leopard gecko setup and morph query

[mrleostar92]

You are really handy and creative ! Enrichment and utilization of all the tank's possibilities are great!!!

You may wish to post a picture of their tank in the DYI subforum on GU?

Red bulbs or ceramic heat emitters would be just fine instead of the white day bulb.

just removed the bulb and put the heat mat on the right and side and the temps are running fine aded some new hides going start a new thread with the pics and ye would like to put pics of the new setup on ther thanks for all of the advice:yahoo:

 

[M&S-328]

I just wanna say, sand CAN cause impaction. But sometimes it does not. We just recently had one of our females on sand, and she loved it. she digg around and squish her belly around on it, etc. But we never fed her on it. She was and is always dish fed (and the dish was up off the sand on a flat stone). So, if you are careful, always check your geckos for sand in their eyes, and never feed them on it - then sand isnt the "enemy".
But yes, there are MANY, MUCH safer substrates to use. We ourselves just switched her over to a more natural rock-like terrain.

So, your set-up looks really great =]. Its nice to see people who really take time to give their geckos a fun place to live. Great job!

 

[mrleostar92]

I just wanna say, sand CAN cause impaction. But sometimes it does not. We just recently had one of our females on sand, and she loved it. she digg around and squish her belly around on it, etc. But we never fed her on it. She was and is always dish fed (and the dish was up off the sand on a flat stone). So, if you are careful, always check your geckos for sand in their eyes, and never feed them on it - then sand isnt the "enemy".
But yes, there are MANY, MUCH safer substrates to use. We ourselves just switched her over to a more natural rock-like terrain.

So, your set-up looks really great =]. Its nice to see people who really take time to give their geckos a fun place to live. Great job!

ye i got mostly rocks on the bottom i normally feed them out of the tweezers thanks for the compliments my hypo loves to dig aswell the only problem i have found with a large amount of rocks on the base of the viv is that the crickets and locust tend to hide underneath out of reach of the geckos lol have u found this problem 2 ????

 

[M&S-328]

Yep. we used to constantly have crickets hiding underthings and causing plenty of frustration (this was when we housed our leos on paper towels though). So! We only feed our gecko by hand or in their dishes now. This way it completely removes the possibility of substrate impaction and lets us be sure of how much the eat.

We (just this week) created a new terrarium with a solid ground (a clay-like mixture) and no "escape" spots so the crickets cannot hide anywhere. Once its totally completed we might let our female ground feed again to re-institute her hunting skills.

So, if you still want your leos to ground feed/hunt, then you'll need a new substrate so they wont get impacted. Also, Id maybe remove any excess of rocks - just keep the best/biggest ones int there and make sure they lie flat on the ground so that the crickets cannot crawl underneath.

Good luck!

 

[mrleostar92]

Yep. we used to constantly have crickets hiding underthings and causing plenty of frustration (this was when we housed our leos on paper towels though). So! We only feed our gecko by hand or in their dishes now. This way it completely removes the possibility of substrate impaction and lets us be sure of how much the eat.

We (just this week) created a new terrarium with a solid ground (a clay-like mixture) and no "escape" spots so the crickets cannot hide anywhere. Once its totally completed we might let our female ground feed again to re-institute her hunting skills.

So, if you still want your leos to ground feed/hunt, then you'll need a new substrate so they wont get impacted. Also, Id maybe remove any excess of rocks - just keep the best/biggest ones int there and make sure they lie flat on the ground so that the crickets cannot crawl underneath.

Good luck!

thanks for the info and advice much appreciated

 

[Pokeefe88]

To avoid the hiding prey, I put my gecko in a kritter keeper but I want to get a solid color one as my leo gets distracted by the outside world or her reflection... one of the two, lol :coverlaugh: Its much simpler and very fast clean up

 

[mrleostar92]

To avoid the hiding prey, I put my gecko in a kritter keeper but I want to get a solid color one as my leo gets distracted by the outside world or her reflection... one of the two, lol :coverlaugh: Its much simpler and very fast clean up

i used to put mine in a different container but after a week or so i found that they would eat near enough twice the qamount if i fed them on tweezers inside the viv

 

[Pokeefe88]

i used to put mine in a different container but after a week or so i found that they would eat near enough twice the amount if i fed them on tweezers inside the viv

:rofl: Lol mine too! I have always tongs fed her and for the first week she would eat 5-12 then she suddenly ate up to 30 or more, I think the highest was 50. Since I read Leos don't over feed I thought it was okay but my vet said to only give her about 15 when I brought her in for a first time visit and a fecal check.

However since she is being force fed medicine because of some parasites, she will eat around 5 if I'm lucky but I do leave 5 in her tank in a dish and she has been scarfing those down, more so then she usually does Now I always feed her in the spare container, :biggrin: