While I agree that emergencies and accidents can happen...I can't base all my choices off of what 'could possibly' happen. I appreciate the concern, but I will just be careful, and i guess walk around in bubblewrap from now on... :Angel:
My plan, as it goes is this:
1. Find a house I like
2. Get the suppleis to build his/her tank
3. Start an apple snail colony so I have a succesful and prolific food supply avaialable even before the liazrd arrives.
4. Start building the enclosure(I agree with you about the heavy filter requirement...I had a couple RES before, so I understand what you are talking about)
5. Let the enclosure run/cycle for a month or two
6. Get the camian lizard and settle him in(after a bit of QTing to watch for dieseases and such)
Once I get my new computer(i'm using my work one) I'll put up my google sketchup ideas for his tank...
I hope you didnt think I was flaming you. It does sound like you do have everything thought out Which is great.
A few things I recommend.
1. look to where you buy your house, make sure there are no laws against exotics. Its better to be safe than sorry.
2. you snail colony, I recommend freezing alot of snails as well and keep many on hand. I am speaking from experience. I just had a roach colony crash on me and when you have a food source like this, its hard to get what you need last minute.
Trust me, I tried to keep red belly snakes here but could not find a constant food source for them, they required slugs. I was forced to release them back into the wild. Which was fine, they were wild caught and kept in QT any way.
3. you have your house, and you have a huge room to setup for this cage. I recommend hunting down the Reptile magazine that shows you the Caiman caging setup. It was huge but amazing. It may be worth your time to try something like this. It was roomie and may also allow you to do multiple species, such as fish and turtles in a setup with your lizards.
I am also one who is against cross caging with different species but this setup was about the size of a small room and you could do something like this.