Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey Chris
We got down to 22 last night. That sucked.
Friday it only snowed for an hour but it only got up to 33.
My Mom (Houston) said it snowed all day. They got about 3 inches.
Are you still using the wood burning hot water heater?
If you load it up will it burn through the night?
What is the name brand of your heater?
Would you buy another one?
Are you running more than one pool/pond off the one heater?
Other than hating winter me and the crocs are doing fine.
Danny

Hi Danny,

We got down to about 27 here- very unpleasant. We also had snow but no real accumulation here but just 15-20 miles from here they had and inch or two.

We are still using the wood burning pool heaters. I am personally very satisfied with them. We run 2 of them, one is a large and the other is a prototype huge heater we purchased from the same company. Both really heat a croc pool quickly and hold the temperature very well. I had a 100 gallon per minute well installed so in the case of emergency I can flush the pools with 72 degree water.

We load it up initially and then add to the fire as needed. Once the pool is heated even the coals will maintain the temperature. I usually load it up before bed and then by morning the coals are still putting off decent heat. Off course the kind of wood your burning matters. Ash produces poor coals but oak and mesquite good coals. We also use a chemical on the surface which traps heat in the pools.

The company is warm water solutions, a website link is below. I like them because they are very effective, fast heating, and mobile. Also virtually free to run past the electricity for the pump. We got all our wood from the 'free' section on craigslist last year. This year I paid a HS student $40 for mesquite they needed to get rid of on his hunting lease.

I would buy another one, I sold my small one last year and wish I had it back as we have a large group of Podocnemis unifilis and I'd like to put one on their pond rather than bring them in as I did this week.

We run multiple pools of each heater. Each pool has a pump and it's all connected with pvc that has a series of valves that open one pond while closing another. I used to just pull the pump from one pond to another but now we just use multiple pumps. Once we heat one pond to a decent temp we switch the ponds using the same heater.

I also hate winter every once in awhile I wonder why I do this in the winter. It's cold, wet, and stressful. But then spring comes and I see the animals on the banks and I forget all about the winter.

I will get out to your place at some point, you need to get back over here. We have done some major expansion in the last 2 months. How many porosus do you have?

CD
heater website

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CDieter
'Reason, observation, and experience; the holy trinity of science.'

Chris
Nothing maks me happier than seeing the crocs lazing around in the sun.
Even though, while working, I walk by them a dozen times a day I never get tired of looking. I stop have a few words. Usually onesided. I tell them how good they look or how big they're getting. They give me a few moments to admire them and then if I haven't moved a long they hiss or growl.
Thanks for the info. Something needs to change around here.
I just have the pair of salts. Male is approaching 8. the female is still only about 5.5 feet.
Thanks again
Danny

I have had many species of crocs outside here in Florida in several locations. The coldest was my farm in Bushnell, Fl. about 60 miles north of Tampa and inland which gets even colder. I have always just used well water to heat by pumping water continually into the ponds. The water temperature in Central Florida is about 70-72 degrees all year. The concept of a heated pool was first done I believe at Alligator Adventure when they decided to display crocs in the early 90's. I suggested this to S. Puglia and Sam Seashole worked out the details and it works well for them. One thing I did learn was which crocs are more cold sensitive than others. Nile Crocodiles are likely to be able to withstand as cold a temperature as any species in the world. Nile Crocodiles in Kruger National Park are exposed to very cold temps many times reaching the point of frost and freezing in any given year. Once I had some small Niles, porosus, and morelets about 18" long in an 8' long above ground pool. I had a hose going into it with an overflow system in place. Somehow during the night the hose either fell out or wasn't replaced in by employees [likely the cause] and ALL the baby crocs were on the bottom with patchy ice on the surface of the water. Naturally I thought all of them dead because they appeared lifeless but NOT one croc was the worse for wear. The Niles I believe in my experience are one of the best at surving cold temps and the American Crocodile even though a native is one of the most cold sensitive species. I believe that the lg Niles likely would survive unless the ponds completely iced over. Never having seen your setup it's hard for me to tell but I do know their COLD TOLERANT. ANYWAY ALL THE BEST AND GOOD LUCK WITH THE CROCS...THANKS
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Tom Crutchfield
www.tomcrutchfield.com

I live in north Mexico... in Monterrey...

winters get very cold, about 0°c at day and -2°c at nigth... I´would like to use some water heating sistem for winter...

could you guys please upload some pics of your ponds and heating devices..???

thanks

Rick

Hi Rick,

These are from last year, we have upgraded our piping to make it a little less visible but this gives you a rough idea of how it works here.

The top heater is huge, it generates allot of heat and it doesn't take long to heat a croc pool.

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CDieter
'Reason, observation, and experience; the holy trinity of science.'

thankyou very much Chris...

will try to visit your place next summer...

cheers

Rick

Hi Tom,

We heat because we feel it makes a noticable difference in the animals well being and for our own peace of mind. Like I mentioned I have a well(2 actually) and I use them but the heaters are better for 2 reasons:

1. Water temperature can be raised faster and to a higher point.

2. Far less messy, heating with a well requires a constant water flow and that water has to go somewhere. We have good drainage but if you couple constant well water flow with a big Texas rain on clay based soil and your talking a serious volume of water.

We are heating natural earth ponds.

I agree with what you have said in principle. The Niles are very temperature tolerant. But they are not bulletproof. Once they are large enough to get into natural Earth ponds they are much more likely to survive our relatively mild winter. The reason being the mud at the bottom of the pond rarely drops below 60 degrees and they dig massive underground burrows. I used to think the winter was a fail safe in case we ever lost an animal but I no longer feel that way, just to many microclimates for them to overwinter and survive. Our challenge is to ensure these microclimates exist within the walls of their enclosure.

Otherwise we have had a loss here and there with animals that are not in natural earth pond(waterlands, concrete, stock tanks). This typically occurs when the water temp drops below 50. Nile crocodiles start to lose muscle control when the temperature drops between 44-50 and drowning is the usual result. There also appears to be some individual variance perhaps based on origin.

One of our main problems with animals outside of Niles is that they tend to get caught on the banks and then a front blows through and they get stuck there unable to move and freeze to death if we don't see them. Spectacled caiman are the worst at this little trick.

Stay well and your turtle is in my thoughts. That animal is really incredible.

Chris
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CDieter
'Reason, observation, and experience; the holy trinity of science.'

We have a well. But the water has lots of minerals. Also where I live, TX Hill Country we've been in a drought the last 3 years.
We have had a pretty wet winter and they say the drought will break this spring. Still I pump water out of a major nearby creek for the crocs. A lot of wells in our area collapsed this summer and they didn't have crocs.
On top of that, unlike Chris, we live on one big rock, so there is no earthen ponds. Everything is concrete or native stone.
And we get much colder. We were in the twenties about 20 times last year. I have to heat the water. Anything below 50 I feel is life threatening.I agree Niles can take the cold better than most other crocs. It seems like the Madagascar Niles are the most cold tolerant. Unfortunately I know first hand how uncoldtolerant Americans are.
My friend says Arthur Jones heated the huge pools for his Niles with pipes embedded in the concrete. Pumping hot water through the pipes kept the pools warm.
I'm jealous of earthen ponds in fact most of my pools are above ground. However the concrete DOES suck up the sun helping to heat the pools.
I've never figured out how to post pics. My pools are simple; A concrete slab, walls of cinder blocks. Inside and out I coat it with mortar. I have ledges on the ends and then some land area.
D.C.

Actually Arthur except for the Americans he kept inside where they swam around his office and the big hybrids he had at Deland everything was kept in earthen ponds as I did. Once he bought the Horse Farm and moved to Ocala he had EVERYTHING in earthen ponds. I will admit going into his office and watching the crocs swim around underwater was very cool. He was a good friend of mine and the "REAL DEAL". What an eccentric character he was. G. Gordon Liddy was one of his best friends and I met him at Arthurs along with BO DEREK [more interesting than Liddy] and a plethora of celebrities at his office and later at his compound at the Horse Farm. YOU NEVER KNEW WHAT WOULD HAPPEN OR WHO YOU WOULD MEET WHEN VISITING MR. JONES...
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Tom Crutchfield
www.tomcrutchfield.com