Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey,

I got a group of Caiman lizards coming in and I am looking for some enclosure ideas. I will probably build my own, so I'm more interested in custom built enclosures. I'm also particularly interested in seeing some pictures of your large display cages.

Thanks,

JMorash

I'm still figuring out how to house my caiman liard when he's older. I was looking at one of the waterland tubs as a set up. I would build somthing but after watching him now i realize his gonna need a much bigger pool and more branches than i can really build for. Best bet is looking at zoo enclosures.

They do seem to need a lot of room compared to similar lizards. I'm planning on building a bigger cage for my 1.1 or 1.2 (not sure if I'll keep all of them yet) than I did for my big water monitors.

The group of them will be housed in a cage 4' x 2' x 4' (LxWxT) as babies, but I think I will have to think of something bigger fast. I was thinking about eventually doing a cage 10' x 4' x 6'. I was planning to have a pool for them as least 6' x 4' x 18" leaving the rest of the floor space as substrate for them to dig in. From what it seems, if they aren't hanging out in the water they seem to hang out on low lying logs and on thick branches. So my plan is to have plenty of room to climb (logs, branches, ledges) so the ground space isn't as necessary.

However I have never kept this species so I'm not 100% this is sufficient. Can't wait to hear others chime in.

Mine loves to sleep in the water at night (so a water heater helps). And yes they love the branches mine loved his hamock until the suction cups wouldnt hold his wight anymore. For an adult i'm looking to get a pool thats maybe 2 feet deep, even at this age he wants to dive alot so i figured might as well give him a deeper pool. Still designing the adult cage (I'm only planning on one but you never know what might pop up). Might go the water trouf way to make things easier.

Look on this link

http://www.varanus.net/forums/read.php?2,18100,18100#msg-18100

See the one in the Youtube video (below) from Prehistoric Pets. It's by far the best one I've ever seen. Perhaps you could incorporate some of the ideas into your vivarium. One suggestion is to use styrofoam/spray foam over shelving and on walls and carve it. You can then coat the styrofoam with either thinset mortar or several layers of dilute grout mix. Of course you'll want to seal it after painting. You'll definitely want to incorporate a swimming pool.

If you're thinking outdoor enclosure, you might check out vids by underground reptiles. He keeps Caimans.

Prehistoric Pets Caiman enclosure