some husbandry and food questions

[chetman7]

Hey

My gf will be looking after my 2 cresties for a bit while I am up at school because i am not sure if i can fit them b/c my gf refuses to take my bp let alone feed it rats. so i decided to bring up my bp first . The big baby also refuses to feed my cresties crickets, so i decided to order a bunch of phoenix worms which she agreed to feed. ( haven't told her yet wat these worms grow into )

My question is has anyone fed phoenix worms? Do they need to be dusted like crickets? and do they need to be fed anything to be kept alive cause i have ~100 comin my way w/ only 2 cresties to feed

My second question is that I'm starting to prepare for winter cause my room at home gets pretty cold and dry and as soon as i find room for them up at school i shall be bringing them up with me. i go to school in Albany so it gets real cold+dry and i live with big kids that are like polar bears. So i'm going to need some supplemental heating. Should I go with overhead CHE or a UTH? They are arboreal so I was thinkin CHE, but there goes all my humidity which in winter can go down to 30-40%. Would a UTH suffice or maybe a radiant heat panel?? just to add... all heating will be controlled by a thermostat.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

o yea I also picked up this adorable female crestie from Kristy. I should have some pics in a few hours, Thanks again Kristy

[mlededee]

You do not need to dust the phoenix worms and you don't need to feed them anything. They are packaged in a cup with some substrate stuff in it that allows them to be pretty much self sustaining. If kept in that cup most of them will dry up and die before they turn into flies (if not feed off in time). Worms that are darker in color are approaching pupation and should be fed off before those that aren't as dark.

Cresteds can handle winter temps down to about 65 degrees (some people let them go to 60 degrees but I personally don't prefer this as their metabolism slows way down with such low temps). If you do add supplemental heating it should be carefully controlled so that it doesn't get too hot and should only be in the form of a basking area so that the geckos can cool off as needed. You can use a uth or flexwatt mounted to the side or back of your cage instead of the bottom or an overhead heating element. You might need to add a humid hide for the winter months in addition to misting more than usual in order to facilitate proper humidity levels.

[chetman7]

good ol mlededee
ur always full of good information.

The a side mounted UTH sounds like a good idea. The tank i have is 18x18x18. What size UTH u think will be good? and I'm guessing a good place for the thermostat probe is to suction cup it on the other side of the glass right on top of the UTH

Thanks

[mlededee]

A strip of 3 inch flexwatt or a UTH that is about one third the size of the enclosure should be good enough. I would recommend placing the thermostat probe directly on the UTH and then monitoring the inside glass temperature with a temp gun, this way you can get a reading in more than one place on the glass in case there are any hotspots. Just be super careful that the glass doesn't get too hot.

[chetman7]

thanks, temp gun seems like a good investment....so does a nice digital scale to document growth.

This hobby is too addicting. in the last two weeks i've taken 200 dollars out of my motorcycle savings

[mlededee]

That's all?

[chetman7]

I finally purchased some phoenix worms. They were kinda expensive., I bought ~100 from premiumcrickets.com

I had 2 unsuccessful feedings with these worms with both of my cresties.

anyone know any tricks? I kinda want to convert them to these worms...they seemed so uninterested in them nor do I think they noticed they were there