Crocodilians in Aquaria

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fish042099

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Nov 24, 2011
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Northern N.J.
Hello reptile world,
I recently got a 155 bowfront aquarium. The dimensions of it are 72" long, 25" tall, 24" wide in the middle, and 18" wide on the sides. Exact gallonage is 164. It stood empty for a while, than i had a great idea for it- a crocidilian. Now i know they are not suited to beginners, but i am familiar with reptiles. When it outgrows the tank i have a GREAT setup waiting for him. I am looking for the most aggressive caiman under $300 avaliable for purchase. Also with a pretty slow growth rate. I am looking at these species:
-Spectacled
-Cuviers
-Scneiders

Any incite?
 
If you looking for something really nasty a dwarf caiman would be good. They stay a realistically manageable size, look like they crawled out of a dinosaur book and are very agressive. One of the coolest looking crocodilians out there


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Before recommending anything, what kind of enclosure do you have set up for him?

All three caiman you talked about will grow 8-10" a year. Here is a video I just uploaded about caiman care.

[video=youtube;N8WgmRwlN-k]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8WgmRwlN-k[/video]
 
Are you sure you want the most aggro caiman you can get for our fist reptile? thing could take your fingers off, my buddy tried keeping one but he was dumb about it and got bit so he sold it
 
I wonder what is a great setup? :) huge pond with a 10x10m (33' x 33') dry space? You know that those things reach 2,5m (~8') right? (talking about spectacled caiman)

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Z Trip said:
Before recommending anything, what kind of enclosure do you have set up for him?

All three caiman you talked about will grow 8-10" a year. Here is a video I just uploaded about caiman care.

[video=youtube;N8WgmRwlN-k]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8WgmRwlN-k[/video]
Click to expand...
watched, nice
 
Good luck if you go thru with it. That's how I got into fish keeping I had a American alligator for 5 yrs. Why would you want the most aggressive one??? You have to handle it. Even if you don't handle it you still have to reach in or enter its enclosure to clean it. Do you want it that aggressive that every time you need to do cleanings or something in its tank that its going to try to bite you. Don't get careless with it I did and it got ahold of my thumb and it did a number it i was lucky it didn't get infected cause they carry some nasty stuff. They say that you can control their growth rate by how much you feed it and water temperature but Mine grew about a foot a year. Also I would recommend not feeding live food it keeps them a little bit more docile. But if your set on getting one I was told a min. of 1.5 times their length in both directions for the basking area and 3-4 times length in both directions for water and depth didn't matter as long as that there was a area that it could reach the bottom. Hatchlings are normally about 8" long. So your tank isn't going to last long. If you go with a dwarf caiman it's going to get 3-5 ft depending on sex of it. You going to need a big enclosure sooner than later. You can buy them thru exceptional exotics, back water reptiles, and reptiles to go for under 300 but some places won't sell them to you unless you can prove you can house it and that it's legal to own in your city. I'm not a expert on this. This is just my experience with a crocodilian. If you go thru with it good luck and post some pictures of it.


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I never said anything about handling it. I want something agressive for feeding time.
 
What they're saying is that sooner or later, you're going to have to clean the inside of the tank. If you have a crazy aggressive croc, you'd better be real careful or you may pull back a nub


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