Crestie Enclosure

[WarriorPrincess90]

Hallo all!

My little baby crestie has almost doubled in size since I brought her home a little over a month ago. She is probably about the length of my hand now! I haven't handled her, as I wanted to make sure she was settled and eating first, so she (he?) is not a fan of being touched at the moment. We'll work on that now that she is eating well. I'm also starting to think she is a he. lol. I will try to get some pics to see if anyone can help me verify at a later date. It's not really all that important as I don't currently have any breeding plans, but it would be nice to know if I have Antony or Cleopatra just for future reference.

So, now that the update is done, I am looking at getting her/him a permanent enclosure and was wondering if a 12x12x18 Zoo Med Naturalistic Terrarium would be an adequate size for an adult Crestie? I know she is still small, but I would really like to get her something that I can add more climbing materials to and a more aesthetically pleasing food dish. She is currently housed in a large KritterKeeper on paper towels, but that doesn't give her a whole lot of climbing room.

Thoughts appreciated.

[MrLang]

I think some people keep adults in that size cage and others would say they need more climbing/jumping room than that. Most people will say 20g of space, which is closer to an 18x18x18. I have my 2 in those cages and I think they'll be fine in there for quite a while. I do hear them nail the glass when they're jumping around at night though.

[purplemuffin]

if your gecko is a male..YOU'LL KNOW when the time comes! Crested geckos are rather like rats in that way.. Well endowed.

I'm sure he/she will appreciate the extra space to climb!

As far as that being the permanent enclosure.. Some will argue that's the bare minimum and is fine, others will say you really should get the next size up.

[WarriorPrincess90]

The next size that Petsmart has is 18x18x24. It's not all that much more expensive, but it just seemed huge. Especially since she/he is still small. But if I packed it with plenty of foliage and climbing goodies, would she/he still be okay as far as stress goes? I imagine finding the food wouldn't take too long. I'm starting to see an excited response when the red cap re-enters the cage...

[MrLang]

I think actually in that case you should keep the enclosure more simple and add to it as it grows larger. I don't think they stress in a larger space, they just can't find their food if they're too small in too large of a space. A simple enclosure solves that problem. I actually have my 12x12x18s fairly simple just because my geckos are only 7 or 8 grams.

[WarriorPrincess90]

Hmm...so what I'm thinking is maybe I will get the 12x12x18 to start with and if he/she outgrows that size I will just get the next size up at a later date and use the smaller one for my future baby GTP...or something along those lines.

Thanks for the quick responses guys. I'm going to Petsmart in a bit here, so I will see if maybe they have an intermediate size as well that just isn't on their website.

[sleepygeckos]

I have a single crested in the exo 18x18x24 and she LOVES it. We have it stuffed with plants and I made a bit of a "junglegym" out of some random plastic thing from IKEA (design engineer, I see habitat items everywhere.) Two hammocks, a hide an a small tree stump round it out. She really makes use of the height and hops and flops all night if it is quiet. Nothing like the sound of glass doors shaking on impact! LOL

PS I got my exo online from... I think it was like Dr. Foster's or something, very cheap and they had great customer service when my original top screen was messed up.