Monitor enclosure discussion thread

[Freebody]

my dad says them all the time, funny thing is he was the only child on his side who was born in canada, and the only one who has never been to england, yet he speak with a slight accent and says these funny term. Spot of tea, neds your nanny, spot on, go to the lue....... i used to tease him about it but all these years later i have turned into my old man lol

[Freebody]

Another question for thread, If your going to house 2 savs in 1 cage, what are some thoughts on cage size for adults?

[Lankyrob]

Originally Posted by Freebody

Another question for thread, If your going to house 2 savs in 1 cage, what are some thoughts on cage size for adults?

And following on to this would 2 together "entertain" each other (like having two dogs instead of one) or is there concern about fighting/domination issues?

[infernalis]

Going with the flow, if it turns out I have a pair, then I will enlarge the enclosure in a year or two, if they are same sex but get along, same thing.

If they fight, a new cage will be built.

[Freebody]

I was just thinking in terms of size of the cage if people had them together, just looking at your pics wayne gave me the idea to ask, im sure others out thier have sav housed together.

[rullom]

Can everyone give their input on substrate types/combos used. I know there should be a mix of sand/bark/leaf litter, but is this only for humidity optimization or is there other reasons for not using just bark.
What does everyone think of cutting a hole at the bottom of the tank....placing a screen and then layering it from bottom to top : Large stones, smaller stones, pebbles, dirt, bark. Then you would have a perfect drainage system and could simulate a rain cycle and not have to clean your cage much if at all. Do you think its practical? Of course you would have to tie your cage into your plumbing. I've always wanted to set up a perfect ecosystem so that it was self sustaining. I hate worrying about mold and disease. Does anyone have any comments on disease/ salmonella etc form their feces? How possible is it etc.

[Bradyloach]

60/40 Eco earth and childrens play sand. Holds a burrow well

[BarelyBreathing]

What Brady suggested is exactly what I use, with leaf litter on top. It allows for burrowing and egg laying (if you have a female), cover, humidity, and enrichment.

I haven't had a problem with substrate molding, or becoming too wet.

[rullom]

Is eco earth by zoo med or something? Sand wise should I buy that sand that they sell for bearded dragons?.....then mix the two or keep the layers. I was thinking with a heat mat it might be better to keep layers but for burrowing i should mix. As a side note how wet do you need that sand because it seems like it will not hold a burrow very well.

[infernalis]

What we do is mix to create a "sandy soil" like what you see in Florida.



Eco Earth is the name for Cocounut fiber animal bedding, sold in bricks.



Stir it together, However I use creek bank topsoil and it holds moisture and burrows well.

[shaunyboy]

Originally Posted by Freebody

Bobs your uncle is a very old english term, not so much used on ower side of the water

^^^^^
its also grown into.....

" and Roberts your mothers brother " = bob's your uncle

cheers shaun

[varanus_mad]

Well you did say humidity... p.s. sorry for stepping on your turf wayne LOL

Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Hornby
Posts: 9,623


Monitors and dehydration:
Despite the massive leaps in monitor husbandry a lot of beginners to varanid keeping in general are not getting why we keep humidity high for monitors.

Dehydration i dont know exactly how varanids lose moisure but they do and a lot of there behaviour is built around conserving and preventing this moisture loss.

Ill start with using a CF pet shop bosc for obvious reasons:

Bosc hatches in ghana moved to a holding container with no access to water of any kind.

Bosc spends a few days like this in transport before arriving at a pet shop.
A typical temporary bosc setup for a monitor in a petshop consists of woodchips a very low basking temperature a lot of ventilation and a water bowl.

Bosc bought by a bloke of the street takes it home based on pet shop advice 125f basking spot 75f cool end woodchip substrate and a low humidity...

Kept like this the bosc will proberly live at least a few years because they are extremely hardy animals and can take a lot of punishment but eventually it will kill them plain and simple.

I would say this about the average fate of most imported monitors regardless of species.

Now what can we do about it?

Deep Substrates

Typically i and a lot of keepers use soil/sand 75/25 good ratio to aim for holds a burrow well and is good for humidity...
Now then Depth:

- If your monitor can not bury itself completely in your substrate its not deep enough
- If it doesnt stay damp deep down for a long time its useless and just as bad as woodchips.
- If it wont hold a burrow its a waste of time how can your monitor build a home in it if it wont stay together?

Vents seal em up they allow all of the humidity to leave the vivarium extremely quickly and guess what it takes moisture out of your monitors system with it this is not naturally how a monitor loses moisture and causes dehydration.

Now then a frequent response to this is what about oxygen? Well what about it? unless youve built your viv totally air tight your monitor can breath no problem.

Humidity guages are great at telling you one thing what that humidity is right in one spot.

Seal your bathroom up wack the heating on full and run a bath Hot, humid sticky uncomfortable right? when you open the door to your viv if that heat and humidity does not smack you in the face... your vivs to dry.

Despite the massive leaps in monitor husbandry a lot of beginners to varanid keeping in general are not getting why we keep humidity high for monitors.

Dehydration i dont know exactly how varanids lose moisure but they do and a lot of there behaviour is built around conserving and preventing this moisture loss.

Ill start with using a CF pet shop bosc for obvious reasons:

Bosc hatches in ghana moved to a holding container with no access to water of any kind.

Bosc spends a few days like this in transport before arriving at a pet shop.
A typical temporary bosc setup for a monitor in a petshop consists of woodchips a very low basking temperature a lot of ventilation and a water bowl.

Bosc bought by a bloke of the street takes it home based on pet shop advice 125f basking spot 75f cool end woodchip substrate and a low humidity...

Kept like this the bosc will proberly live at least a few years because they are extremely hardy animals and can take a lot of punishment but eventually it will kill them plain and simple.

I would say this about the average fate of most imported monitors regardless of species.

Now what can we do about it?

Deep Substrates

Typically i and a lot of keepers use soil/sand 75/25 good ratio to aim for holds a burrow well and is good for humidity...
Now then Depth:

- If your monitor can not bury itself completely in your substrate its not deep enough
- If it doesnt stay damp deep down for a long time its useless and just as bad as woodchips.
- If it wont hold a burrow its a waste of time how can your monitor build a home in it if it wont stay together?

Vents seal em up they allow all of the humidity to leave the vivarium extremely quickly and guess what it takes moisture out of your monitors system with it this is not naturally how a monitor loses moisture and causes dehydration.

Now then a frequent response to this is what about oxygen? Well what about it? unless youve built your viv totally air tight your monitor can breath no problem.

Humidity guages are great at telling you one thing what that humidity is right in one spot.

Seal your bathroom up wack the heating on full and run a bath Hot, humid sticky uncomfortable right? when you open the door to your viv if that heat and humidity does not smack you in the face... your vivs to dry.

Author: Shane R. Hoggarth.

[varanus_mad]

Big subject this one first ill start with the basics:

The types of temperatures and there differences:

First ambient temperatures:

The temperature of the environment surrounding an object measured using a bog standard thermometer.

Surface temperatures the temperature of the face of an object the actual temperature of an object these need to be measured using an infra-red temperature gun a bog standard thermometer with a probe will measure the ambient temperature surrounding the object not the actual temperature of said object.

Typically an ambient temperature will be lower than a surface temperature, e.g. sand on a beach on a very hot day can be hot enough to burn your skin instantly yet your body doesnt cook from merely walking around in the surrounding air.

Substrate temperatures - simply the temperature of your substrate and thus the temperature surrounding your monitor when in a burrow.

Basking temperature well self explanatory really


Monitors are not like other lizards in some ways they are amongst some of the most simple and the most complicated.

Where they differ from most lizards is there ability to exceed other lizards metabolic rates and activity levels they have a couple of adaptions which allows them to do this.

So higher metabolic rates have higher demands than other lizards.

As a result of this monitors utilise higher basking temperatures than the majority of lizard species.

That being said like other lizards they still need a range of temperatures to operate normally.

Basking temperature a good range is 130f to 150f cooler than this and you wont see it straight away but they are unable to metabolise food proberly and leads to a slow death in these animals.

Ambient temperatures:

90f hot end
cool end 80f

Substrate temperatures now these are often overlooked because as humans we only walk on the ground we dont live in it where as monitors live in and out of burrows.

These substrate temperatures are of perticular importance in the UK simply because our climate does not get warm enough to sustain mass temperatures so they drop of very fast perticularly in un-insulated large enclosures with a large substrate mass so when heating a large cage we need to pay attention to these temperatures as well and to try and create a vertical temperature gradient more than likely this will naturally occur anyway but care must be taken to manage the cooler temperatures anything below 70f and most monitors wont bother leaving there burrow they simply wont have the energy to do so.

A good practice is to insulate the bottom of the cage to prevent the ground temperatures from leaching away the heat your trying to built up in the substrate.

A good range of substrate temperatures are similar to ambients but a bit cooler in certain spots. 70f to 90f.

Substrate temperatures are important for another reason nesting female monitors take a great deal of care selecting a nest site so maintaining these temperatures are paramount for the female to succesfully choose a nesting site.


There are many methods of heating vivariums

Ceramics
Lights
Tube heaters

In smaller vivariums you can get away with just using basking lights.

In most homes however a secondary heat source is required.

Personally my preferred method is to use a heating tube positioned just above the substrate usually heating tube and basking light at the same end of the vivarium a heating tube roughly 2/3rds of the size of the cage is a good bet larger cages may need two or more tube heaters to achieve the desired temperatures.

This area does require a lot of experimentation i would advice setting up the vivaria a month before moving the monitor in and experiment with heating the vivaria adding or removing heat sources as needed.

[infernalis]

Good stuff mate! Thanks.

[rullom]

Can you actually help me with this heating tube idea. How could I set one up because I want to heat my floor a bit....am not happy with the heating mat.