Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Okay guys, tell me if I'm gonna do good. Ok, I'm going to try the 100 watt floods, I'm aiming for a better overall tank temperature than what I have now (86 degrees overall, 132 degree bask spot, 70 degree cool spot). I am going to continue feeding him thawed mice for every other day for the rest of his life (long one i hope) and those days in between I'll feed him insects (snails, crickets, roaches). I will always use soil. I will upgrade his tank (40 gallon) when he hits 1 1/2 feet. I have the foot long water dish and the habba hide. What should I also check on? I know I ask a lot but I'm just making sure since i want my monitors 2nd year to be a big one w/ him growing another foot.

Good food is important, but temps are even more so. Someone once said, with the right temps, they can eat doorknobs and grow like weeds.
Doesn't matter the bulb you use, its the temp you are getting (long as its not a spot).
Gotta have temps. Give him more hot than he needs, and more cool. Don't neglect the choice to escape heat.
And security to use it. This is the other big catch. Can he get his hot and his cool and still hide a lot? Baby monitors are not often seen in the wild, why?- They grow just fine.
D.

You should not look to anybody here or elsewhere to see if you are doing well. Look at the monitor.

Truth is there are probably thousands of different heating devices that can work if applied correctly. Incadescent, IR, heat panels, flood, halogens don't mean jack to a monitor, the temps and how they can be utilized matters. I would bet you could get good heat out of a disco ball. It is up to your good taste (or lack thereof) to use or not use a disco ball.

There are also thousands of different feeding methods, but I would say personally I think x amount every y days is one of the worse when used as anything more than a general guideline, that is a feeding schedule for a mammal. They can do and grow very well with not near the huge quantities that people like to advocate.

I wouldn't feed it so much (but that's me), very few of my monitors are fed every day, and none are fed everyday forever.

Don't be offended, it's just making rules and trying to get the monitor to work within them is NOT the right way to go. Use that just as a starting point, if something doesn't work remove/change it. The best tool to learn from is the monitor.

Good Luck,

--Robert

My prehensile tail skink has a 125 gallon aquarium and uses every bit of it.You might want to go with a bigger enclosure,sooner.I built a 4'x4'x8' enclosure for under $100 (including plexiglass).Don't feed it every day, forever.They need time to digest the food and get rid of the waste.Listen to the monitor(it won't really talk to you though),if it charges you for food,FEED it.If doesn't seem that interested,DON'T feed it.

Once he gets the size of the width of the tank and once he is more than half the size of the length, I plan to build a huge plexi glass tank w/ my father. Whenever I put food in, my monitor goes for it. I just think the only reason why he grew only about 6 inches in the first 11 months is b/c like I said, I didnt feed daily.

what do you mean by huge? to me, this is a huge enclosure:

(photo and enclosure by Jeff Lemm)

when housing monitors, it's better to think in terms of 'what is the largest possible enclosure that i can provide while still leaving myself enough room in my house to live?' (ok maybe slight exageration)

rather than 'what is the minimum size enclosure that i can get away with?'

not trying to be rude or disrespectful, i know you want what's best for your monitor from the questions you've been asking. just trying to help.

hey since when did they block HTML ?!?

anyway here's the pic

Whoa. I dont think my enclosure will be that big but I'll do my best to make a huge one. I still have time on my hands but my father has plans for his tank when he gets bigger.

200 or so degrees. And an ambient temp that heats a 40 gallon to about 130 degrees, so you would have an oven and a cooked monitor. Halogen bulbs (floods) are very high heat producers and give a good temp gradient because they aim the light to one area. But a 40 gallon is about 3 ft long and 11 inches wide, not much space for a monitor to use at all. I would start with a small wattage bulb like a 45 and adjust from there, remember that raising and lowering it adjusts the temp on the surface. Offer a temp gradient that drops from 86 warm ambient to about 72 degrees, that takes area to do that a 40 wont cut it. A raised basking spot can also accomplish these things. Id start with an area about 4x2 for a hatchling ideally then go much bigger, like 4x8 ft. Do not overfeed or overheat your monitor but feed them as hatchlings as much as they can eat in daily meals (smaller foods). When they get older they can be aloud to eat less and less often.

your temps are fine the way you have it now. you could try getting a bit hotter basking spot - and see if your monitor actually uses the extra heat, but that is a pretty good temp range as is.
you should concentrate on getting a bigger enclosure. 55 gal is barely adequate for a foot long monitor, a 40 gal for a 1.5 foot monitor just doesn't cut it. as previously mentioned, enclosures can be built for very cheap. $100 may actually be an overestimate.

No hes not 1.5 feet hes more like 11.5 inches but thats w/ his tail since I said he only grew about 6-7 inches in his first 11 months. This year, however, I plan for him to grow A LOT more than that and I plan to be changing tanks soon. Ok thanks guys. I'll keep you posted.