She's still not a big fan of cameras or me
Especially campus and especially me. Oh boy, I guess what's finally done? That's this- this savannah monitor enclosure
I didn't give you time to guess but you probably read the title of the video
So I've had the Savannah monitor for quite a while and what's hopefully her final enclosure is actually completed now
We didn't film a ton of actually creating it
It was me and the first go herping employee who I forgot to introduce in the video
So we'll save that for another time. But basically we built this from scratch after buying this tub and a bunch of supplies
It took about a week and a half maybe maybe two weeks and we're still adjusting little things
There's still things to add. It definitely not completely done pretty much. None of my enclosures are ever completely done
We're always- I'm just always adjusting little things, but it's here now
It's- I have the savannah monitor in a 40 gallon for the past couple months
So now nobody can expose me for keeping a monitor in a 40 gallon
talking about you Sammy (ss:good o' sammy)
Most people watching this don't know who sammy is and I envied those people (ss:same)
Is that too mean?
anyway
she went from a like a big ugly custom built to a 40 while I temporarily moved and
Then into this this is six feet by- or well it's a six foot diameter. I think it's like 400 gallons
I can't remember. Who cares it's big
I have the dumb idea of custom foaming the entire thing and we did it it took longer than I anticipated
It took so much silicone so much foam. I'm gonna put all the prices of everything up on the screen
I think that final total has been about five or six hundred dollars so far and it's not even done
Monitors are not a cheap animal
but now I'm just going to show you the different parts of this and talk about how she's liked it and
Did the adjustments that I need to make from here and whatever else I feel like fits first off
I learned there are three things that you need before you can keep a savannah monitor one
You need more time than the average human because it takes so much time. 2. you need more space than like the average
Bedroom just for your own lizard and three you need to hate money.
I guess I've nailed all three of those because I have a monitor like I said about 400 gallons and this is a metal galvanized
Steel tub. I got it from tractors supply co, I have a kit down below with all the stuff
I used to make this monitor enclosure. Usually the base dimensions that I hear like
four by four by eight feet for a full-grown Savannah
Mine is a female and she might be kind of stunted
I feel like we used the words stunted a lot in these videos with different animals
But this one I'm pretty sure certain about
because I've had her for a year and she's grown some but not very much and I've been just packing her full of animals
Food, I mean they are animals
tons of dubias, a good number rodents, scrambled eggs, super worms, meal worms, like all this like
Healthy stuff and fatty stuff and all this stuff just to try and get her weight up and she eats it all
But she still this does not gain much weight. She just like poops it all out for one
I don't know how old she is because I am her third home
and the first two
Didn't sound like those great care there
Hopefully this is the peak husbandry that she's had
But it might be the fault of the previous owners as to why she's not growing because I'm pretty confident that I've been feeding her
Well, either way I either have a monitor that's smaller than an adult blue tongue or showed she's still growing
Hopefully she's still growing. But if she doesn't she'll have a lot of space to enjoy the enclosure only has one plant right now
I got to the second was too big so I returned it to Home Depot and the other ones already dying
It was dying before I could even finish making it
It might be the lighting because there's almost new light in on this enclosure right now
I want to add some like nice LEDs over all so there's only one heating lamp right now
It gets nice and warm. I have some stone tile stuff for her to bask on I still I want it to be warmer
So I'm gonna add more heat lamps and although most people say they don't require UVB
I'm gonna go ahead and give her UVB anyway, cuz like why not? She basks it makes sense to get uvb
I think and then like I said, I want to put LEDs just for brightness for the plants
hopefully I have more plants that survived and
Just to make it look nicer. Especially in videos. So I decided to go be cool to have a nice built-in cave.
I didn't really think it through. Um
Because now I can't really remove it and it's hard to harder to get her out and like access her. But who cares?
It's a cool looking cave. It's like a little
Cave I don't know what I was gonna say
Multiple hiding spots. There's a ramp a part that she can go climb up on on top of the cave and
There's about like a foot of substrate. Maybe some people say two feet of substrate for an adult
maybe more
She tends to not burrow very much. She's more of a climber than a burrower. It kind of depends on the individual
savannah Monitor, but she's got afoot of dirt in there. I got
organic
Garden soil from Home Depot. I read through all the ingredients and
There's it's basically just dirt like sanitized dirt. So I felt comfortable using it
And yeah, I'm happy with it
it's cheaper than like a bunch of eco Earth or a bunch of
coconut fiber or whatever type you get and
It is only one type right now might have to add some cypress mulch or something into it
But for now, I think that would do it holds humidity quite well
So I'm happy with it. The entire outside of this is completely foamed which took forever took a lot of dirt
I already said that but I'm gonna keep saying it cuz it it took forever
Did I mention how long it took? It looks cool though. I'm happy with it. There's still some little spots that are missed
I might just like get some acrylic paint and paint over this little spots eventually
But I don't- I'm just tired of working on this enclosure. So I'm just gonna leave it as is for now next up the lid
the lid ties into how much she's enjoying the enclosure every person I send a picture to or that saw it in person was like
She better appreciate this because it clearly took a lot of work
She doesn't appreciate it. At least not yet. She's escaped from it multiple times and
Yeah
Basically the top has had its flaws. I wanted to make something that's clean and minimal and
unnoticeable as possible basically a lid that didn't look like a lid but it turns out a lid that doesn't look like a lid doesn't
Act like a lid either because it doesn't keep the animal inside. It's not a good fit. It's basically lidless
It looks cool though. We used zip ties in the middle because I didn't have enough screen, but she's not getting out of that
I don't- I'm very confident
That's not where she's getting out just as I was filming this I noticed that this part of the duct tape came off
So she probably climbed up the side she is in there now
I've been keeping the door closed just in case but I need to
Finalize that so this is I just went to Home Depot until I found stuff that might work it is
Tubing like plastic tubing for pumps or whatever. I just duct-taped a bunch of tubing and then duct-taped
Like porch screen to the tubing now, I did use screen over glass or acrylic or something. That's more solid
Ideally they do have more humidity. From what I understand. It's more important that they have humidity in their substrate
So or like down low like more moisture down there so fine if the air humidity isn't super high
ideally
It won't be super low but so far. I'm confident and comfortable with how the humidity is even with a screen top
It just looks nicer. It has more ventilation to make sure it doesn't overheat or anything
So yeah, if I have to change that I cancel plastic on it or something
Hopefully this going to work cuz I think it looks better. So yeah, she she keeps just leaving.
I don't know why she's so intent on leaving. It's not like it's like super burnin up or super freezing in there
The temperatures aren't perfect yet. Like I said, but they're not as nice as like hiding behind the
Franklin's tub or something or the boa enclosure and then yeah so for the hot spot, like I said
It's not quite hot enough yet. I got some tile also from Home Depot
Home Depot is just like the store I at daily now
so that tile warms up more than the substrate so she can just like hang out on that and
Warm up and then there's just a very lame plastic tub. I want to get some nice big like dish or something
That looks much nicer
Water wise but for now the plastic tub that I had with her before
Works so it's in there. I also just stuck a random hide in there
So it's like I want it to be a little more full. It's not as full as I want
I want more plants. I want more hiding places and I don't know maybe some rocks and other stones or whatever
It might just be time to go with fake plants for this one
Because yeah, who cares?
Other than that, it was an interesting project in a good way. Again. It was more expensive than I was hoping
so rest in peace to my checking account, but
She needed it eventually. So why not do it now? Hopefully it'll be big enough forever. If not then
Kill me (ss:mood)
And yeah, that's I guess I didn't even talk about Bonnabelle about very much
If you didn't know Bonnabelle is my savannah Monitor, I guess you knew that by now. I-
But I just had a whole video on her so you can watch that if you want to learn more about the animal itself
But this it also comes off quite easily the screen-I said easily it's not coming off
See whoa, look at that excess and then it kind of pops over. So it's a very DIY looking thing, but
Yeah, there we go. So the final steps, like I said is add more stuff and actually contain Bonnabelle
so that she doesn't get out of it because that's really annoying and not exactly healthy for her to not be in her enclosure like
whenever she wants
Don't need- Ialready had an experience with a freedom slider. I don't need experience with a further monitor
let's just not but usually these are like wooden built like
Built out of wood. I just didn't feel like doing that
I thought it might look more interesting
If it's done like this easier possibly cheaper own if it's actually cheaper at least more efficient and just a little more unique
To see how it works because I tend to like the look of the tubs a bit more. The outside is extremely ugly
I want to fix this somehow. I tried bamboo on franklin's it looks kind of weird. You can see Franklin's tub video here
So yeah, you can leave ideas
If you have something that could cover the entire outer edge of this to make it kind of blend in or look nicer or whatever
There we go. That's on a Bonnabelle's new enclosure. I'm glad that's over
So we'll we'll see what the next build is
Okay, I'm Alex and thanks for watching