I was at the store yesterday getting feeders for the ball pythons and my fiance and I found the baby cresties. They were soooo cute tucked into the leaves and we got to talking. I think we have decided that we want cresteds instead of getting more leopard geckos. We talked to the man at the store (the store specializes in herps) and he said that cresteds do well at room temperature (and I checked that in the FAQ section on crested geckos.

Temps in my house range between 68 and 72. I use a space heater in the winter to keep temperatures around 72-75. I take that this is ok for cresteds.

Humidity stays anywhere between 20-40% in my house so a humid hide and mistings would be required.

I have a cage that is 2 feet tall, 2.5 ft long and 1 ft wide. It has screen doors on either end and a screen top. I will have to reinforce the screen doors as the screen is very weak and my cats could easily rip it open. I won't be putting any cresteds in that for a while so I have some time to do that. We want to start off with babies.

So given that we want to start off with babies I have a few questions.

The man at the store said you can keep a single baby in a small critter keeper with paper towel substrate, vines, fake leaves, food and regular mistings. Is this true? If so, when should the gecko be moved up to a larger sized enclosure?

How many adult females can live peacefully in the tank mentioned above? I have been told previously two but I wanted to check.

Also, since we want to get babies, it would be very hard to determine sex when we get them. All of the babies will be kept seperate until sex is determined. If we find out one is male and we don't wish to breed, what size tank is appropriate. Is there a critter keeper that is large enough to house a full grown crestie?

As for food, I have to buy crickets for my leopard gecko anyway, so I will probably give crickets to the cresties as well. Are they to be dusted with both calcium and vitamins? And with baby food, how often should that be offered? Do you have to prepare the crested gecko diet in any special way?

Sorry for all the questions, but I want to get as much information as I can. I will be looking through the internet for more information as soon as class lets out. thanks for any replies!