[HQReptiles]

Hi there I am looking for some advice when it comes to breeding my elegans. I have a pair that are approximately 2 years old if not a little older, I put them together late last year not really expecting much from them because they were not cooled due to the fact they were still growing. I did several times see what I thought were eggs developing but never found any in the enclosure. I do have lots of experience breeding eyelash geckos and usually know eggs in a female when I see them.

This year both animals were cooled separately and have been up and reintroduced for a couple of months. I am now having the same problem I had last year the female looks gravid she has a nice pear shape to her and I can see two bumps in front of her back legs and what look like the outline of eggs through her belly but then over a couple of nights she looks thin with no eggs to be found. I am wondering if I am doing something to cause her to reabsorb the eggs. Both geckos have good weight and eat an assortment of insects including crickets, dubia, waxworms, mealworms, and baby kingworms which are lightly dusted with calcium every feeding. Once a week they get calcium with D3 dusted instead of their regular calcium.

This is how I have them set up:
10 gallon tank
3 inches of soil/sand/clay mixture
2 unglazed terra cotta dishes for hides at each end that I keep moist
a couple of pieces of cork bark
they are in building that is heated to 80 degrees during the day and 70 at night with a 25 watt spot bulb on one side of the enclosure that bumps the temp of the one hide to about 89 and then goes off at night
small water dish
small dish filled with calcium (not with added D3)
I spray them lightly everyday and moisten hides every 2 or 3 days
fluorescent lights about a foot and a half above the enclosure (not UVA/UVB)

Is it still too early in the season to expect much from them? Am I just being impatient? I do have an extra 5.0 UVB bulb I could put on them and I am wondering if that might help to provide a better photoperiod for them. Any advice I could get would be great, so far this year I thought I had seen eggs developing twice and was so sure she would lay soon with no results.

Thanks in advance,
Susan

[GeckoFiend]

With 3" of substrate, it could be nearly impossible to find the eggs. I keep mine on about 1" of substrate forcing the female to make a pile where she buried the eggs. Try lifting the tank to see if you see the eggs from underneath. In shallow substrate, the eggs are laid on the bottom, but I don't know how deep they will bury with 3" available.

I have gotten a clutch from one of my pairs and I am expecting eggs from others very soon, so it's not to early.