Caiman Lizard Owners/Setups/Info/Experience/Ect.

Not an animal for everyone that's for sure. I owned a caiman for several months, frankly, I prefer an animal you can hold without it wanting to kill you all the time.

I've owned lizards before but nothing compares to a caiman. The amount of room they need is just far beyond anything imaginable. I don't want to scare you off about them but honestly, I don't think they should be offered to the public.

I would recommend a smaller lizard, maybe friendlier.

Caiman lizard not caiman.

Lepisosteus platyrhincus said:

Caiman lizard not caiman.

Click to expand...

Looks like I went full ret*red. Lol. Well I can't help much then. Don't thiney eat snails and require high humidity.

Not meant for tanks, you can keep a hatchling in an aquarium, but will need more of a full room set up with a pond when they begin to mature imo ever consider a monitor?

milokai, a member on here has one but hasn't posted in years I think.

They are my dream reptile too. Pretty much size is a room lol for their tank. Maybe one day I will win the lottery. Main diet is snails too.

and... http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?226834-Caiman-Lizards-info

Z Trip said:

Looks like I went full ret*red. Lol.

Click to expand...

Well that's thoroughly offensive

These are a dream herp of mine. Would love to hear an.owner chime in on temperment

Sent from my XT1080 using MonsterAquariaNetwork App

While I don't own one myself (for now), I have cared for several. They are not an animal for beginners. This is the time of year when farm bred babies from Peru start showing up on the market. While they are not technically wild caught, these animal are still very delicate for the first year of their lives and almost always have a heavy parasite load which needs to be dealt with. Have a good reptile vet lined up in advance and get your animal checked out as soon as you can after bringing it home. The babies can be started in a 10 or 20 gallon at first but they will outgrow it rapidly (The roughly sixteen month old male I'm currently working with is 31"). One of the most important things to do when you first bring it home is to leave it alone until you are sure it eating well. These are intelligent and sensitive animals and they need time to adjust to new surroundings. Minimum enclosure size I would recommend for an adult would be 8'x4'x4' with a water area big enough for them to submerge and swim around. They also love to dig and climb so a deep substrate suitable for burrowing and branches wide enough for them to sit on comfortably are important. A heavily planted enclosure is a good idea and pretty much a necessity for babies. Floating plants in the water are also a good idea. They spend a lot of time in the water and generally go to the bathroom in it so either an extremely strong filtration system or daily 100% water changes are needed. Dirty water and the ailments associated with it are a common cause of death in captive caiman lizards, especially babies. As far as temperament goes caiman lizards are all over the board, some are puppy-dog tame and others are downright nasty. Nearly all are food aggressive. As I said earlier these are intelligent animals and taming them is all about building trust. Some of them never tame down at all though and they are willing and capable of doing some pretty serious damage, you DO NOT want to be bitten by a caiman lizard and they can tail-whip worse than an iguana. As far as curbing food and cage aggression target training helps. Try to keep the diet as varied as possible with meaty items (Snails, clams, scallops, shrimp, crayfish, silversides and mazuri crocodilian diet) and occasionally some fruit if they will take it (bananas, mangoes, and papaya).

Haha, sorry for the wall of text.

Here's a few pictures of the one at my work right now

Great post Ceej!