Your Nile looks like he/she is in great shape.
I don't mean this in an unkind way, because you seem like you're truly attached to that guy and I'd hate to see you loose it...but PLEASE do some research and start taking the traditional long proven method of monitor husbandry. Improper temps and diet will allow your monitor to grow and look healthy, but they're very good at masking their health issues (a method of protection from being singled out by predators as being a weak animal that is easy to chase down and kill) and will slowly decline and eventually die with little or no warning.
Monitors need air temps of 80-95, and basking site temps (the surface temp of the monitor's back while basking) of 130 -150. Monitors need the extreme basking temp in the same way other lizards need UVB lighting.
Diet - go with rodents as 90% of the diet. The other 10% can be literally anything, but I usually offer some cut up raw meat (red white, poultry).
Caging - Make sure your caging is large and secure. Monitors are very intelligent and very strong and will find/make and escape route. It's no fun to have a pet (that seemed happy and content) one day look for bigger better things and decide to "exit" his enclosure and come up missing one day.
Tame - in most cases, but not all, monitors that "appear" tame are usually weak, cold, stressed, or just a total combination of all of the above.
Many people acquire a monitor and handle it all the time and revel in how tame and handleable it is. As time goes by, the monitor stops tolerating all that handling and the keeper rationalizes by saying they haven't spent as much time working with their monitor like they should and that's the reason it's no longer tame.....
Actually, when they stopped holding her, her stress levels dropped, her broken spirit healed, and she became confidant & secure again. A defensive and aggressive monitor is a happy monitor that is communicating to it's owner. Have you ever laid in bed with a fever and chills? All you want to do is lay there and do nothing...that's pretty much what an over handled, stressed out monitor feels like. That's why they appear to be "tame", and then when the novelty ends and the keeps cuts back on all that handling, the settle in and become happy and secure and no longer want to tolerate all that molesting from their keeper.
A molested monitor (a monitor who's owner reaches in, grabs him & pulls him out of his enclosure) will never truly learn to trust a human. They either turn aggressive, or develop a stressed broken spirit and submit to the molestation rather than oppose it with aggression.
A nice confident monitor will let you interact with him but will also communicate to you when to come closer or when to stay out of his space.
Big high wattage bulbs are not needed. Most people use "elevated" basking sites, rather than using high wattage bulbs facing down towards the floor (the higher the bulb, the more it will dry the humidity out of the air). Use a couple 45-75 watt bulbs and place a cimbing basking platform of some type under the bulbs. Check the temps, if they're too cool, make the basking platform even higher, closer to the bulbs. Use "flood lights" never use "spot lights", spot lights have a focused beam, floods have wide beams.
There are two floods side by side enclosed and the basking temp is 145. Notice how the monitor positions itself so the flood beams are covering the body from shoulders to hips? This is all about proper digestion and nutrient absorption.
Sometimes they are just basking and not digesting, so they'll lay just outside of the direct light beams, probably in the 90-100 degree range....
Best of luck to you and your monitor! I'm always happy to help and never get tired of talking about herps....feel free to email any time.
