From: bjz@sei.cmu.edu (Barbara Zayas)
Subject: Iguanas: Substrate/bugs/generic questions
Organization: Software Eng. Inst.;Carnegie-Mellon U.; Pittsburgh, PA 15213   _USA_
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 11:43:49 EST


HER:  Young common/green iguana.

HER APPEARANCE: ~5-6" long (not counting her tail).  She
seems healthy (rounded tail base, alert, good growth,
energetic).

HER HOME: For the past two months, she's lived in a
10-gallon (for now) glass tank with a wood chip substrate.
There's a suction-like cave thing on one of the sides to
allow her to climb and hide beneath.  In a slanted position
diagonally across the tank are three longish tree branches
(which were microwaved for several minutes to kill any
mites). She likes to sit/sleep upon the branches since
they're positioned over the water dish.  There's an
undertank heater that comes on at night and a growlight (UV)
above the tank 8-10 hours during the day with a red light on
during the night.  Cage temperature is 85-100.  It rains
(when I mist her) in the tank about twice a day.  She seems
to like this most times (when she doesn't, she hides behind
the cave).

HER BEHAVIOR: She eats spinach, kale, and colliards almost
exclusively.  She enjoys tofu, carrots, and bean sprouts at
times.  She doesn't seem to like fruit.  She uses her water
bowl daily as a litter box.  And she stares intently at the
walls of the tank -- upon them are taped a poster depicting
drawings of all sorts of prehistoric lizards and stuff.  I
think the dimetrodon freaked her out the first time she saw
it.  (She ran over to it and stared up at it for about 15
minutes.)

Licorice appears to get    t r a u m a t i z e d    when she's 
removed from the tank.  I last removed her about 3 weeks ago
(for a total tank cleaning) and she still panics when I
approach her, even if it's to feed her or change the water.
Sometimes, she'll appear to accept me and then WHAM!  she
pulls an ADMIRABLE--and seemingly premeditated--escape
attempt.

HER OWNER: I've tried establishing trust gradually by
providing daily (eye) contact with minimal touching
(although I do occasionally touch her head). I offer her
food from my hand and she takes it, although tentatively at
times.  I also try to be around her a few hours a day, even
if it's just to exercise in front of the tank or read next
to it.  Anyway, to avoid more stress, I try to minimize the
number of times that I remove her from the tank.  I also
move very, very slowly when I go into the tank to remove the
water/food dish.  Since she uses her drinking area as a
litter box, the number of times the substrate needs to be
completely removed is small (every 2-4 weeks).

And now to the focus of this post...

HER APPARENT CAGEMATES: Yesterday, as I was picking up a
piece of dropped tofu, I noticed a few very, very small (I
mean tiny) white-ish bugs crawling quickly amidst the wood
chips.  I don't know what type of bugs these are, but I'd
like them to live somewhere else.

HER CAGEMATE'S ORIGINS: Despite a close inspection of the
chips prior to putting them int the tank, I'm assuming that
these bugs came with the wood chips and that I'll have to
switch back to the corncob base or go to an astroturf base.
I dislike the look of both of those but if wood chips (which
look great) bring pests with them, then out they go.

HER OWNER'S QUESTIONS:

1.  What might these bugs be?

2.  If you have a guess as to the identify of the bugs, 
    might they have hurt or annoyed Licorice?

3.  Did they likely come with the wood chips?  Or might they
    be the types of migratory bugs that hone in on food/waste
    products at the drop of a hat?

and lastly, four questions unrelated to the bugs:

4.  Even with a corncob/astroturf base, is 2-4 weeks in
    between total cleanings too much time?

5.  What is the best way to remove Licorice from the tank
    (such that her trauma is minimized)?

6.  How often do igs shed?  (Licorice seems to completely shed
    once every 2-3 weeks.)

7.  Is shedding a characteristic of growth or a factor of aging?


--------------------------____________------------------------------
Barbara Zayas		              Software Engineering Institute
bjz@sei.cmu.edu			      Carnegie Mellon University
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