I ordered the hydro farm thermostat. Should be here the next few days. I also bought an uth by zoomed. It's a 30gal size who his perfect, next week I'll buy some caves and food / water / calcium dish. It was without d3 correct?
Hi ~
Have you the actual dimensions of your 30 gallon tanks?
I no longer recommend keeping plain calcium in the enclosure at all. For a good explanation why check posts #22 and #48 in the posts following the main Leo Care Sheet linked below.
Lightly dust crickets/dubia with Zoo Med's supplements like this:
1. Monday - Repti-Calcium with D3 on all crickets
2. Thursday - Repti-Calcium with D3 on all crickets
3. Reptivite (multivitamin) with D3/A acetate adjusted for your leo's weight: Spread out the lightly dusted Reptivite with D3 crickets over the course of a week. Use the Reptivite (multivitamin) very sparingly.
If you use a formal gutload product like T-Rex Calcium Plus Food for Crickets or Repashy's SuperLoad on a regular basis and feed a nutritious diet like an all purpose poultry food to insects including Blaptica dubia 24/7, it will no doubt be advisable to tweak the above schedule. Feeding your geckos insects and worms whose entire body is healthy (and not only their guts) is very important! Consider lightly dusting the prey as just icing on the cake.
Continued advice is to feed the crickets a nutritious diet 24/7. Then 48 hours prior to feeding the crickets off to the geckos, feed the crickets only T-REX Calcium Plus Food for Crickets (the only proven gutload formulation as of the 18 July 2013). When using the T-REX Calcium Plus Food for Crickets only provide the crickets with water (damp paper towel), but no fruits or vegetables or they will consume those preferentially over the calcium-enriched diet.
***Current directions (16 May 2013) on Zoo Med's Reptivite with/without D3/A acetate
"Directions for Insectivores: Place crickets in a tall plastic container with a small amount of Reptivite w/D3 and swirl to lightly "dust" crickets with the powder. Feed approximately 12 dusted crickets per week for every 2.5 ounces (71 grams) of body weight."
So if your leo weighs 24 grams, the recommendation would be only 4 lightly dusted crickets per week with Reptivite with D3. Baby leopard geckos weigh much less, so be sure to adjust the dosage accordingly!
Do not exceed the recommended amount of Reptivite per body weight. One real problem in recommending exactly what to do is the size of the crickets fed.
Advice from my exotics vet:
On the 10 June 2013 I visited my exotics veterinarian with my leo and another gecko. The vet recommended Zoo Med's Reptivite multivitamin with vitamin D3/A acetate. He stated that only "a little tiny pinch of the multivitamin with D3" should be used 1x per week. He suggested formally gutloading the insects with T-Rex Calcium Plus Food for Crickets. He seemed satisfied that I feed Albers' All Purpose Poultry Feed to my crickets and to my dubia.
so she'll be as comfy as possible.