Argus question

[Adam87]

Ok so in about 3 months i'll be getting an Argus monitor from a breeder i have to say im pretty stoked cause ive wanted one forever but ive been doing my home work and imk about to start with building an enclosure soon but im kinda on the fence about how it should be built

1. if this guy probes his monitors i wanna get a female cause they do grow smaller than the males, now in all the care sheets it says for an adult male it should be 8Lx4Wx3H but they never really say how big the females should be they just say "smaller enclosure" i can get away with 6x3x4 whcih would sit on my tegus cage..... too small? and if anyone knows of whats the mininum for a Female enclosure?

2. alot of caresheets say they are terrible climbers and shouldnt! but i have seen them climb and see them often in branches in other enclosures. so my question is should i make my enclosure semi aboeral? and on another note i do know they spend more time on the ground in the wild and they LOVE to burrow.

3. this is more of a expericed monitor care taker UVB/UVA or is it not needed? i did have a savannah and did keep him under fullspec. just wondering if anyone has had any problems not using fullspec on monitors.


Thanx

 

[DMBizeau]

I have a cbb female argus hatchling I just picked up a few weeks ago and I agree with you there isnt much information out there. I asked my breeder lots of questions to make sure I had all the information I needed. If you get female you should be ok with a 6x3x3 as a minimum but bigger would be better and make sure they have room to dig. I use a sand/peat combo so she can make her burrows all over the place. They are REALLY neat monitors though and have tons of personality. I use mercury vapor bulbs on all my tegus so I use them for her even though I haven't heard anything about them needing UVB I figure it doesn't hurt.

 

[Adam87]

yea i figured that much bigger is better and i was going to just use UVB any way in some way shape or form just to be safe i just can't wait to get mine has yours tripoded at all cause im looking forward to that and also how big is your hatchling ?

 

[DMBizeau]

Mine still hides alot, she was born in may. I would say she is a little over a foot long as is still scared of everything. No tripoding yet, I will take some pics when she does.

 

[dicy]

one of the better sites i came across is <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.waranwelt.de/b_show.php?b_id=19" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.waranwelt.de/b_show.php?b_id=19</a><!-- m -->
its in german but when using a translation program its understandable it has sum good info on difrent species and it has a nice forum whit lots of good info and pics to

 

[isdrake]

one of the better sites i came across is <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.waranwelt.de/b_show.php?b_id=19" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.waranwelt.de/b_show.php?b_id=19</a><!-- m -->
its in german but when using a translation program its understandable it has sum good info on difrent species and it has a nice forum whit lots of good info and pics to

It's funny that, then it comes to reptiles, it seems to be better information available in German rather then in English. Those guys most be crazy about our scaly friends.

I did some research about some uncommon anoles and monitors a while ago. I only got decent information on German sites. XD