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Old 04-12-2009, 01:34 PM
Catching the Bug
 
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Portsmouth, UK
Posts: 30
Lasher is on a distinguished road
Default Housing Leiolepis Reveesii

I'm open to all ideas, comments and suggestions.

I recently acquired a pair of Leiolepis Reveesii(male and female, I'm hoping a pair and would like, despite the lack of info available on the subject, to breed them) and I'm having difficulty constructing a sufficiently 'robust' vivarium for them.

Whatever I come up with has to be appropriate to the species, reasonably astheticaly pleasing and also balance practicality.
Theyre living in a 24 inch flat packed viv(viv exotic, sliding front glass doors) filled with coco substrate 6 inchs deep at the front and about 10 at the back, built up in terraces with wood and slates. In the past 2 months they have litteraly dug everything out and shifted all the substrate from one side to the other and back again. As all the decorations have gradualy subsided and become squashing hazards I've had to remove almost everything and a great deal of the substrate - whats left isnt sufficient for their burrowing needs so I'll be rebuilding the same viv(a new one just isnt practical or financialy viable at the moment) - I'm just not sure how.

They need curving, stable burrows at least a foot deep(absolute minimum). I used to keep Uromastyx on shelves full of plastic crates all linked up with vent piping with a thin layer of play sand. I could, as a last resort, try and pack the same into a 2 foot box but I'd rather not. This has led me to two ideas(neither of which I'm entirely satisfied with):

Firstly would be a complete divergence from my prefered building method of using entirely natural materials to build entirely natural vivaria. Piping and hide boxes, surrounded by sculpted polystyrene grouted and inlaid with small tiles or polished pebbles(likely the later) for an entirely fixed non natural look, a sort of 'art deco' vivarium.
Downsides to this would be all their burrows would be man made and wouldnt alow them their natural burrowing behaviour, also that it would take me quite some time to build causing them an extended stay in a warm box while I do it.
On the plus side if i get it right it would look very striking(if unusual) and be quite easy to maintain.

My second thought was to keep it more or less as it is now but using eggcrate to build a floating 'false wall', fronted with wood and cork which would be positioned about halfway back in the vivarium(still allowing easy access to water and feed them) giving me a split level viv with 6 inchs of substrate at the front(up to the glass) and 12-16 inchs of substrate in the back half.
It'd be a quick change over and would let them dig themselves, maintenance would be awkward and it'd look like a tank full of bits of wood.

Any input would be appreciated, if anyone else keeps the species or knows someone who does photos of how their housed would be of interest too.
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"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe."

1.0.0 Gerrhosaurus Nigrolineatus (Zuki)
1.1.0 Leiolepis Reveesii (Kronos & Rhea)
1.0.0 Leptopelis Vermiculatus (Chac)
0.0.5 Pleurodeles Waltl
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