Reptile & Amphibian Forums

After months of longing, I finally brought a new iguana home. From nose to end of tail, he/she is 1.5' I bought a 4'X 1.5' X 12" aquarium, heat rock (should I remove this???) 100W full spectrum lamp, big limb to climb on, a bag of fir bark for the bottom of the enclosure, and a jar of reptoMin SoftGel.
He/She didn't move much when first placed in the enclosure. Drank some water after a couple hours (much to my relief)! I don't want to handle him too much until he seems a bit more comfortable with his surroundings. I tried to pet him a couple times and he tail whips like crazy, running to the other side of the enclosure. I took this as a good sign of health - that he is pretty feisty. It seems everything I read on care is somewhat contradictory. Anyone see anything in my notes so far that would raise a red flag for the creature???

yeah, definately take out the heat rock. heat rocks can actually KILL your iguana. they are very dangerous for iguanas. take it out!

nicole

Do you know the basics of iguana care? They are very specialized animals with lots of special needs as captives. For starters, yes, the rock needs to be unplugged, and the particulate substrate has to go. Iguanas tend to eat anything, including dirt, pieces of bark, poisonous house plants, the fiber in carpets, buttons and pins on the floor, and basically anything. One famous incident was an iguana eating it's owner's underwear panties. It took a while for them to get out the other end without surgery. Astroturf, or most commonly, newspaper make the best substrates for iguanas.

This is a good place to find the basics:
http://www.greenigsociety.org/home.html

Roger

Does the bulb you bought have UVB in it? A lot of bulbs sold at petstores will claim to be "Full spectrum" but they give out only UVA rays. A good way to tell if the bulb you bought was a real UVB bulb is that they are very expensive. If you paid less (at a store) than abour 30-40$ for that bulb then you only have a heat bulb and also need to purchase a really important UVB bulb

Good luck!
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0.1 Bearded dragon
0.1 mexican kingsnake
1.0.2 Leopard Gecko's
0.0.1 Rose Hair Tarantula
1.0 BTS
0.0.1 Reverse Okeetee Corn
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4.1 Cats

You might want to look into a cage that has the same width and depth but is a little taller. And like everyone said, remove the heat rock. His fietyness might not go away until he is bigger, or may not subside at all. My smallest green (2') is a maniac until we get him out of his cage. Mostly just a display as he has not bitten yet. My largest green (42" is as docile as Garfield in the cartoons but was a maniac when she was a yearling till about 2 1/2 years old.
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2.3.6 crested geckos (Speckles, Sandy, Squirt, Sunshine, Soldier and six un-named babies)
0.0.1 Striped Cal. Kingsnake (Snuggles)
1.1.0 Green Iguanas (Sisco,Speedy)
0.1.0 Rose Hair Tanrantula (Sweets)
RIP Star and Sal