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I brought home a dark colored Sav yesterday from a reptile Expo thats about 12" long right now. I have a 120-125 basking spot for him, big enough water bowl to soak in, plenty of crickets and superworms, ambient temp is 80-85. He has a log which i got from my backyard which i have already bleached and dried and a few cinder blocks which he loves to hide under. He's in a 55 gal right now with dirt, 2 flood lights, Basking light=100w, Other=65w, and a screen top which i have taped up except around the light covers alittle.

My question is, do some Savs or all of them tend to be shy eaters for the first couple of days and try to remain hidden? He ate a few crics last night and he ate a pinkie/fuzzy today. He hasn't figured out theres water in the bowl yet, but he drinks the water drops off the tank when i mist it down.

Also, it seems his snout is alot longer than other Savs i've seen. Does this mean anything? I'd take a picture, but everytime i get close to the tank and sees me, he goes back into hiding.

I'm also thinking about redoing his cage by mixing in some calci sand from T-REX to give it alittle bit better look and crushing the dirt clods that are in there now. I'm also going to add in more dirt and leave the log and one cinder block in and dig a little hole for him under the cinder block. One reason i'm doing this is so that the cage isnt so littered and the crics have to many hide spots.

Oh, one more question. How high should the humidity be? I think it's around 80 right now in the cage.

Alot of questions. Lets start with the substrate. I my opinion, I would stick with the dirt, go ahead and break up the dirtclods but forget about the sand unless the dirt is high in clay. I also use broken cinder blocks in my enclosures. They make great hides.
Next the feeding. You just got it, so it hasn't had time to get accostomed to his new home. Some savanahhs have different personalities. I have one that will gobble all the food you give it as long as it is live prey. I have another that will take the mice, walk away and slowly eat. I say give it some time to get adjusted. Maybe just leave a couple thawed hoppers in it's cage and see if they are there in the morning.
As for your lights, I use 45 watt floods and they seem to work great. Your temps sound ok, maybe up your basking temps a little.
I keep my humidity around 58%. I am not sure how I got the enclosure to hold good humidity but it works.
Now this is just my opinion by how I keep my savs. I am sure there are other opinions out there different from mine.

Scott
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Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

well, his hot spot got up to 145 so i took one of the cinder blocks out to lower the "tower" zo now it's safer and lower to the ground. He doesnt seem to interested in the Superworms or Crickets, but he sure as hell loved the live fuzzies earlier today. He grabed them, shook, then bashed them on the cinder block, then inhaled. He stays mostly hidden under one of the layers of cinder which gives him a varied temp he can choose.

I also threw in some poatato slices and a bottom of a cup with water for the crickets to keep them alive.

everything in the tank.

what i did to the screen lid to cut down on heat loss.

his hide spots and basking spot.

he goes to sleep to the sound of the ocean, lol.

The key phrase in your questions is "yesterday". Wow I think thats a lot of action for a monitor that just got introduced to a new world. Your set-up sounds sufficent, I would refrain from changing anything for a couple of months. Also I would strongly recommend Panacur and Flagile, for 90% of these are imports and usally are heavily loaded with parasites. Anyway everybody has opinions, and heres mine. I've dealt with imports, bred my own captives and these things work for me. Good luck, and be patient.

thanks tig for the advice. I'll look into the products you mentioned and i'm also getting Daniels book about Savs.