Mangrove Monitor care

[tabastifur]

can someone please give me a brief run-down of the specific requirements needed for Mangrove monitor care. Just specific requirements though please.

Thanks,

Dan

[cheekeebandito]

Hi, my 8 yr old Mangrove loves to eat, swim , and soak up the sun.... He loves chicken, fish, and small mammals. I give him shellfish on occasion. He's an aggressive eater. He loves to climb and sleep in his water tub. Watch those teeth and nails !! I keep his enclosure at about 80 degrees in the daytime with a basking area of about 90-95 degrees. At night the temp. drops to about 75 degrees. The enclosure is six feet tall and has a box for him to hide in . A very cool monitor........ good luck, Les
p.s. It's a good idea to make sure the enclosure is easy to clean. I use indoor /outdoor carpet as a substrate. They crap a lot , and monitor crap is very smelly !

[V.hb]

I'am not sure all of what you would like to know, and cheekee added his input, not to undermind his advice but i'll add some of my own techniques ive used with the species in discussion, as well as similiar species such as blue-tails.

As far as diet, i wont add anything, cheekee covered that well, although he didnt add how much, so i'll tell you i would feed a mostly mammal diet, consisting of rodents. You can't go wrong with them, shellfish is good too, however from my observations ive found it has a much worse smell when the animal defecates, and trust me you will be pooped on. These guys have a rep to "projectile" defecate.

Cheekee's temps are good, you can achieve these with Halogen flood lamps, get them at home depot for around 5-7$ each. 100 W is good, if you get a quality one, lessen the wattage (These suckers get hot) Then do some trial and error with thermometers to get your temps dead on. The only temp id change is the basking temperature, id raise it to about 110 in the daytime, but leave the ambient temperature the way it is.

As far as housing, as cheekee said they love to climb so give alot of obstacles to your mangrove. I find they are far more secure with multiple hide spots, i used lots of branches, and fake foilage to achieve this. I housed my mangroves in a 12x6x6 this is large, but I housed two in it. personally i wouldnt go any smaller ( I know many people would, so to standard an 8x4x4 or for an individual 6x3x3 may suffice)

Cheekees substrate worked for him, 8 years now, however i wouldn't use indoor-outdoor carpeting its easy to clean, but its plastic and plastic houses alot of bacteria even when sanitized. I would stick too various types of dirt and leaf litter. For water, definatly something large and if you're out for a majority of the day id even use filteration as they love to defecate in their water.

hope ive helped.

[cheekeebandito]

Hi V.hb, you're right on with your info. You got me wondering about my mangrove's basking site temp., and so I checked it again this morning. It's actually closer to your ideal temp. about 103 degrees or so. I forgot that I went with a higher wattage bulb in the fall. It's a full spectrum too. As far as substrate goes, I've tried mulch , but changing it all the time to rid the reptile room of mangrove poop smell , just wasn't practical. That's why I switched to the carpet. It's laid down over vinyl flooring material and each and every day, I remove the carpets and wash them in hot water, then hang to dry. The linoleum is also wiped down daily with animal safe disinfectant. I've had no problems whatsoever. Same thing with my Boas. Whatever works best for you , I guess.
Just wondering , how long have you had your mangrove(s) and where did you get them ? I've had mine since he was a hatchling , and he's now about 8 years old, and 4 feet long. He hasn't defecated on me in years, and is very well natured. I just have to watch him when there's food around ! Take care, Les

[tabastifur]

Thanks a lot guys, just what I needed answered!

-Dan

[V.hb]

Hey Cheekee, Ive kept both mangroves and bluetails. I kept mine under the advice of others who kept them, and unfortunatly when i moved i had to sell them. as far as handling you are far ahead of me by taming yours, i never had a chance too tame mine (good job!) Thats cool to hear how well natured he is.

Your setup obviously works, and yeah the poop smells terrible! our albigs take hmm rather large ones :) Ive always steered away from linoleum and astroturf, but like ya said whatever works, and yours obviously does. Show us some pics of your mangrove, id love to see them.