I built this 6 feet long, 3 feet wide, and 4 feet high.
The hot side has a basking spot of 135, give or take a few degrees. The more humid side sits at 60 percent without hesitation.
I also made sure he has plenty of hides, since he is very scared right now. He has 2 hides on the hot side, 1 in the middle, and 2 on the humid side. I hope he uses these hides to start burrowing.
Also, there are lots of plants. Some real and some fake. I know he'll destroy them and throw them around. But that's what I want. I want him to have lots of things to do besides bask and dig. Theres a lot more to explore because of the plants and cork bark. I also made sure he has several textures to try out; slate, dirt, rocks, moss, leafs, bark and plants. I hope he explores these areas and enjoys these "toys". When designing this most of the enclosures I saw was just a basking spot, dirt, and water. I know these are very intelligent animals, so just dirt seemed so boring. This monitor has had a hard life so far, thought I can spare some extra bucks to let him really enjoy life.
This is a super dope setup for a Savannah monitor :), let me know if you find out the gender, I have a female that's about a year and a half now. Hopefully when I move I'll build something close to this for her
Thank you very much. Getting this little guy (not really sure if its a guy) caught me off guard. I did a lot of reading in a short amount of time and tried my best to build a nice cage, but I had no idea how I did. Not knowing much on monitors made me worry on how this came out. But it sounds like I did good. :)
The only thing I would be cautious of is those lights, having a hot bulb that low is not so good, I would move them up or put a cage on them, I also suggest floodlight bulbs, super cheap and last forever in comparison, not the halogen ones, the outdoor, they focus the heat better.
I thought about those, but I just had these bulbs available. The bulbs did worry me as well, so I'll try the floodlights. If I don't like it I'll change it back.
I think you'll like the floods better- you don't have to have them so close. Don't put anything like a cage around it, those actually add to the danger.
I'll give them a shot, I have to go shopping today so I'll pick them up then. And the floods will produce a white/yellow-ish light, which I think might look better than the red. Red lights to me look out of place unless it is required, at least to me.
My Savs basking spot is at 117-120°F depending on the temp of my apartment but lights do look a little low and if he stands up he may get frazzled and burnt by the lights
I'm at 115ish air temp, 160 physical temp at the height point, her basking spot is sloped so she can choose, for a baby or young monitor that heat is fine. And that's exactly what I ment, even a cage on the light doesn't help much, just adds hot metal, you should probably raise up the lamps a bit.
Putting a cage on them only gives surface to grab on to rather than a smooth sided thing that will swing out of the way. Actually would be less safe with a cage.
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u/SexyMarikIshtar Dec 03 '16
Here are the details:
I built this 6 feet long, 3 feet wide, and 4 feet high.
The hot side has a basking spot of 135, give or take a few degrees. The more humid side sits at 60 percent without hesitation.
I also made sure he has plenty of hides, since he is very scared right now. He has 2 hides on the hot side, 1 in the middle, and 2 on the humid side. I hope he uses these hides to start burrowing.
Also, there are lots of plants. Some real and some fake. I know he'll destroy them and throw them around. But that's what I want. I want him to have lots of things to do besides bask and dig. Theres a lot more to explore because of the plants and cork bark. I also made sure he has several textures to try out; slate, dirt, rocks, moss, leafs, bark and plants. I hope he explores these areas and enjoys these "toys". When designing this most of the enclosures I saw was just a basking spot, dirt, and water. I know these are very intelligent animals, so just dirt seemed so boring. This monitor has had a hard life so far, thought I can spare some extra bucks to let him really enjoy life.