Sorry FR, the method does not equal the result. The method leads to the result. They are not the same.
Several times now you mention your results and the fact that the monitor looks good so the method must be good. That is rather short-sighted. Short-sightedness is particularly disheartening to see in someone with your supposed level of monitor methods and success. If anyone should be asking: "I have gotten some short-term success now is it a good method or an adequate method or a bad method," it should be you.
Your monitors look very nice and very colorful and by outward appearances look fine. I agree. That does not actually make them good or healthy or anything else. It simply means they appear to be so (and again, since that is better than what a lot of people manage to do, good for you).
Lots of methods can lead to the same results, and lots of results can be acheived from similar methods.
Take, for example, salvators (the one species I think we have both kept in recent history). My methods led to my one pair producing lots of eggs and lots of babies (wanna buy one? humor here, not a real advertisement). Your methods led to eggs and no babies. By APPEARANCES my methods are "better" than yours when applied to salvators.
Do I get to call my methods GOOD? Maybe, and perhaps I do call them good (it really depends on the context in which I discuss them). However, then we add into the equation that although my monitors produced more babies than yours, I had a 50% hatch rate (roughly). Suddenly my BETTER methods do not seem so "good."
Do I get to call my results good? Again, by appearances, yes. I have lots of offspring salvators now. You have none (last you mentioned them, at least). Still, when we factor in my hatch rate and the fact that I lost a few from one particular clutch several months after hatching, I would temper my use of "good" when descibing my results. They are better than most people's and certainly seem promising, but objectively probably not so good.
Even factoring in my timors (7 out of 8 eggs hatched) does little. Sure I got a clutch and hatched them (7 out of 8 hatched), which again is better than most. But, I have not gotten another clutch since and only 2 babies are left alive (even factoring out the 2 I killed during transport to another location, that leaves 3 that died of causes most appropriately blamed on my methods). My methods worked for two species. Better? Yes. Good? No. I am sure you are just itching to add my niles to this equation too, so I will do it for you. My methods (rather, a primitive version of my current methods) led to eggs. Better than most. I got 1 of 25 or 26 to hatch. Better than most (definitely not all). Dead parents. 3 species. Still better? Yes. Good? Not really.
Now apply this to yourself. Can you improve upon what you are doing? Only you know what your egg:hatch ratio really is and what your hatchling mortality rate really is and what your juv. and adult mortality really is. Are your results really "good" or simply "better" than most others? And, do you care? If not, fine. If so, what factors are you considering or playing around with to improve?
This moved away from the UV question, but that topic has apparently provided all the value it will provide at this time. The topic is now just name-calling by you and others.
I simply re-state that I agree that: UV does not need to be a primary concern for the short-term and money spent on UV bulbs could be better spent on other, more important items.
I disagree that UV is not needed for long-term success. I disagree that simply because an animal looks good and healthy that it is, in fact, good and healthy. My disagreements should be understood to simply mean that there is not enough evidence to determine those conclusions at this time.
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^x^ Bloodbat ^x^
Monitors, monitors everywhere
and all the food they ate.
Monitors, monitors everywhere,
their parents loved to mate.
