Water
Monitors- for Reptiles Magazine
by Robyn Markland/Pro Exotics
March 2003
I
love talking about monitors! We are
in a very exciting time for understanding monitor lizards, the hobby as a
whole is really making some great advances in monitor husbandry, captive breeding,
and overall monitor theory.
Just
ten or fifteen years ago, most keepers kept monitors the way they kept their
snakes, matching general temperatures, cage setups, and even diets. As we learn more about the lizards and their
basic needs, we are able to make strides not just in captive husbandry, but
in breeding as well.
These
advances in husbandry, the breakdown of the basic requirements and strategies
to keep monitor lizards alive and healthy over the long term, have opened
up the hobby to an entire new generation of keepers.
Monitors are absolutely booming in popularity!
One
of the most popular pet monitors available today is the Water Monitor (Varanus
salvator).
The
Water Monitor is the largest lizard that you can possibly own, dwarfed only
by the mighty Komodo Dragon.
An average adult Water will reach at least 6 feet from tip
to tail, and can easily weigh 60-70 pounds.
That is a lot of lizard!
Waters
can be a fine choice for a monitor if a keeper is well prepared, but there
are definitely pros and cons to be weighed before making this potentially
giant acquisition.
Simply
because of their sheer size, Water Monitors cannot be considered a beginner
reptile. Babies may be fairly inexpensive to purchase,
and 12 inches of baby madness may not seem like a big deal, but for this type
of decision, you have to look 1, 2, 5, even 10 years down the line, and consider
the awesome future of the this reptile, and what responsible ownership really
means.
A
six foot eating machine is an expensive reptile.
The reasonable initial investment will quickly fade when you are faced
with building a 12 or 15 foot cage for your giant monitor. That time will come much sooner than you may
think.
No
pet store sells a monitor cage ready for a 6 foot Water monitor.
As you will learn, snake cages are NOT reasonable environments for
monitor lizards, they simply do not allow for the temperature gradients, the
substrate requirements, and they certainly don’t have the square footage necessary
for such an active animal. You are
most likely looking at a custom cage, or perhaps a remodeled room, to accommodate
this type of reptile. These custom
environments can run from $500 to $2000 or more, and that investment will
come due not in 5 years, but more likely just one or two (what what WHAT?!?).
And
where does a 15 foot cage go? Probably
not in the living room. Many
keepers end up putting large monitor cages in the garage (there goes the car)
or in a basement, and now you have just doubled your heating bill, because
those rooms are often COLD, and will have to be specially heated to meet the
needs of your new housemate.
Don’t
forget that big monitors have a BIG appetite, and they can put away a lot
of food. Before you make your final decision, don’t forget
to factor in your monthly, and yearly, food bill. Monitors don’t eat table scraps, they eat a
balanced, nutritious, healthy diet, and you may very well need clearance from
the head of the household to keep 50 pounds of frozen rodents in the family
freezer!
After
that food goes in, it comes right back out.
Monitors have a quick metabolism compared to snakes, they make efficient
use of their food, and return the extras right back to you.
If you stay on top of your cage cleaning, the smell is no worse than
your favorite ball python, but let a 50 pound monitor go for a week without
cleaning, and your neighbor may well call the National Guard.
Monitors
are a lot of fun to keep, and I absolutely recommend them, but if you are
not yet prepared to make the time, space, and financial commitment required
for a Water monitor, there certainly are other choices.
Small 2 foot monitors like the Acanthurus (Ackies) don’t require nearly
the caging and feeding needs of a large Water. That would be a much better choice for a beginner
keeper, start with a scooter before you try and drive the tank.
It
is all about responsible ownership. Huge lizards are incredible visual animals,
I certainly love going to the zoo to see the Komodos, but the novelty of size
wears really fast. When you choose
a new reptile, choose wisely, and make sure that you can fulfill the lifelong
needs of that reptile. There should
be no disposable animals.
For
the keeper truly capable of caring for a giant monitor like the Salvator,
you are in for a special treat! Waters
have great personality, and like most monitors, are inquisitive, interactive,
and reward keepers in ways that snakes simply cannot!
So
where to start? Start with a baby! Why? Why
not jump a year ahead of schedule and find a juvie or adult animal for sale?
Because you will have the best chance of success
with a baby. You are in it to win it, and you want the strongest,
prettiest, healthiest adult Water possible. You will greatly increase the
odds of that success by doing the work yourself. Raising a baby yourself allows you to completely
control the variables, both good and bad. You can ensure proper husbandry and a great
diet, and in a very short time (it goes by quickly) you will have that polished,
beautiful, full sized adult Water you have been dreaming of.
Aside
from that, you can’t expect someone else to do all the hard work, all the
blood, sweat, tears (and rodents) and NOT expect them to ask primo dinero
for a gorgeous adult Water. The blood, sweat and tears are the investment,
put in that work yourself, and reap the rewards.
You
can purchase baby Water monitors from a number of sources.
Pet stores sell them, reptile shows sell them, if you are lucky you
can catch one of the few
Always
demand the best when choosing a new reptile (monitor or otherwise). Don’t start with a pity case or “pet store rescue”.
No matter what the “savings”, don’t pick a half dead bag of bones out
of an unheated 20 gallon aquarium filled with 2 dozen limp
babies sitting in an inch of stale water (“Dude, it says they’re WATER monitors!”-
does that spark any old reptile show nightmares for you?). Why folks dream of that fabulous new reptile
addition and then start themselves six feet in the hole absolutely mystifies
me.
Choose
a healthy, vibrant, alert, solid animal! A
healthy Water monitor baby should feel strong in the hand, and while it may
become your tamest lizard ever, for that first contact, it should be defensive,
fairly scared, and awfully skittish. As
far as that baby knows, you have just chosen your next lunch!
Make
sure the eyes are clear, and there is no mucus or excess saliva in the mouth. Make sure there is a full compliment of toes
and nails, and check to see that the tail is complete and in good condition.
There should be no stuck sheds, and if the animal is currently in shed,
the shedding skin should come off fairly easily, although keep in mind that
monitors shed in pieces, and over a few days, not in one long piece like the
more familiar snake.
Monitors
store fat in their tails, and the hips are a good indicator of an animal’s
general condition. The hip bones should
NOT be visible, the tail should be full, thick, and round at the base.
The legs and belly should also have good tone, and while they should
not look stuffed like a sausage casing, the should have good muscle quality and a strong, full appearance.
Once
you have made your selection, you need to maintain that great bill of health,
and in order to do that, you need a great setup.
At
Pro Exotics, we always suggest new customers start with a smaller cage for
babies. Smaller cages are easier to control temperature
wise. It is easier to monitor food
intake and observe and react to your new animal’s progress. We like to start our baby Waters in a 10 or
20 gallon long glass tank.
Water
monitors do not need a large pool of water to swim in, so that does not need
to dominate your cage space. What you
do need is a good moist substrate, some good hiding spots, a water bowl, and
an appropriate temperature gradient that covers both ambient and basking temperatures.
Temperatures
are one of the aspects of monitor husbandry that have changed radically over
the past 15 years. I remember in the
early 1990’s keeping monitor babies (not very successfully) with basking spots
of 90-95° F. That
is hardly even warm. But that is what
all the literature said (and much of it still does). If you are new to the vanguard of monitor husbandry,
you might want to sit down before you try and understand our current accepted
minimums for basking temperatures. Here
we go…
120-130
degrees. Fahrenheit. Absolutely.
Now
before you split your britches, understand a couple of things.
Number one, we are talking about BASKING TEMPERATURES. At their hottest point. Ambient (general) cage temperatures should be
in the low to mid 80’s. But basking
temps do indeed run into these ranges.
We
are also talking about SURFACE TEMPERATURES.
Not air temperatures, and certainly not body tissue temperatures. We are talking about basking temperatures that
allow the lizard to fully metabolize and function as a cold blooded, highly
active reptile.
With
temperatures being such an important part of successful monitor husbandry,
you are going to need tools to measure those temperatures accurately and effectively. Before you make your monitor purchase, get yourself
an infrared Temp Gun, and some Minimum/Maximum Digital
Thermometers with probes. These tools will become your best friends.
You
can either trust me on this temperature thing, or test it for yourself. Take your temp gun out on a hot summer day,
let’s say a moderately warm day of 90° F, the kind of day you might have in
Now
even though the air temps hover in the warm but tolerable range of 80-90°
F, you will find these heat thirsty “basking” spots run well over 110° F.
Monitor
breeders trekking in Indo and
But for a monitor, it is the difference between barely hanging on at 95°
F, or growing, thriving, and even breeding at 130° F or more. We regularly use basking temps of 160° F for
adult breeder monitors, and they make regular use of it, but with babies,
we run the lower basking temps of 120-130, as they are not into egg production
or breeding cycling.
I
really can’t stress enough how important temps are to your monitor. They are the single biggest factor, and most
commonly overlooked, to having success with monitor lizards. Don’t sell yourself or your animal short by
relying on the cheapest dial or color changing “thermometer” you can find,
and for goodness sakes don’t pull the old “lick your finger and put it under
the light” technique, after which you invariably say “Seems hot enough to
me!” Because it isn’t. Get a high quality thermometer, get a temp gun,
and learn to use them. They will become
your most valuable tools for your entire collection, not just your monitors.
Achieving
these temperature gradients in a cage is not that difficult. It doesn’t require a 250 watt “Super Bulb” to
get your basking temp just right. You
just gotta know the tricks!
The
simplest trick is using an elevated basking spot.
If you set up your cage so the basking spot is elevated to within just
a few inches of your light (remember that we are talking about a cage setup
for a baby), you will indeed be rocking those ideal temps. In a 20 gallon setup, we can easily achieve
a temperature gradient of 84-125° F by setting up a 45-65 watt bulb reflector
lamp on one end, and creating a basking spot that very nearly reaches the
top of the cage.
You
can use cork bark flats and tubes to get up there, or you can use stone, perhaps
sandstone or slate. Be careful when
choosing your basking material though, don’t use cardboard or paper, and if
you use rock, consider very carefully the possibility of the elevated spot
toppling and crushing your precious new baby.
At
PE we use a stack of wood panels that have been adapted and modified from
an idea first popularized by monitor breeding guru Frank Retes from the Goanna
Ranch.
The
wood stacks are made from 1/8 inch wood paneling and 2x2’s, and they can be
stacked just about as high as necessary to achieve the proper temperature
gradient. We use stacks of 4 or 5 in our baby Water setups,
and what you achieve with their use is quite amazing. Pull your temp gun out again…
On
the top of the stack, right under the basking light, you will find those top
temps of 120-130° F. As you go down
through the stacks, level by level, you will find the temperature steadily
dropping 5-10 degrees. At the bottom of the stack, you will find temps
that just about match your ambient cage settings of 84° F or so. We cut a center access hole in our stacks, to
allow for easier animal movement, and for a better temperature gradient as
well.
The
monitors absolutely love their wood basking stacks.
Depending on their current temperature needs, they make use of every
level. When you extrapolate it out,
for a 20 gallon cage, you have effectively more than doubled your usable floor
space.
The
narrow spacing between the stacks makes for a fine hiding spot, and for home
use, I would even considering adding cloth or denim sheets to the sides of
the stacks to provide an even darker and more secure hiding area for these
initially shy reptiles.
You
are shooting for that overall daytime temperature gradient of 84-125° F. At night, you can turn off your basking spot,
but you still want to have some ambient heating, whether it be room heat (for
those that have a dedicated reptile room), a night bulb, or a ceramic bulb.
Your nighttime target temperature is going to be 80° F, or at the very
least, the very high 70’s. Baby Water monitors are not “more prone” to
respiratory illness than other monitors, but they will react quickly if you
are not on top of your temperature game. Unknown
nighttime temperature drops are where most new keepers make initial mistakes.
Of course, with that new Min/Max digital thermometer ($20 or less through
a dozen different sources), you will know exactly what you have happening
in the cool of the night, and you will be able to react and adjust accordingly.
The
substrate that you choose for your Water monitor baby is another important
factor in your potential success.
While
“Waters” do not live primarily in the water, they do need a moist substrate
in order to thrive. Aspen bedding,
newspaper, sand, or other dry substrates are inappropriate and will literally
suck the life out of your animal.
We
have used cypress mulch for many years with our baby monitors, and I have
always liked it for that application. It
holds moisture and cage humidity well, is easy to spot clean, and keeps Water
monitor skin in good condition.
For
a baby Water setup, you want to offer at least a couple inches of the mulch. You will want to keep it damp, but not wet,
and we typically add water to it every couple of days to stay in balance. Add enough water to achieve a good rich color
in the mulch, but not so much that there is any standing water. Watch the cage for evaporation rates (you may
want to cover a portion of the cage lid to prevent rapid loss of water content)
and add water accordingly. It only
takes a couple of weeks to develop a feel for how much water to add at a time
to achieve your balance.
While
the mulch has worked well for us in the past, we are always looking for ways
to improve our monitor husbandry, and sometimes changes can smack you straight
in the forehead with their simplicity and effectiveness.
The
most significant change we have made in the last 5 years of keeping monitors
is in our substrate. We have changed
most monitors over to a diggable, burrowable soil substrate.
Soil is easily the best substrate for a monitor, it is very natural,
and if you could grade soil as 100% effective and appropriate for monitor
use, cypress mulch would barely crack into the 70th percentile. There is that much of a difference.
I
think that for practical use, keeping monitor babies on cypress for the first
few months is fine. It can be very
awkward and dangerous weighing down a 10 gallon glass tank with 30 pounds
of dirt, cypress will serve the purpose well and you will move past that initial
stage soon enough. Once you move on
to an intermediate sized cage, or your final adult Water cage, I think a good
soil is easily the best choice, and I would bet that once you try a good soil,
see your animal burrow, explore, and generally thrive in a good soil, you
will never turn back.
Of
course, describing a good soil is not as easy as it sounds. I can tell you what it is not. It is not sand. It is not potting soil. It is not straight topsoil.
And no, it is not a 50/50 mix of cypress and topsoil.
It takes a lot of trial and error to find a good soil, you literally
have to get your hands dirty, try different dirts, and see what works.
A
good soil holds moisture well, digs well, holds a burrow well, and serves
the animals well. You can check out some of the soil information at proexotics.com,
and I am even willing to offer a phone consultation on “good soil” to anyone
who needs. All 55,000 readers of the
magazine if necessary. I just
can’t capture the difficult and subtle topic of soil in this article. Start with cypress mulch for your baby monitor,
and take it from there, you will be fine.
Once
you have your setup ready, hidespots, water bowl, moist substrates, and ideal
temps, your cage should be ready for the actual animal.
Balancing those temps and moisture levels is not the easiest task,
so have that cage running for a few days before the arrival of your new Water
monitor baby.
Water
monitor babies are not the most confident lizards available, in fact, they
are pretty shy and defensive. They
are well known for taming down quickly, and making for predictable and tractable
adults (there are always exceptions), but for the first few months, they may
act defensively, they may bite, and you may not see them out and about as
much as you would like. During the
initial acclimation period, limit interaction and personal time as much as
possible. Your priority is to let the new baby settle
in, explore its new surroundings, find some good hidespots, good temps, and
then settle in to a good eating pattern. Chasing
the animal around the cage with your gargantuan predatory paw three times
a day DOES NOT speed the acclimation process along, nor does it speed up “taming”.
Your personal interaction time will come later, once the animal has
settled in and you have gained its confidence, primarily through food.
Start
offering food to your new Water the day after arrival.
Keep in mind the monitor will feel very exposed and vulnerable while
feeding, so it may be very reluctant to feed in front of you. A baby Blackthroat monitor may tear through
2 dozen crickets 6 minutes after arriving, a baby Water monitor will not. For the best response, offer your prey items
at night, so the animal can feed in the still of night, in peace and quiet.
Count your prey items, so you can calculate your baby Water’s daily
intake. Feeding in controlled portions
lets you easily monitor feeding response and appetite.
Baby
Water monitors are not meat grinders. They
are small lizards, with small digestive systems, and need a good amount of
roughage to keep things flowing smoothly.
Baby monitors are built to eat bugs, lots and lots of bugs. At Pro Exotics we feed our baby Waters a diet
of crickets, superworms, roaches, rodents, and raw ground turkey.
The
insects are the base of the diet, and are offered 4 days a week. Rodents are offered one day, and the raw ground
turkey (mixed with crushed vitamins and calcium) is also offered on a single
day (both meats are offered in controlled portions). That adds up to 6 days a week. I would say 5 days is the absolute minimum I
would consider a healthy feeding schedule for a rapidly growing baby monitor.
With
the right basking temps to allow for metabolism, it is pretty tough to overfeed
a growing monitor. We offer as many
insect feeders as the babies will eat (have you ever tried feeder roaches? Monitors LOVE them!). There is always a supply of insects available
to the monitors.
We
approach the meats in the diet differently.
Once again, with proper temperatures, your monitor will have little
trouble digesting just about any food item in moderation. But while many new keepers love the action involved
in feeding their monitors rodents, that doesn’t always make it a great idea.
With
those little tiny digestive systems, that meat intake can get awfully heavy. It would be like you eating a 9 pound pot roast
every day for 3 months straight, you can’t tell me that you wouldn’t feel
a bit sluggish, cramped and a bit unhealthy after that constant load of meat. Certainly as the monitor grows, the diet becomes
primarily meat based (after the first year or so), but for your new baby,
try to stay focused on insects, at that size, that is what they are built
for.
The
rodents we use for monitor feeding vary with the size of the animal, but another
significant change we have made over the years is the move away from pinkie
(newborn) mice altogether. We feed
our monitors primarily thawed rodents, and for babies or smaller species like
Ackies, we feed mice (adult Waters and Ionides eat a lot of rats). We use crawlers and hoppers quite a bit for
baby feeding, including the Waters.
Mice
that have moved past the “pinkie” stage, once they have started adding weight
and fur, are going to be much more nutritious for your animals. Pinkie mice are kind of like miniature sticks
of butter. Lots of
fat, little in the way of nutrients.
Older mice have started adding bone structure (calcium) and have a
nutritious gut load that consists of more than just milk. Crawlers and hoppers are a better choice for
your animals, and the health of your monitor over the long term will be better
off by making this menu decision.
On
a well balanced, nutritious diet, and with proper husbandry and care, you
can expect your 10-inch hatchling Water monitor to be a bit better than 4
foot long at the end of the first year. You
read that right, and 4 feet is a lot of lizard (remember all that custom caging
talk?). This is a tip to tail measurement, and while
the animal will not have added the true mature bulk at the yearling size,
you can be assured that more growth is soon to come. By the second year, you
will have that full sized, giant monitor that was the goal from day one.
Monitors
are time consuming animals. Any animal
that eats this much, grows this fast, and needs this much attention to caging
and care is going to be a handful. Monitor
lizards are a lot more work than boids. There is more feeding, they have a faster metabolism,
and your monitors can go downhill a lot faster than your snakes.
For
new monitor keepers, stay on the proven path as much as possible. After you have kept monitors successfully for
a few years, you can start trying different ideas and theories, but when you
are just beginning your monitor adventure, stick with a proven, healthy plan,
otherwise it will be your monitor paying the price for any mistakes.
If
you insist on trying your own recipe, ballparking
your temps, using the most “convenient” substrate, or creating your own dietary
plan, you will NOT get the same results. We
use our method because it works, it has been proven over the long term by
many experienced keepers, and we have already paid the steep price of mistakes. The details of our husbandry are not interchangeable.
If proper temperatures are not “achievable” for you, or if you simply
cannot resist the temptation to feed your monitor bacon, catfood, and BBQ
chicken wings, then monitors are not for you.
They are not toys or playthings, and they are not disposable animals.
One
of the greatest things about monitors is the application of knowledge. Captive monitor care is amazingly consistent
across the board. There are subtle
variations for humidity, size, diet and such, but the basic setup remains
the basic setup! That is to say ANY
GOOD MONITOR INFORMATION is GOOD MONITOR INFORMATION FOR YOU! You can apply the strategies and theories in
this article to any of your monitor species.
Any good monitor literature will have gems of information and insight
that you can apply directly to the species you work with. That is one of the “secret” keys that make monitor
husbandry and breeding so much fun. We
are constantly learning, reading, and discussing monitors as a community,
and we are constantly fine tuning and improving our own monitor abilities.
I have worked with many reptile species over the years,
monitor lizards stand out as one of the most fascinating, and fun, reptiles
for captive care and adventure.
Post
script:
For
more information on monitors, soils, nutrition and husbandry, check out the
caresheets and FAQ’s at proexotics.com
Thanks
to Chad Brown for unwavering reptile dedication and thanks to Nicci, she’s
a great wife.
©
2002-2003 Pro Exotics Inc.