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I pretty much setup most things up like monitors. My knob tailed geckos are even set up like monitors. They are suppose to have one hide, be alone, and get heat from a heat pad. Mine live together, have a red light basking area to gets to 120 which they use often, rete stacks, rocks the works. Been growing fast. I know people who have beardies setup up like monitors that actively breed a lot
Just a simple light switch. Use red light instead of a day light bulb. I normally can go in there around 7pm. When my normal lights for everything else click off and one of them will be basking before it starts hunting.
I didn't say they won't thermoregulate.....thats a bit extreme to say . I just don't know of any place on earth that has 120 degree spots to utilize for thermoregulation during the night time hours so I don't think a nocturnal species, sheltered from day time temps requires it, and its interesting that they do use it.
Trust me you NEED a UVB bulb. Just look into metabolic bone disease cases when you don't use one. I used to have an arg. B&W for a few years, sold him and now my girlfriend wants one from what I've told her of mine; so we're in the market for one. I used temps of 83F cold side, basking spot of 120F. I used roughly 18" of topsoil sand mix(and every bit of it was used). As for what veggies and fruits I tried zucchini, squash, various green, freash picked dandilions(only if you Know they haven't come in contact with pesticides,etc..), strawberries, blue berries, black berries, banana, grapes, mango, and many other things. You just gotta find what they like.
I'm new to this forum but have been largely active in the tegu community over the past decade... With that being said, the tegu community is a bit behind in things and are where the varanid community was say 10 years ago, but is slowly catching on. I keep my tegus closer to how I keep my monitors than what you'll read on the poorly written care guides that out there. whole prey but with fruits/veggies,, deep substrate, high temps... tegus a tad cooler than varanids. I bask them at 115-120 for hatchlings, 130-135 for adults... whereas my monitors are 140-150+. Their skin is not as thick so slightly cooler temps seem to be best. However I do not provide UV. I have raised a tegu for 10 yrs on whole prey, no uvb and xrays show excellent bone density and no calcium deficiencies in blood. Hope this helps.
I'm new to this forum but have been largely active in the tegu community over the past decade... With that being said, the tegu community is a bit behind in things and are where the varanid community was say 10 years ago, but is slowly catching on. I keep my tegus closer to how I keep my monitors than what you'll read on the poorly written care guides that out there. whole prey but with fruits/veggies,, deep substrate, high temps... tegus a tad cooler than varanids. I bask them at 115-120 for hatchlings, 130-135 for adults... whereas my monitors are 140-150+. Their skin is not as thick so slightly cooler temps seem to be best. However I do not provide UV. I have raised a tegu for 10 yrs on whole prey, no uvb and xrays show excellent bone density and no calcium deficiencies in blood. Hope this helps.
thx! What tegu projects do you have going on now, any cool pics/videos to show off? I love looking at videos, been obsessing on Youtube for a while looking at vids, but lots of animals in bad shape but always refreshing to see healthy ones.
p.s. my tegu grew FAST... went for 6 inches to 10 inches and thick tailed in a month, he's also a very good hunter, e.g. digging for warms that the eye can't see. My sav doesn't seem as good at digging for food:
Yes! Tegus grow incredibly fast!!! yours looks great. Digging is a good pass time, although I have found the adults slow down a bit and arent as ready to dig as young ones are.
I don't have any projects, I don't breed as I run North Bay Tegu & Monitor Rescue ( North Bay Tegu & Monitor Rescue - Home ). My personal collection is a pair of argentine b/ws, 3 reds, a red x b/w hybrid and an albino blue.
I just posted a few pics in the welcome section and my facebook albums are public if you want to check those out. https://www.facebook.com/mommyfox317