Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi! I've been in and out of the reptile keeping for 14 years now. I pretty much sold everything about 5 years ago and just kept tarantulas and a blue tongue skink. I worked at a pet store with a dedicated reptile room about 8 years ago. Talk about a dream. We sold everything under the sun from poison dart frogs to monitors and tegus.

So with that lead in...

I picked up a water monitor at the Daytona show this past weekend and am pretty thrilled about it. I just want to make sure I have everything correct for this little guy. I have him in a 40 breeder tank with a plexiglass lid to cover the screen. He is kept on top soil mixed with sand and is 4 inches on the low side to 10 inches on the high side. I have a rete stack without the holes cut through them stacked all the way up, so the basking spot is at 175 F. The sand comes up around the rete stacks. He has a water bowl on the cool side and a piece of cork bark laying on the ground in the middle of the cage. He is eating crickets everyday and has taken his first dead hopper today. I haven't handled him since I got him home. I wanted him to settle in first and eat before that, but I have noticed that he is already starting to stay out a little longer if he is basking and I enter the room. But not too long...LoL! Is there anything else I need to do or check on, besides working on building him that giant cage in the garage which I will start on in December?

Thanks in advance for any advice :J

I would get started on that cage now. by December that thing will have outgrown the fish tank big time.
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Regards,
Wayne A. Harvey
Thamnophis US
Savannah Monitors
Snakes and Lizards, It don't get any better....

Heatem up and Feedem up! they grow fast- here is a 5 footer not quite 2 years old yet! That is a 40 gallon tub that needs to be upgraded so hold on tight and watchem grow! Oh yeah keep your wallet handy and space in the freezer for all those rats! they are alot of fun though.

That picture looks awesome!

How much should I be feeding him a day right now?

It seems he will take 1 hopper mouse a day and maybe a couple of crickets. He didn't mess with the second hopper mouse I gave him the other day, so I took it out.

Seeing that he is small and if temps are good, meaning he has a hot spot of 100 he should be able to metabolize his food fine. I fed mine daily when young. he ws about 11 inches or so and started with pinkies and crickets, soon stopped with the crickets and it's been mostly rodents and chicks since. I would offer daily feedings when young and if your doing things right he will go through the food. It's when they get older you have to judge better, mine would still eat daily but tends to put on the weight so now it's every other day or 2 days. Good luck with yours, it's one heck of a commitment with these big guys and not for everyone they are alot of work.

Do large monitors need to eat rats at all or can they do fine on adult mice? I mean the occassional jumbo rat or rabbit is cool to watch but on a daily basis mice seem easier to digest since they are much smaller. .

I try not to give food items that are a struggle to get down. At 5 ft i give small ft rats and baby chicks which go down quick and easy. It would take many mice to satisfy this guy

Hi dave46, my V. salvator is just a few inches bigger than yours (and a couple of months older), but he gets two large weaner rats a day, some days that would be replaced with fish, chicks, etc.
I think you made a mistake with the basking temp? You say 100f is fine, it`s far too low in my opinion. The surface temp at the basking site needs to be between approx 50 to 60c (120 to 140).
Or maybe you meant the ambient (air temp)?
Close to my basking site the ambient is around 35c (95f), and the surface is over 55c (130f). I`m using the low wattage halogen (flood) bulbs.

Hi Elidogs, why would you offer (for example) 6 mice as opposed to one large rat (if the 6 were the same total weight as the one large), the digestion will take just as long for both.
I would feed the adults of larger species proportionately larger prey (not to suggest they wouldn`t be interested in smaller).

"Hi Elidogs, why would you offer (for example) 6 mice as opposed to one large rat (if the 6 were the same total weight as the one large), the digestion will take just as long for both.
I would feed the adults of larger species proportionately larger prey (not to suggest they wouldn`t be interested in smaller)."

I don't know if 1 large rat digests as quick as say 5 mice...I would think the mice digest quicker since they are seperate smaller pieces of flesh but who knows...I generally feed prey items about half the size of the monitors head. So for my savs thats about 1 adult mouse per adult monitor. Maybe some of the large species like crocs niles and water can easily just take rats.

I have a adult ball python I just feed mice to I stopped bothering with rats he prefers the mice...getting alittle off topic but..... I just try to feed what they like and not over feed. Its easier to overfeed with larger prey items. And its a beeotch to get monitors to lose weight.