Melinus updates

jhinton6932 · 10-10-13, 06:11 AM

finished a larger enclosure other week, had a deadline and a budget but finished the whole thing, reusing the smaller door from the older cage for under 150$ using recycled plas-tek to line the bottom and sides where dirt would touch. used 100% organic dirt from a local place, holds rock solid burrows and humidity better then anything ive found before. its very hard to get good pictures of the entire enclosure becuase of the island/bar thing that sits right in front of the cage but its 5'6"x4'x5'

male is like 3 foot or so now, pretty aggressive if you get too close to him. still climbs and spends a lot of tie above ground and in water trying to swim which i think means he wants a more water to make a mess. theyve both built pretty large tunnel systems in there as well

better picture of him

shes always harder to spot, usually underground or in the tree branches in the corners basking. shes still only about 25-27 inches and much darker, more black with yellow spots, while he is yellow with black spots

jhinton6932 · 10-10-13, 06:39 AM

franks · 10-10-13, 07:35 AM

Very nice. How long have you had them?

jhinton6932 · 10-10-13, 08:01 AM

about 13 months for the female and about 15 months for the male.

finally got a decent picture of them both out and about, so im showing off since its been a while since my last post on these guys

Pirarucu · 10-10-13, 03:58 PM

Looking very nice. Are those plants on the ground live?

infernalis · 10-10-13, 04:47 PM

http://www.ssnakess.com/forums/varan...v-melinus.html

http://www.ssnakess.com/forums/varan...ng-diving.html

jhinton6932 · 10-10-13, 08:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pirarucu

Looking very nice. Are those plants on the ground live?

yes 3 of them in the center are. they die from lack of UV about every 2 months or so, but are pretty cheap at the local shops so i just replace them

Pirarucu · 10-10-13, 08:33 PM

What species are they? The larger ones appear to be Nerve Plants.. You might try some Dieffenbachia or Chinese Evergreens, they are very tolerant of low light. You could probably use some Bamboo Palms too.

formica · 10-11-13, 07:00 AM

nice

Quote:

Originally Posted by jhinton6932

yes 3 of them in the center are. they die from lack of UV about every 2 months or so, but are pretty cheap at the local shops so i just replace them

plants dont need UV, they need blue light to grow, and red to reproduce, they can make do with just blue, so 6000K (sold as cool-white) lighting is what you need to keep them alive (6500K+ is even better, but the price goes up allot)