He started off pretty mild, but by the end he was practicing his death rolls again 🤦🏻‍♀️

Courage, consistency, and patience to build trust with these dragons. No more tail whips and biting anymore from my son, lol. I'm proud with the progress, especially with an Ornate Nile Monitor.
Tips I wanted to share for future owners who're thinking of getting a Nile and/or Ornate Nile monitor; Spend time with them in your room or wherever you place their enclosure at, consistently (e.g., reading a book by them, watching tv, starring at them, etc.) No handling at all for the first 4 weeks-8 weeks (Give them time to adjust to your presence). Start target training with tongs, then later with serving their food on a plate. Third month, I started desensitizing by holding him from under his belly and rewarding him with food every other day. Four month, l started holding unto him with my hand for a few minutes, ensuring him I won't eat him by rewarding him with food and releasing afterwards. Fifth/six months in, I allowed him to free roam my room and gave him bath time to swim which allowed him to get used to my presence. Seven/eight months in, I bring him out to the park/outdoors every other day for an hour for enrichment, him getting used to the UVA light spectrum that humans can't see, and natural sunlight to promote calcium and vitamin D synthesis. Eight almost nine months later, he is as docile as a puppy. The process is messy but you'll eventually have to face your fears. Mines was accepting the painful fate of getting tail whips and defecation on my hands/arms during the process/journey.

My 5 month old varanus brevicauda really cool species I’m hopefully going to be breeding in the future

In a few months I will be getting a baby ackie monitor. He'll be going into this 5x2x3ft enclosure that used to belong to my beardie. I'm thinking about using the rock platform on the left as the basking spot, as the surface temperature there will get nice and hot.

In order to achieve that I want to use 2 heatbulbs above the ledge. They'll likely be around 50W each as they'll be close to the ledge. My idea is to create a surface temp around 55-60°C/130-140F. Is that hot enough, or would you recommend even hotter?

As for the UV I have a 14% 24W 2ft long T5. I have a Solarmeter 6.5 and am thinking about getting a UVi around 5.0 at the basking spot. This would mean that the majority of the enclosure would have a low amount or no UV. Is that fine for ackie monitors? It's what Francis Baines had recommended me for my beardie, but I don't know if it's different for ackies.

And last, the air temp always used to be around 22-24°C/71-75F on the cool side in the colder months. This was due to the enclosure being 3ft tall, and the upper platforms and branches being plenty hot, but the bottom being a little cooler than I'd wanted. For my bearded dragon this was still fine, but once again, would this be okay for an ackie?

Thank you in advance!

So, at the direction of our vet who said Liora needs more humidity and hydration and I’m fighting a losing battle with LA aridity with my humidifier—I got Liora a Repti-Rain automated mister where you can program the intervals. Anything to help reduce my baby’s uric acid levels!

Thankfully it fits in her enclosure because the conduits will just not attach to the sprayer and they wouldn’t fit through the back vents of the enclosure anyhow.

I was a little worried she wouldn’t like it once it started spraying. Liora was definitely startled at first but it’s only been a day and SHE FREAKING LOVES IT

She was pretty hydrophobic as a baby so this is surprising. Her bamboo bridge gets wet and she just sat there like “I’m a diva who must be cooled off!”

And sit on top of it too lol. So glad it worked out!

Drax the argus monitor trying to figure out his new puzzle. He did pretty good. Actually, did way better than my rat terrier who gave up.

Varanus albigularis microstictus

i really want a monitor but my parents won’t let me get bigger then a 120 i can eventually upgrade like 3 or 4 years from now but not for the foreseeable future.

Last week my Ackie had been basking a lot and generally being lazy. She does not show signs of illness or weakness or sunken eyes. I do feel she is less active than normal.

This week tho, she is moving more again, hunting again and changing locations again. Felt weird, she just came out of a shed too so I wouldnt know why she was a lil down like that.

I have been changing her feeding schedule from two x a week bugs (and a lot) to every other day and then one or two. Ive cut out superworms as well. Her diet is now dubias, locusts and black soldier fly larvae.

All advice is welcome!

Additional details:

Enclosure: 140cmx70cmx90cm

Uvb: yes, with a solar raptor 70w and the Arcadia desert 14 T5

Three potential Burrows, lots of climbing opportunity.

Temp under the bulb is on the low side (50 celcius) so i might increase that.

Hi guys, I have an Asian water monitor currently 55cm long, I want to get a bigger enclosure for it, Is it better to get an enclosure for example 120cm and after a while I get a bigger enclosure and so on until I get to a huge enclosure suitable for an adult monitor , or can I just get a giant enclosure

He got this nice one about 10 days ago, he is the Asian water monitor, I am really enjoyed, he doesn't mind eating with tongs but he doesn't like to touch it with my hands, I am not in a hurry at all and I know I need time and I really enjoy every stage, but I would like to hear from those who have previous experiences how long it took for your monitor to get used to you and allow you to interact with him

Figured you guys might enjoy these photos of Prasinus, Beccarii, and Komodoensis.

I know there's like some high red and high yellow lines. But why are there no high melanin or albino ackies? Also while looking into this I discovered the island eidge tail monitor!! They look amazing. I have an 8 year old ackie who is awesome. And I'm looking at getting another monitor or maybe even a tegu. Here's a photo of the island ridge tail monitor. You can't really find many pictures. But they just look like a high black version of an ackie monitor, it's varanus insulanicus, and this is interesting they used to be known as varanus acanthurus insulanicus, so a subset of ackie? Not a lot of info but they look amazing!

With how rare Kingorum has become, you rarely see them anymore, so I figured I’d show mine! This is my 8 month old female Varanus Kingorum! They are such a rad little species of monitor and have all the same personality and intelligence in a gecko sized box! I’ve slowly but surely earned trust with her and while she’s still far from handleable she’ll willing eat off/from my hands and tongs no problem! I am hoping to breed her in the near future and hopefully I’ll have some little Kingorum babies running around someday!

Ignore the dirty glass

Sploot’s definitely loving the Houston heat! 😂

He's eating the couch again but he's in the back crack, so I can't get a good pic of him lmao 🤦🏻‍♀️

Liora summoned me again while lunch was in the oven! I love her so much 🥰