Crestie cage/food stink?

[Phillydubs]

So I am very new to crested geckos as it was thrusted upon me as a kind yet surprising gift gesture.

I notice when I go in his cage for a water change or food change it doesn’t have the best smell. He gets Repashy fruit and grubs. I change it about every day sometimes day and a half... is this common or is something else going on? He’s on the same substrate as all my
Snakes and I never smell anything from them but his stuff is like blah.

Anyone have the same issue?


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[Phillydubs]

Anyone...?

[zina10]

Their poop is quite tiny and can be very hard to find if you have dark substrate. It can also be hidden, stuck in a hide or plant.

And their poop stinks. LOL

See if you possibly missed some stink bombs.

I'm thinking about going bio active with the substrate. I'm not quite ready to go bio active all the way (plants etc) because I don't want to add that super bright light the plants need without having the ability to have a larger cage and creating it carefully so that the plants get enough light, yet the gecko has tons of shade. Mine likes to sleep out in the open and I fear the bright lights would end up hurting his eyes, since they can't close them.

I've read you can go bio active with just the substrate. To do that you have to have a certain substrate setup. Joshs Frogs (and others) sell everything needed. Basically a drainage layer of rocks (I will make one shallow, because I will never have the cage all that wet for water to collect on bottom) Then you put a screen/cloth on that, then comes a special soil mix that has different things in it (organic soil, charcoal, etc) After that a layer of moss and on top a layer of dry leaves. Sounds a lot, but I need small amounts of all that and it all came in one order.

If you have bioactive , you need a clean up crew. Tiny little bugs that will devour any poop or mold or nasties in the tank. Springtails and some sort of roly polys. Josh Frogs sells those as well.

After you put your new substrate in, you add the Clean up crew. Since I only have one Gecko and no live plants, I won't have all that much to clean up, so I only got Spring tails (miniscul small white bugs).

I haven't put all that together yet. I'm giving the Springtails time to get over the shipping stress and to develope in their little container, before putting it all together. I've heard the special soil mix will have its own odor, but should dissipate somewhat and not supposed to be that bad.

I may end up not liking this, but it would be nice not to worry about hidden poop.

You probably didn't want to hear all that, haha.

You could also try to rotate food, get the Repashy Mango (smells better) or some of the Pangea flavors, there is also one with bugs included. See if that makes a difference. You can buy very small bags, so its not a waste and your baby gets a bigger variety..


edited to say: try to post in the Rhacodactylus Geckos subforum next time, most Cresties posts are in there. Technically they could go into general Geckos as well, but I check the Rhac forum (last one) more often. I totally missed your post..

[zina10]

Have you figured it out yet?

[dakski]

Phillydubs,

I already mentioned to you, but for everyone else, I swear by this stuff.

http://www.reptilebasics.com/healthy-habitat-gallon

http://www.reptilebasics.com/healthy-habitat-24oz

I clean the tanks with F10SC whenever there is waste (I use paper substrate) and then spray this and wipe up the excess before putting my printless newspaper back down.

It smells great and neutralizes odors FAST! It even works well with Figment's (my corn snake) wonderful butt bombs.

They say it is safe to spray on animals, and is all natural. I have yet to try that, but it definitely keeps the reptile tanks smelling fresh.