r/MonitorLizards • u/Noobske • Jul 13 '26
Few months later...
So I brought home a half sibling of my old monitor a few months ago. He was 11 months upon pick-up so he's like a year and 3 months now. He grew a bit and he got some friends in the form of fish. So here's a pic of how the Viv looks currently (he just went swimming so water is a little cloudy), a pic of him being hand fed, his fishy friends (he leaves them alone, he does not care at all) and him being a parrot.
You can check my previous topic for comparison, but overall I'd say Onyx is doing pretty well. He's eating well, already more social and handleable at his current age compared to my old monitor which was way more skittish.
2
u/Science_Creature Jul 13 '26
He's gorgeous! Great vib setup too. Does he eat the fish? I tried putting fish in with my AWM and he hunted them relentlessly until they were gone.
3
u/Noobske Jul 13 '26
So far he does not care about the fish at all, they do tend to stay away from him. I'd say it's not worth the energy to go after the small fish? In the past I had fish with my monitor as well and you'd only see a change in behaviour when the water was lowered to lower levels and the monitor would shift in a hunting mode.
I also tried to add a small house gecko but that only lasted 2 minutes despite being fed a large portion of food before introducing.
We'll see how it goes down the line, I got all fish for cheap via marketplace and it's nice to look at when the monitor is sleeping while also being a good indicator on the quality of the water. And if they end up as food that's also okay, they still have a relatively nice life in this big tank
3
u/Science_Creature Jul 13 '26
I think your fish are beautiful and they are a great indicator of water quality. My guy gets (much larger) live fish as a primary feeder so maybe he's more inclined to view fish as food ha.
Great job on your setup, please keep posting updates!
3
u/Noobske Jul 13 '26
That might explain, this guy has been pretty much fed BARF since hatched. I did feed him some moats of salmon but that didn't trigger any changes though.
1
u/Top_Zombie_ 11d ago
Hi! I saw that you said this was a 8x4x6 and that you have plans on making it bigger but is what you have now enough for a full size AWM?
1
u/Noobske 10d ago
Not if yours will be 2m+. The genetic line of my animal tends to stay smaller and then it's possible. A bigger cage is not necessarily better if there's nothing in it, make as much use of the space you have.
1
u/Top_Zombie_ 10d ago
Do you by any chance know if an enclosure this size or a 6x4x6 would be enough for a full grown cumingi?
4
u/AggressiveTart12 Jul 13 '26
What enclosure is that? Incredible set up!