Let's see your Varanids

She was captive hatched from an imported gravid female. She was 4-6 weeks old when I got her and I started working with her about a month later. My strongest advice is to focus on trust building and never handle your monitor against it’s will. Don’t even remove your animal from the enclosure to clean, just wait until it is in its hide. Monitors are naturally curious, use that. Start with tong feeding to get them used to your presence. When they are comfortable, they will start to explore your hands and that is the first step towards handling. Don’t rush it, exercise a lot of patience.

3 Likes

And wear leather gloves.

3 Likes

Can you post a pic of the galvanized trough enclosures @varanexan? I’ve been researching those and would love to see pictures of other peoples ideas!

2 Likes

I was actually going to show my baby yellow ackie monitors in here in a few.

2 Likes

Hatched these about 7 weeks ago now, definitely are amazing to keep. Basically having Komodo dragons as pets but pocket size and without the deadly factors but overall amazing reptiles, these are the closes I’ll probably ever get to a velociraptor, mainly cause I don’t want a jurassic park incident lol.

6 Likes

I love ackie monitors so much. They are the perfect monitors for “beginner monitors”

2 Likes

Exactly, and it’s basically like a all in one package in a way for a lizard. That’s why I’m loving to see there are other types of dwarf monitors out here.

2 Likes

I’ve been looking at an enclosure for an ackie monitor pair. Do you think a 5x2x3 or a 4x3x3 would work for an adult pair? The one thing I’ve been hesitant about is the weight of the substrate. Is the substrate, once added, a risk to the floors or unmanageably heavy?

3 Likes

Yea, basically for a adult pair, a 40 gallon breeder would work perfectly but remember your going for width cause I have mines in a 40 gallon breeder as well and they do great just as long as you make the enclosure very active also, such as sticks and different types of rocks, or slates in the enclosure for them to go through and climb around. Now for substrate, you do want it to be deep cause they love to borrow in it for the humidity wise. I would recommend sitting the enclosure on the floor, it won’t damage the flooring but the tank will be heavy after you put all the substrate mixtures and rocks and sticks in. The tank will be heavy to the point where you’ll need two individuals to lift it up unless your Hercules in a way lol.

3 Likes

Just took these a few seconds ago of two of the babies.
Thought it was shedding but then found out, the tail is coming out more white then I expected compared to others :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:


4 Likes


2 new little ones today :pray:t4:

6 Likes

Honestly just wanted to show they’re process since they hatched

7 Likes

Sorry for the bad phone pic, just got this little guy today! (V. melinus)

6 Likes

Oh my goodness he is so cute! Can we get a picture of his home?

3 Likes

Sure!
He’s in a Vivosun 6ftx3ftx3ft grow tent, live planted bioactive with 28gal water feature with fish filter. (The plants are pothos, bromeliad, draceana massangeana, asplenium nidis, and draceana sanderiana)
The burlap is for temporary climbing access while I work on a sturdy backdrop for the far wall



And from this morning…he seems to have rejected the draceana massangeana hahah

4 Likes

Beautiful set up for him :grin:

3 Likes

That is truly beautiful and amazing!!! Love this setup , especially with the live plants !

2 Likes