Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have one that I got as a hatchling , now it is about 16 inches and lately I noticed a few areas on the tail that seem to have waves or small kinks , they way have been there all along I can't say for certain , now that it is larger it may be just more easily seen , I know it has not broken it's tail and if Ilook at the tail from the bottom this does not show up , just in three spots on the flat upper line sort of what you could call the fin or ridge . I have a few dumerials with a bit of this but they are older and I got them this way , I do give it UVB and added vitamines and calcium twice a week , if I hold the tail and bend it to produce a curve it does seem like these areas do not follow a smooth curve , is it possible that it is part of the growth or more than likely small kinks that were from capture , the tail is straight and moves freely , I have never run across this before except when I have seen starved monitors in pet shops , but mine has good tone and is not thin or fat .

Ive seen a bunch of those all waters and niles. The animal needs a steady supply of calcium in its diet (skeleton from whole mice etc) to allow for proper development and to prevent those type of problems. Im gonna say its probably a stage of MBD, go to a qualified herp vet and feed whole animal foods to the little thing. UVB lights make no difference because monitors obtain their Vit D3 from their diet, as a matter of fact so do other reptiles, if offered a proper diet. Simple idea the sun is the sun, and a light bulb is a light bulb, theres no substituition. I dont care what the manufacturers of reptile lights claim as its been proven independantly that those expensive bulbs make far less UVB than a normal blacklight bulb, in fact regardless of what some will claim with their so called UV meters, they probably have financial interest in those lights.
A friend of mine had recently 2 speckled water hatchlings that came from a person in FLA that is known for selling half dead animals, one had that wavy tail and the other refused to eat anything but a few crickets.

Since I have had this asian water monitor I have been feeding it small fuzzies or crickes and mealworms and sometimes soft catfood , twice a week I have added vitamine and calcium supplements to the food . This is the concern I have , I have other monitors and none have displayed this , it is not as if the entire legth of the tail is wavy is in many underfed petshop monitors such as niles who possess a wavy tail , it is only two areas mostly seen on the top fin of the tail , I have seen a few niles I've had go through some changes in tail shape as they grew , as you know the top fin as I call it seemes to develope and become more prominent as they grow . So my only thought is this may be a injury that when small did not show up or something that happened while in my care , I would think if it was a break it would have been noticed and there is no way in the cage it could break it's tail and I don't let it flail and bang it's tail while removing it from the cage . I guess time will tell as if grows but I can't imagine it is MBD .