Setting up

I have a 20 gallon long aquarium sitting around so I thought I'd get a couple female leos? Is this too small? I really want them to thrive.

As for every thread I have some questions..I'll number them so it's easy to answer.

1. Can I use an Infrared Heat Lamp (Zoo-med) at night and a regular light bulb during the day?

2. Is 88 degrees a good temperature for the "warm" side of the tank? Can the other side of the tank be kept at room temperature. This will fluxuate from 68-72 degrees.

3. For substrate can I use this. The link is Here

4. Hides, one on the cool end and one on the warm end right? Are there any comericial hides available? How often and how should they be misted?

5. I should provide a dish with calcium in it? What kind?

If the questions could be answered as 1,2,3,4,5 I'd love it.


Thanks in advance for helping out a newbie!

1. You can use the infrared lamp 24/7. There's no need to switch them out. (unless you have them in a dark place that doesn't get sunlight)

2. The warm side seems ok, but 68 is a bit too cool. I think if you can keep it at 72 and no lower you should be fine. The warm side should also help warm the air, and you can always insulate the cage a bit to hold a bit more warmth in.

3. The substrate looks ok, but be warned that cleaning it will be a pain. You may want to consider just using paper towels. (easier to clean and replace when needed)

4. If you're going to have multiple leos you may want to have multiple hides on both sides. They can be as simple as a plastic sandwich container with a hole cut out on the side. To the half coconut hides availabe at the store. You will also want to be able to offer a humid hide as well.

5. Yes you can provide a dish with calcium in it. Rep-Cal’s Ultrafine Phosphorus Free Calcium with D3 supplements would be good.

Here's a link that may help as well.... http://www.ball-pythons.net/forums/s...ad.php?t=30994

Wow! Thank you for the awesome reply!

I'll make sure and monitor the cool side temperature. So even during the day they don't need real light? Or can I put the regular bulb far away just so there's some light (no heating from it)

To keep the hides moist, I know you can use a moist towel ,but what is moss? Is it commericial moss or actual real moss? I'm assuming that 2 hides on each side will be enough?

How often/how long should I put that calcium out? Like once a week for one full day?

Thanks, I'm going to print out that care sheet and post it by my tank. :D

I'm sure you get bored answering these same newbie questions over and over again!

I wouldn't use a day lamp for leos they are pretty sensitive to bright lights. I use undertank heaters for both of mine with no lamps.

The moss is terrarium moss or sphagnum (sp?) moss. I like papertowels though cause they don't get stinky like the moss does. I just mist the humid hides every other day.

The pure calcium should be in like a milk jug cap and keep it in the tank 24/7. They need to have it. I have seen mine eat it multiple times.

Also, remember that two females can fight. Mine did and I had to seperate them. One female wouldn't let the other hide, eat or drink. She was also biting her. So i had to buy another set up. No one told me this could happen when I first got my leos.

A 20 gallon is kind of hard to fit all those extra hides in. So I would start with one leo in one tank. They do a lot better by themselves.

Alright, I'll just leave the infrared lamp on 24/7. How do you know if they're eating too much of the calcium? I was lead to belive that females would never fight! Thanks for telling me that in advance. I guess it's just one leo for me.

Thanks Kristy

Oh yeah, Females can fight like you wouldn't believe. No problem. I just didn't want you to run into the same problem i did having to go out and buy a whole extra complete setup when/if they fight.

Well, If you get a baby or juvie, this is the schedule I used

Monday-Saturday Pure Calcium (t rex Bone aid is what I used)

Sunday- Multivitamin with D3 (Reptivite)

As adults I do this

For two weeks I give them pure calcium both dusting their food and in the tank. Then after two weeks I give them the multivitamin. They slow down a lot with eating as they grow older, some do some don't.

But for a year I have stuck with those two schedules. Too much calcium wont really hurt them as long as they have the D3 to process the calcium

Too much d3 can be just as bad as No calcium. It has similiar affects as Metabolic bone disease. Thats why you only use it once a week for babies and juvies. You can use it once a week for adults too but I find mine are brighter and more active only using it every two weeks as adults.

Don't forget you ned to measure the substrate temps, they really rely on the belly heat. So the substrate can be between 88 and 94.

I personally use Ceramic tiles for substrate and its awesome. So easy to clean and they heat nicely. I have pics of my tanks with the tiles, if you would like to see them let me know.
Kristy

I'll have to look into the tiles also. For the feeding schedule you were mentioning, do you mean for Monday-Saturday you put the bone aid in the bottle cap and then on sunday the multivitamin in the bottle cap?

As for feeding, is it just crickets? I know how to dust them ,but do they come gutloaded?

The schedule is for dusting, Don't put d3 in the tank. Just pure calcium. You don't want them eating d3 all the time. So always just keep pure calcium in the tank.

They can eat a variety of different insects.

Crickets, Mealworms, Adults can eat superworms, butter worms, silkworms and roaches.

Silkworms being the healthiest feeder but also the hardest to maintain and the most expensive.

I use mealworms as their staple diet, cause I breed them and never have to buy them food. Then I feed crickets or supers to mix it up a little.

They can also eat waxworms but those are really high in fat and aren't good for them to eat as a staple. They do love them. So I use that for treats. Or if I get a rescue thats really skinny I will use those to fatten them up.

They don't come gutloaded, they are empty shells when you get them. I use a mix of wheat bran, dry oatmeal and some multivitamin mixed in for the mealies, this will work for crickets also. Then just provide thin apple slices for moisture for the insects. you can also get some awesome gutload at www.cricketfood.com. Don't buy commerical gotload like flukers that stuff is a waste of money.

Gutload? Does that mean you just feed this cricketfood to them or do you have to like inject it into them?

For dusting it's just making sure there's some calcium on the food?

Gutload is just a term used for feeding them nutrious food. Normally done 24-48 hours prior feeding the crickets off.

For dusting, think of it like shake and bake. :D Just stick the crix in a bag or container with a bit of the powder and ... well shake. Gently though.....

Oh and I just realized I didn't welcome you to the forums. So...

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k1.../welcome41.gif

No need to dust insects with calcium for leos...if you offer them a dish full of the powder they will lick it up on their own time and regulate their own intake. They won't take in "too much." I keep a trio that goes through that stuff pretty quick, and when I replace an empty dish of calcium, they'll often smell it, come out of hiding, and consume some of it immediately...

******Final run down******

20 Gallon long tank
ZooMed Nightlight Red Reptile Bulb on 24/7 keeping temperature at 88 degrees
Regular light bulb during day, just for a little light
ESU Repitle Lizard Liner as substrate or paper towels depending on age
Couple of hand made hide boxes w/ moist paper towel on both sides
Cool side around 72 degrees (will be monitored)

Thanks for the warm welcome

I hate the idea of keeping live crickets on a regular basis and feeding them! Can I use the Zoo-Med Leopard Gecko food instead and mix it with calcium?

Thanks

I have never had any experience with that particular food. It looks like it would be ok, but I'd wait and see what anyone else says. It looks like freeze dried crickets, and I'm not sure how well leos would take to it.

You could also use mealworms, if you'd prefer those.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RESowner34

I hate the idea of keeping live crickets on a regular basis and feeding them! Can I use the Zoo-Med Leopard Gecko food instead and mix it with calcium?

Thanks

---

That food is garbage...live insects are the only way to go with these guys.

I've raised a trio on gutloaded mealworms exclusively, I give them crickets 1-2x a month if that just for fun. Can't beat the simplicity of a mealworm dish...keep it full, they eat what they want, as much as they want, when they want it. Very easy.

I'm very curious as to why you so quickly disregard that food.

It says it's made out of small size flies. I was also wondering if Fluker's Freeze-Dried Crickets could be fed. They come gut-loaded with Fluker's Hi-Calcium Cricket Diet.

As gecko owners what our main goal is to provide the necessary nutrients for the gecko to live healthily. Does it really matter how the gecko gets the nutrients as long as he/she gets them in his or her system?

Thanks

In my experience the geckos won't touch anything that is dead. I tried that stuff a long time ago and my geckos looked at me like "Crazy woman thinks we're gonna eat that?" They wouldn't touch it. Now as far as nutritional value of the food I have no idea.

Thats why I breed mealies, they dont stink and I have a constant supply. I buy more every once in a great while just to refresh the breeding colony. You can usually buy about 500 mealies at a petstore for $5. I used to feed only cricets but they smell so bad. When I would open the cricket bin it smelled like a dead body no matter how often I cleaned it.

I don't have any other evidence besides the advice of leopard gecko breeders I've spoken to...I'm sure they would prefer to feed a commercially available diet with a long shelf life if it was more beneficial to the animal.

Could a leo survive on that food? Sure, but would they thrive? Would you like to see your pet thrive or just get by?

I'm sorry if I came off as rude. :D Well I was skepticle about mealworms because this site had this to say about mealworms.....

Quote:

---

Somehow, the idea that Leopard Geckos can be maintained solely on a diet of mealworms has come into vogue. Sadly, this is not the case. Or at least it would be a real challenge to do so long term. I'm sure several readers are thinking "but I've kept mine that way", maybe so. But have you done this for several generations or kept one gecko for over twenty years? There's a big difference between short-term maintenance of a year or so and long-term maintenance with heavy reproduction.

The simple truth is this: Mealworms have an incredibly bad balance ratio of calcium to phosphorus. Providing an excessive amount of phosphorous in the diet can cause severe problems with calcium adsorption. While many keepers will dust the mealworms with calcium supplement in an effort to offset this, the reality is that mealworms are very smooth and little of it sticks.

While feeding the mealworms a special diet to offset this major problem can be done, it always makes me think of a house painter trying to get pink paint by tinting a bucket of blue paint... Why not just buy the pink, or at least some white to start tinting from?

We feed mealworms sometimes as a backup food source, should we have trouble acquiring crickets, or as an occasional treat. We do not recommend they be used as a primary diet source.

---

http://www.vmsherp.com

How do the rest of you manage with crickets. Do you breed them or buy them in bulk?

Thats why I mix up their diet a little with Crickets, Silkworms, and Supers. Veriety is good. It would be like us eating the same thing every single day. It wouldn't be healthy. So to provide different nutrients in their diet they also get variety.

I am also not breeding leos though, I only have two so I can't say how it would affect reproduction and feeding many generations ecxlusively mealworms. Of course it wouldn't be healthy for the animals.

Oh and with crickets, If you are only feeding one or two geckos I would just buy in bulk online. I have read that they are kind of a pain to breed. They are pretty cheap to buy in bulk.

For housing them i use a sterilite container (the deep ones) with a big hole cut into the top and glue some screen over the hole so they can't escape. Then I use the egg cartons or papertowel rolls so they can hide. I didn't use a substrate for them, I found it harder to clean. I kept gutlaod in a large dish and apples or potato slices for moisture. You can also use carrots.

Where to do you keep the crickets? I've heard that they smell pretty bad. Could I keep them in my basement and put one of those zoo med red bulbs over the tank to keep them warm? Basically I'd just like to know what temperature you keep them at/where you keep them.

How many crickets do you feed your gecko? 3 or 4 times a week and how many crickets at each feeding. I have an extra 10 gallon tank laying around and wonder how many crickets I can keep in there.

The other guy who posted said that he's been raising his geckos exclusively on mealworms with just a few crickets a month, I'm not sure how healthy that is..

I usually keep the crickets up high like on top of a shelf or something where its warm but you can't really smell them.

As long as it doesn't get too cold in your basement I don't see a problem with that.

Not sure how many you could keep in a ten gallon.

I feed mealies Monday through Friday then on weekends they get crickets or some other feeder. They seem more interested in other feeders when they get them once a week vs. several times a week. My geckos eat every other day though because they are adults.

When feeding them, I will drop a few in and wait a few minutes until they have scarfed them all down. Then Drop a few more in. A good rule of thumb is to feed them as many as they will eat in 20 to 30 minutes or until they just walk away. Same goes with other feeder insects.

I am not sure how feeding them on only mealies their whole lives would affect them. I have heard of people doing this will no ill affects but they have also only been keeping them for upto a year or two. Like that article you posted stated that most of the people who do this haven't kept them on mealies for 10 to 20 years.

Theres an article on keeping crickets and breeding them. I will find it and post it for ya.
Kristy

Here you go,

http://www.nyworms.com/ccare.htm