[Elizabeth Freer]

Some folks here have very recently reported consistent failures rearing newly hatched Lygodactylus williamsi. For the survival of the captive bred population it would be most helpful to have some brainstorming with the highly valued input of exactly what folks do who report continued success!

I have also seen other posts reporting an extremely high prevalence of males when successfully raised hatchlings mature.

[Elizabeth Freer]

GU's dom from the USA is reporting continued success rearing Lygodactylus williamsi hatchlings.

This is what he reports:
"well as far as what I do for the babies are..

As soon as they hatch I give them mashed bananas, mashed bananas every day for two weeks and then usually they are able to tackle small FF's I still give the younger williamsi mashed bananas every other day just to make sure they are eating. I add supplements to the bananas as well. So far its has seemed to work really well for me. I rotate calcium and multivitamins supplements when mixing with the bananas.

I have uvb sitting on top of all my tanks and there is usually about a 4 to 6 inch distance from the bulb were they can bask.

hope this helps. let me know if you need more help"

[Elizabeth Freer]

dom ~

Please tell us what brand supplements you use?

[duiker.ts]

Hi,

I started out with williamsi in January with one male and two females,
and to my surprise I now have 7 young ones and another 14 () eggs waiting. I wasn't expecting success so soon, so I must be doing something right . I hope there is something below that can help you get your little ones to survive.

My females don't bother with any of the convenient spots I set up and lay their eggs in places I can't touch. So I always have to wait until they hatch and then do a mad scramble to catch the babies. The first one lost his tail to one of the adults, and I suspect one got lost somehow (eaten ?) in the main tank. With that many eggs in hard to see places it is not easy to keep track.

For the hatchlings I have set up an Exo-Terra Nano enclosure with the matching canopy with a 5.0 CFL. This provides enough heat. The soil is first a base of white river sand (to fill the gaps between base and back cover, and hard to dig into) covered by loose soil. There is one big artificial plant with long leaves, and lots of branches and small vines. Most branches are pointing up, so that together with the leaves there are plenty of sunning spots and they can choose how close they want to sit to the lamp. The tank itself had lots of gaps here and there so I have attacked it with silicone kit and neoprene strips to make it escape-proof. So far so good.

I don't provide a drinking cup but mist twice a day making sure there are lots of drops on the leaves, branches and back cover. The hygrometer tells me it's 40% humidity, lower than my main tank. Not sure if that measurement is correct, but the soil stays damp and the drops after misting stay long enough so I think this is OK anyway. No problems with shedding observed.

My feeling is that the only thing a young must do is eat and grow, so I provide plenty of food. The soil is a habitat for springtails, and when I don't see a lot of them crawling around after misting I add a couple of spoons. My main food supply is vitamin or calcium dusted fruit flies, the smallest I can get. The newborns look at them a couple of days, but then seem to understand their purpose. I feed daily and make sure there are enough so the smallest ones get their share as well. It's cute how they all get into a starting position when I open the door.

On top of the food critters I have a small cup with gecko food powder from Zoo Med (for fruit eating gecko's, with vitamins), and a sort of protein and fruit jelly in small cups (that I don't know the brand of because I am down to my last cup and I peeled of the label). The adults like it, so I just give it to the babies as well and I regularly see them eat from both. When my first hatched I was looking at it every hour and was quite happy when I saw it lick at the jelly after a day.

Up till now I lost one hatchling, a couple of days after hatching. They were being cared for by someone else then so I don't have details on what happened.

My oldest is now 1.5 months, and my youngest 12 days. With 7 the tank is getting cramped, so I'll either move the biggest to yet another tank or back with mom(s) and dad.


Grtz,
Tony

[Elizabeth Freer]

Tony ~

A hearty welcome to Geckos Unlimited! Looks as if you hit the ground running so to speak. Thanks for your feedback to the cause of rearing L williamsi!

[dom]

Hey Tony
Damn that sounds like an impressive growing collection! Glad to hear they are all doing well.
One thing that would worry me is that if you dont have enough visual barriers with all those williamsi in one tank you might find some missing tails. I usualy keep no more than two together in a 2.5 gallon and then move there tank size up to a 5 gallon when they are larger.


Here are some pictures of my setups



this is the inside of a 2.5 gallon


here is the top side


this is were I put new borns if a 2.5 gallon tank is not available. Modified tuppaware with screen on the top so that UVB can get through.


here is a 5 gallon with 2 williamsi in there


hope this helps you out...
For misting i mist once in the morning and in the afternoon if i need to.

For substrate I just put down magnolia leaves, I was told that babies could mistake small pieces of spaghnum moss as food and swallow it, causing them to die.

supplements im using are

for calcium is use Repshay ICB
for vitamins i use Nekton

[Dragonfly91]

Wow! Thank you guys!
It's really nice that you wanted to share your experience and methods
I'll use them for sure and already now I see many things which I can improve

[MeiK]

I wouldn't say I'm a very well experienced Williamsi breeder, since we only bred them for 2 seasons, but from my limited experience...

We housed our babies individually in mason jars w/screen tops. Easy misting, UVB penetration, and it's cheaper than anything.

The only things we offered as food to hatchlings were Repashy MRP and Repashy Calcium Plus (back then it was "ICB") dusted Melanogaster (and later Hydei) flies. We misted every morning & night and kept the little enclosures simple looking.

Adults were kept in 1.2 trios in 12x12x18, although admittedly it was a bit on the small side. If I was to get back into breeding L. Williamsi - I'd go with 18x18x18 for trios or larger. Florist stem straws were jammed horizontally into the corner plastic top pieces of the Zoo Med tanks for egg deposition. (Talk about ease of removal!)

We never saw aggression, we never lost tails, and in my opinion it was pretty successful considering how easy they were.

[dom]

I just want to add that I am always trying new techniques out. Switching up how much lighting, how much of one food item to feed. What temps are liked best. I would encourage you to try new methods and find out what works best, no one way is right.

-dom

[Dragonfly91]

Ok, I know but I'm just saying that I would have to try these which you and Tony wrote above first to make them survive. When the first hatchling survive I will be try other ways I don't hold tight one way atoo, with the adults or my ph. mad. grandis. I also try new things which can make them more happy and healthy and make manipulating in the terrarium easier