Nile monitor wont eat

My Nile monitor i purchased on Sunday, the first day i had him home he ate two horn worms. Since then he has not eaten, i have left two in the room in hopes that he would eat them. I also left a guppy in his tank in case he prefers to eat fish instead. The temperature is normally about 80 degrees and humidity is about 60%. I am keeping him in a zilla 20 gallon long (hes really small, at least two times his size in length) and his bedding is wood chips about 2 inches deep. Any help is much appreciated!

His enclosure is bad, his substrate his bad, his temps are low. Get him into a real cage, give him deep dirt/sand mixture to dig in, give him higher temps with a basking surface temperature of 120+, my nile uses basking temps up to 160. Probably you're keeping him too cold and stressed to want to eat or eat more. Heat him up, leave him alone, and give him places to hide (burrows, a real cage that isn't open on all sides)... and you'll see him perk up.

The wood chips are more or less large pieces of bark, not pine its more of a reddish color. I have 2 hides with drift wood to climb on, as well as a large water dish to fully submerge. I thought he would be to stressed to put him in a 55 or my 90 gallon when he is small as he is

Again, no bark. Give him a soil substrate he can burrow in, and up his temps. He needs high temps and humidity and your current setup won't give him that. Glass enclosures basically create a monitor jerky machine. He will be just fine in a large enclosure as long as he has plenty of hiding places. You might even find he's much more active when you give him the space. He's not a ball python, he will use every inch of a large enclosure as long as its provided.

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Thank you for your help! I will head to a petstore and purchase eco earth, and some more light fixtures thanks for the advice!

No eco earth, he needs a soil sand mixture. Think more of dirt and not wood.

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Originally Posted by Duh

The wood chips are more or less large pieces of bark, not pine its more of a reddish color. I have 2 hides with drift wood to climb on, as well as a large water dish to fully submerge. I thought he would be to stressed to put him in a 55 or my 90 gallon when he is small as he is

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DIRT. Let him make his own hides from holes. Water dish won't hydrate him constantly, he'll dry out if his humidity isn't high enough. You can put a baby nile in a big cage right off and it'll do fine but a 55g and 90g are crap. Throw them away or put FISH in them. They are FISH tanks, and do nothing more than kill monitors.

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Originally Posted by jbean7916

Again, no bark. Give him a soil substrate he can burrow in, and up his temps. He needs high temps and humidity and your current setup won't give him that. Glass enclosures basically create a monitor jerky machine. He will be just fine in a large enclosure as long as he has plenty of hiding places. You might even find he's much more active when you give him the space. He's not a ball python, he will use every inch of a large enclosure as long as its provided.

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Originally Posted by Duh

Thank you for your help! I will head to a petstore and purchase eco earth, and some more light fixtures thanks for the advice!

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Originally Posted by reptilenut

No eco earth, he needs a soil sand mixture. Think more of dirt and not wood.

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Yes. GO TO YOUR BACKYARD, GET SOME DIRT! lol.

It seems like you did no little to no research before getting a LARGE monitor that has specific husbandry needs.

This monitor is going to get to be huge. Most who get monitors will keep their adults in a custom made shed or room. Definitely not a fish tank.

Do you have a picture of your setup?

As others have said, go get some dirt instead of wood chips.

Also your heat is completely wrong. Monitors need high basking temperatures to help aid in digestion.

If you change your caging and give the monitor the proper husbandry, it will probably eat.

Not trying to be rude, but do you realize that this animal will need a cage around 6'x6'x12' when it make it to adult size? I hope we aren't scaring you away by telling you these things, but people often buy these monitors because they can be gotten cheaply and don't realize how much time, money and effort goes into properly taking care of one. I have to be very careful not to let myself fall for the cute baby monitor thing every time i go to a show because I just don't have anywhere to setup such a large enclosure yet.

One last thing, once you get the husbandry issues sorted out, give the animal a couple weeks without even trying to interact with it. Clean, water, put in food and leave it alone. Once it is eating well and settled in then you can start trying to interact.

pm sent.

Chris