Upgraded Home for Savannah Monitor

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JeffLeMay

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jan 22, 2006
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Manchester, CT
Hi all,
I have a juvenile savannah monitor who is about eighteen inches long now. He has definitely outgrown his current home, which is a 36x18x18 breeder tank. I want to move her into something that will house her the rest of her life. I have looked at the "fresh air Habitats" at pet stores, which are intriguing because of their relatively lost cost (only 150 bucks for a 260 gallon), but they seem as though they would be difficult to heat properly, and I also worry about the durability. I've also considered building something myself, but I'm not quite sure about the best way to go about doing it. Does anybody have any suggestions? any advice would be greatly appreciated.
 
ditto
 
Those fresh air habitats, if they are the ones I am thinking of, would be totally unsuitable for a monitor. Screen in general is bad because it does not hold humidity at all. Being that monitors require such a substantial amount of heat to thrive, enclosures with scree tops become ovens, with all of the moisture rising out of the top with the heat. Although savanah monitors come from relatively arid habitats, they do need a decent amount of humidity to survive. In nature, they get this humidity from their burrows, which is why a deep, earthy substrate comes in handy.

What I would recommend would be buying a galvanized steel cattle trough. Fill the bottom with AT LEAST 6" of soil/sand/decomposed granite mixture. You will have to experiment a little with this until you find a mixture that will hold a good burrow. Then build a top with wood and plexi with some heat lights built in to the top. It would look something like this (taken from the ProExotics website)...

large_trough_lid_3-01.jpg


I'd get 45-50 watt halogen bulbs (not the ones with the clear hexagon in the center as they create super hot spots that will burn the hell out of your monitor), and then build up the basking surface until it's close enough to the lights to attain surface temps of 130-160*F. Keep in mind that that's surface temp, not ambient temp. With the lower wattage bulbs you will be able to get the appropriate surface temp without turning the enclosure in to a giant pressure cooker.

Here's a link to a ranch supply website that has cattle troughs. The 8x3x2 one would be perfect for him...

http://www.stockyardsupply.com/page11/index2.html

Here's another link to PE's caresheet for ionides monitors. They require very similar husbandry as savanahs, so you might find some of their enclosure notes helpful.

http://proexotics.com/care_ionides.html

Also, Kingsnake.com and varanus.net are two of my favorite websites for monitors. Both have pretty good forums where people often post pics of their enclosures, so if you look through those, you might come accross some more good ideas.

Good luck with everything.
 
rottbo said:
that looks good too but a wooden box with plexi front will hold humidity in if painted with the right paint
Click to expand...

Yep, and an advantage to having a wooden box with a plexi front would be that you could see the monitor more often from the side. I have seen many people build this type of enclosure too.

The trough, though, seems to be a little more permanent. A coated plywood enclosure would not last long at all. A monitor would easily scratch through the sealent with its sharp claws and it would begin to rot. If you go with the wooden enclosure, I would suggest lining the entire inside with FRP board or something similar and then seal all of the seams. This will make it much more permanent. You could even still coat the wood with a sealent for extra protection. Also, if you do this, keep in mind that you will periodically have to change out the plexi because the monitors nails scratch it easily and it will eventually become so scratched that it won't look good.

If you go with the box type too, I would recommend starting the viewing window off the bottom of the enclosure at least a foot. That way it would hold the substrate better.

Aesthetically, I prefer the box type enclosure with a viewing window, but I think the trough type ones are a little more functional.
 
I'm not much of a herp guy, but I just got a new job and I'm going to have to start doing some learning!

The other day I got a call from a guy who wants to buy my 8x4' acrylic tank, he heard through the grapevine that I had a huge 300g acrylic tank that dosn't hold water.. He wants it for his huge Savanah Monitor I believe!! Or some other crazy big lizard, he just dosn't want a wood box.. He said he dosnt care if it holds water or gets scratched up.. So it looks like it will work perfect! I will try to get pics when he has it all setup..
 
I'd guess that'd work fine. It will get VERRRRRRRY scratched up though. Monitors are relentless with their scratching.
 
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