foot or so) and they wont soak in a pond as well as other hide spots that are tight secure spaces.

Shvar is right, but let me make it a little more clear. Savs do not like water to soak in, unless they are dehydrated or too hot. You did not mention what the top was made out of, but it sounds like screen or simply too much ventilation.

Only allow a little ventilation. Then use a lot less wattage with your bulbs. They do not need UV bulbs, in a case like yours they only reduce the flexibility of the cage. Eliminate those and then use two or three 45 watt floods all the way to one end. That will save you lots of money to buy more mice to feed them. The pond is actually wasting space that the monitors can use.

Raising babies is the simplist part of allowing lifecycles. They will grow up in a wide varity of conditions. Once they mature, then the problems arise. For instance, the type of soil is not so important as a juvinile. Its very important once the females decide to nest. Social behavior is another important aspect. As babies, its not the same then as adults. Good luck F