One Step Closer, But Needing Guidance

[Logie_Bear]

So, I've finally done it. I'm one step closer to my dream animal and getting a tegu, as I've just put down a deposit for a 2012 Extreme. Eee! I'm so giddy at the thought I'm not sure how I'll manage to hold out a whole year! But, that does give me plenty of time to make sure that everything is 'perfect' for when the baby finally arrives. And that gives me a year to start picking the brains of all you fine tegu keepers!

So, to avoid bogging you down with a million questions these are the 3 biggest things I'm wanting to find info on. (Its only a matter of time before I come up with more questions tho )

1) I want to have my tegu on a pretty consistent schedule and I would like to have a 'poo-in-the-tub' trained gu. Question is, what is the best time to do this? First thing in the morning? Before, or after they eat? And just how often does a tegu typically poo? Is it a once a day type bowl movement or should he be taken to the tub multiple times a day to get him in this habit?

2) For those of you who have Gus that are over a year old, just how difficult has it been too tame them (excluding columbians). I understand every animal has its own personality, so has anyone had a gu that no matter how well it was treated, and how much time invested into it just would not tame down? (this is probably my biggest fear...)

3) Lighting! I've been going through the forum for a few days and this has got me boggled! I've never had a reptile before that needed any sort of UVA/UVB lighting so this is total greek to me. Not even sure the exact diff between uva/b either. So I'm kinda looking for a general consensus on this one- mercury bulb that does everything and costs more, or heat lights and separate uv lights? For either method what bulbs do YOU recommend and what wattage?


Sorry to make this lengthy, but I really appreciate any and all input I can get!

:heart: Logie

 

[jtpowers]

Just a couple of quick notes/thoughts that come to mind...mine will usually "poo" any time you let him soak in a couple of inches of water, provided he hasn't gone in a few hours...but he usually gets a warn water soak after his evening meal and goes within ten minutes.

He's over a year old, though based on size I'd still caryl him a subadult...and was cage and food adhesive when we got him. The single best thing we did was to make feeding time outside his enclosure; he shows literally no cage aggression now but is otherwise very active.

Good luck with the wait, I know 2012 seems a long way off but it will be worth it!

 

[kellen.watkins]

As far as your 1st question I would imagine before they eat after a good basking session in the morning so they can make room for the next meal lol although every tegu I have had pood in the tub whenever, on your second question that depends, I had a setback with my 2011 extreme and "had" to manhandle her, my last tegu settled down a lot after about 2 months and got better and better, at around a year of age they hit puberty and go on a mean streak for a lil while a month or two then settle down even more (from my experiance) and your third question they need UVB, I use both a mercury vapor bulb (solar glo from exo terra, better might be a powersun or megaray) and a florescent t8 strip, the MVB doubles as a basking light too though I hope I made things a bit more clear for you and FYI the wait til next july will be in the back of your mind until you see that the eggs were laid and then it gets worse and worse with each day lol but the wait is worth it when you see your lil one for the first time

 

[tora]

I second kellen's post.

My b&w poos after she eats. She only goes once a day. About the lights, I use all of them. I haven't had problems with any of them but the MVB, it's not very reliable. I need to get another one already because this one isn't hot enough like the others I had that died. I think this is my third one that I've had to replace in a little over a year. I grow plants in the enclosures and they seem to grow better under the coil/tubes. Stuff grew okay when I had the first two mvb's in there, though. You really need a uvb meter if you're only going to use one source of uvb. ALSO! Be careful about wording! Full spectrum light does not mean it produces uvb!

As far as the never being tamed down issue, all of the tegus that I have met/read about all tame to some degree. What I'm trying to say is that even if you don't end up with a puppy-tame lizard there's a real good chance it'll still be calm enough to be considered tame. Only exception I've seen is when the tegus are outside lizards and rarely get human interaction. And even then, they're not normally mean unless abused.

 

[Logie_Bear]

Sorry if I missworded the lighting comment! So do tegu's need UVA/UVB both? All the posts I see about it on the forum is a lot of abreviations and I'm so lost. Which one provides the full-specturm light that they need (in the most simplistic layman's terms you know). I'm completely dumbfounded by lighting. x_X

 

[Neeko]

Uva makes them see in color I believe and grow with appetite. Uvb is really radiation in wave length. It works the same way the sun does it makes vitamin d3 which allows calcium to be absorbed. Other wise you have a floppy tegu. Think of boneless chicken from cow and chicken the cartoon network show. My Tegus rarely go in water.

 

[jtpowers]

Relax...you aren't the only one dumbfounded by lighting. There are a lot of variables, and we really dont know exact requirements anyway...we just know they need it to some degree and the most common metabolic none disease problems are often a result of too little. Rob_K recently started a few threads on the topic that I found informative. If you have the ability to let him get an outdoor bask for even a portion of an hour each day, unobstructed by glass (which blocks UVB) you will be doing him a service. Otherwise, the UVB bulb market is rife with products that don't measure up (and in fact don't give real published info on their output at all). At this point, there isn't a single one I would recommend without reservation, but the long flourescent tubes are generally better. Mercury vapor bulbs like powersun and megaray have been considered the gold standard, but i've seen more than one test recently that shows pitiful performance. My advice is just to keep reading and don't take anyone's opinion (including mine!) as gospel.

By the way, sorry for the plethora of typos in my last post. Autocorrect plus no proofreading. Hope you got the gist.

 

[Neeko]

I envy all those who live in states where their Tegus live outside all year long and let nature do its thing. Natural is best since it seems artificially mimicing nature isn't available yet. Jtpowers is right the information isn't there yet.

 

[dragonmetalhead]

Kodo poops on his own terms. I do try to soak him to encourage him to do his business, but there's about a 50/50 he won't go until after I've taken him out of the water and dried him off. He also often poops during breakfast (I assume the influx of fresh yummies forces whatever is in his intestines out). He also poops in his enclosure, but I make sure to clean it out daily. Make sure to keep your tegu away form its poop or it might get flagellates. Just a warning, tegu feces REEKS! A single turd can stink up en entire room to lethal levels pretty quick (Kodo's poop always smells worse after eating fish). Kodo also likes to poop on my clothing and he usually doesn't give his warning pee beforehand, which leads me to believe he's doing it on purpose for his own amusement.
When I bought Kodo, he was already about a year old and two feet long. The folks at the pet store said he was used to being taken out daily, so he was already pretty tame. He warmed up to me almost immediately. I have found that socializing/taming a tegu is not too different form socializing/taming a dog. Spend time observing your animal to learn its habits and body language. Speak lovingly too it so it learns to recognize your voice and associate you with good things. I didn't try this, but some people put a shirt or other clothing item in with their tegus to get them accustomed to their sent. Once Kodo was fully comfortable with me, I started taking him out in public. He's been to various pet stores, Barnes & Nobel, the vet, my mom's dental office, my pharmacy, the children's museum where I work, and both my psychiatrist's and my therapist's offices. I am happy to answer people's questions and let them pet Kodo. It's good exposure so they become used to people.
In regards to lightning, I use a 100-watt Zoo Med Powersun bulb, a 150-watt infrared heat bulb, and a 100-watt Zoo Med basking bulb. The heat bulb is on 24 hours. When I finish building his new, bigger tank, I will most likely up the wattage as needed.

 

[jtpowers]

Maybe this will help for background. All light is radiation. There are the visible light colors of the spectrum, sandwiched between two invisible types of light... Infrared on one side (which we can feel as heat) and ultraviolet on the other. Basically, it looks like this:

IR-R-O-Y-G-B-I-V-UV

"ROYGBIV"is basically the different colors of visible light. IR and UV are infrared and ultraviolet. Each color has a different wavelength, like channels on a radio. That's what makes blue blue and red red.

Your FM radio tunes from roughly 87 to 108. Those are wavelengths of energy too, but they obviously aren't visible.

Now use the radio comparison...you can hear any "channel" (wavelength) just by tuning. But just because you can't "tune" to 86 or 109 FM doesn't mean they don't exist. Your radio just can't pick up signals there. Follow so far? Your eyes are like the radio and UV and IR are outside your radio dial.

Well, in the case of light there's still important stuff (UV and IR) on these fringes. IR is heat energy. UV is used by human and tegu skin to make vitamin D3, which is important to metabolize calcium. BUT...most electrical light doesn't make UV (or it doesn't pass through the glass of the bulb) and, in the case of fluorescent light, it puts out very little IR compared to hotter standard incandescent bulbs. Some lights, however, put out a lot of IR (heat) and some are made to emit some UV.
So let's think of UV as channel 109 FM. You can't see it or tune in to it, but there's still important stuff there, needed to make D3.

Here's the clincher..."channel 109" is actually broken down into something like 109.1, 109.3, & 109.5. 109.1 is UVA. Nice, but not your favorite station. 109.3 is the UVB channel...bingo, D3 production! 109.5 is UVC, and you hate it because it hurts your ears (and reptile eyes, getting back to the point of the analogy.)

So...there really isn't such a thing as a "full spectrum" bulb that produces everything the sun does. Standard incandescent bulbs produce lots of IR and the ROYGBIV colors of the rainbow. Bright halogen floods make IR, little to no UV, and often skip the yellow wavelengths of visible light so they appear "whiter". Fluorescents produce little IR, plenty of visible light, and negligible UV. Specially designed UV bulbs like mercury vapors produce almost all...or at least are marketed as such, but unless you have a solarmeter, you don't know how much and might be paying 60 bucks or more for a bulb little better than a cheaper UV fluorescent or worse, a dollar store incandescent.

Based on everything I know, I would either go with a Powersun or Megaray MVB along with a solarmeter to keep checking output over time (they do "wear out"), but that's an investment in the hundreds of dollars. Or you could do a combination of a basic halogen floodlight for heat and basking along with a separate Reptisun 10.0 long fluorescent for UV.

Hopefully, this isn't too much info or discouraging to you, but I'm really disappointes in the UV options out there. Many bulbs, despite brand name or fan following, are useless at best or damgerous at worst. Get natural sunlight (not blocked by glass) when you can, and don't expect much from your UV bulb, and at least you won't be disappointed.

 

[Logie_Bear]

Maybe this will help for background. All light is radiation. There are the visible light colors of the spectrum, sandwiched between two invisible types of light... Infrared on one side (which we can feel as heat) and ultraviolet on the other. Basically, it looks like this:

IR-R-O-Y-G-B-I-V-UV

"ROYGBIV"is basically the different colors of visible light. IR and UV are infrared and ultraviolet. Each color has a different wavelength, like channels on a radio. That's what makes blue blue and red red.

Your FM radio tunes from roughly 87 to 108. Those are wavelengths of energy too, but they obviously aren't visible.

Now use the radio comparison...you can hear any "channel" (wavelength) just by tuning. But just because you can't "tune" to 86 or 109 FM doesn't mean they don't exist. Your radio just can't pick up signals there. Follow so far? Your eyes are like the radio and UV and IR are outside your radio dial.

Well, in the case of light there's still important stuff (UV and IR) on these fringes. IR is heat energy. UV is used by human and tegu skin to make vitamin D3, which is important to metabolize calcium. BUT...most electrical light doesn't make UV (or it doesn't pass through the glass of the bulb) and, in the case of fluorescent light, it puts out very little IR compared to hotter standard incandescent bulbs. Some lights, however, put out a lot of IR (heat) and some are made to emit some UV.
So let's think of UV as channel 109 FM. You can't see it or tune in to it, but there's still important stuff there, needed to make D3.

Here's the clincher..."channel 109" is actually broken down into something like 109.1, 109.3, & 109.5. 109.1 is UVA. Nice, but not your favorite station. 109.3 is the UVB channel...bingo, D3 production! 109.5 is UVC, and you hate it because it hurts your ears (and reptile eyes, getting back to the point of the analogy.)

So...there really isn't such a thing as a "full spectrum" bulb that produces everything the sun does. Standard incandescent bulbs produce lots of IR and the ROYGBIV colors of the rainbow. Bright halogen floods make IR, little to no UV, and often skip the yellow wavelengths of visible light so they appear "whiter". Fluorescents produce little IR, plenty of visible light, and negligible UV. Specially designed UV bulbs like mercury vapors produce almost all...or at least are marketed as such, but unless you have a solarmeter, you don't know how much and might be paying 60 bucks or more for a bulb little better than a cheaper UV fluorescent or worse, a dollar store incandescent.

Based on everything I know, I would either go with a Powersun or Megaray MVB along with a solarmeter to keep checking output over time (they do "wear out"), but that's an investment in the hundreds of dollars. Or you could do a combination of a basic halogen floodlight for heat and basking along with a separate Reptisun 10.0 long fluorescent for UV.

Hopefully, this isn't too much info or discouraging to you, but I'm really disappointes in the UV options out there. Many bulbs, despite brand name or fan following, are useless at best or damgerous at worst. Get natural sunlight (not blocked by glass) when you can, and don't expect much from your UV bulb, and at least you won't be disappointed.

Wow, super informative! Thank you so very much JT! Not discouraging at all. I imagine I'll get more of a feel for it once I'm buying bulbs and actually have a set-up going. Right now reading about all of the different bulbs outputs, etc, etc has been a bit of information overload. @_@ So, from what I've been hearing I'm going to opt out of doing MVB, sounds too sketchy and expensive for something that might now even work.
So, with that in mind lets say I'm going for a reptisun for the UV needs. As far as the heat goes, since tegu's are diurnal do I need to have a black/red light heat bulb for nighttime or just basking during the day is fine. Or, should I get one of those ceramic heat emitters. Do those give off enough heat for a tegu's needs?

---

Kodo poops on his own terms. I do try to soak him to encourage him to do his business, but there's about a 50/50 he won't go until after I've taken him out of the water and dried him off. He also often poops during breakfast (I assume the influx of fresh yummies forces whatever is in his intestines out). He also poops in his enclosure, but I make sure to clean it out daily. Make sure to keep your tegu away form its poop or it might get flagellates. Just a warning, tegu feces REEKS! A single turd can stink up en entire room to lethal levels pretty quick (Kodo's poop always smells worse after eating fish). Kodo also likes to poop on my clothing and he usually doesn't give his warning pee beforehand, which leads me to believe he's doing it on purpose for his own amusement.
When I bought Kodo, he was already about a year old and two feet long. The folks at the pet store said he was used to being taken out daily, so he was already pretty tame. He warmed up to me almost immediately. I have found that socializing/taming a tegu is not too different form socializing/taming a dog. Spend time observing your animal to learn its habits and body language. Speak lovingly too it so it learns to recognize your voice and associate you with good things. I didn't try this, but some people put a shirt or other clothing item in with their tegus to get them accustomed to their sent. Once Kodo was fully comfortable with me, I started taking him out in public. He's been to various pet stores, Barnes & Nobel, the vet, my mom's dental office, my pharmacy, the children's museum where I work, and both my psychiatrist's and my therapist's offices. I am happy to answer people's questions and let them pet Kodo. It's good exposure so they become used to people.
In regards to lightning, I use a 100-watt Zoo Med Powersun bulb, a 150-watt infrared heat bulb, and a 100-watt Zoo Med basking bulb. The heat bulb is on 24 hours. When I finish building his new, bigger tank, I will most likely up the wattage as needed.

Hahaha, Kodo sounds like a (adorable) problem child! As far as socializing goes, should you get them used to lots of people/things like you would a puppy, or would that be too stressful for a young tegu? And by that, I mean after he's already acclimated and doing well at home, not running around with him the week I get him and scaring him for life. D:

When you take kodo out in public, do you just keep him on your shoulder, some sort of harness or what? I foresee myself having fun with this in the future.

Also, just to be clear on your lighting suggestion- the powersun and basking bulb are only one during the day right? Are those all the smaller bulbs that you put in the circular clamp-lamps or the long tube-style bulbs?

 

[dragonmetalhead]

Lol, he's not a problem child so much as a lizard with a definite mind of his own. Kodo likes to perch on my shoulder, but sometimes he crawls around my back or on top of my head. I use a T-Rex Lizard Harness. It's a little cinched leather harness with two loops for his front legs. I got it at PetCo, although PetSmart may have them as well. He can get out of iguana leads too easily. I leash him just about every time I take him out so he will get used to being on a god lead when he's older. He never goes out in public unleashed, since I don't want him to escape and I have recently found out he's quite the jumper. Since I work in a kids museum, I feel it's important to get Kodo used o as many people as possible but I never do anything that I feel will overstress him. Once you get to know your animal, you will know their stress thresholds. Kodo enjoys being petted and held, so it isn't an issue for me. I just don't let people grab his tail or pet him near his face. I tell kids to "pet him as if he were a puppy of a kitty" and that seems to work perfectly. Yes, the powersun and basking bulbs get turned off at night. I just the clamp-sttle bulbs and I have them placed on top of the tank; the wiring situation in the museum won't allow me to use the tube-style.

 

[jtpowers]

Their temp can drop a little at night so long as it isn't a wild swing. If your habitat might cool below 70-75F, a heat emitter or nighttime red basking lamp would be a good idea (provided your tegu isn't hibernating, that's another discussion)...

 

[Logie_Bear]

Thanks for all the info guys, last pressing question would be what website would you recommend for purchasing lights. Looking at the zoomed website and i just see info on all the products, no carts or method for purchasing online!

 

[Neeko]

Anyone see the spiderman movie with dr. oct? remember he makes that little sun that goes crazy and almost destroys the city, well we should get little ones of those and put them over our cages. problem solved =D (also if you invented this im sure you'd be crazy rich as well)

 

[Logie_Bear]

Anyone see the spiderman movie with dr. oct? remember he makes that little sun that goes crazy and almost destroys the city, well we should get little ones of those and put them over our cages. problem solved =D (also if you invented this im sure you'd be crazy rich as well)

I can see the news articles now...
"tiny sun supernova's within local apartment complex, hundreds die"

 

[Neeko]

a hundred lives sacrificed for a "real" uvb source, debatable if its worth it.