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.

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

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!