First Fall Hatchling | U. phantasticus

Terra5Designs

New member
one of the phants hatched out tonight. male. not sure
who's as the egg was found before the end of gestation,
possible that the female came in gravid.

7/8 TL and still in it's skin. will feed tomorrow.
he even "screamed" at his first misting. the incubation
temps changed from 68 - 77 on average but with the last week
i guess temps were down to 65.

I'm hoping to get this one turned onto roach nymphs, some
1/8" nymphs might be okay right? other then that i'm bound for
pin heads, fruit flys and spring tails i guess.

i'll get a photo in here soon if anyone wants.
 

GeckoMike

New member
SWEET Becareful with him he is going to be verry fragle the first few months. Make sure to have him in a high humidity tank with lits of hiding places.

I would also recomend not using any soil or any organic substrait. I would use a paper bag just like you get from the store. Cut it to fit the bottom of the tank and if you want you can add some leaves or shed a few small sections for the bedding. That way you can keep a close watch on the gecko and it s food.

Good luck with the roaches. Mine never even look twice at them I have tried 6 diffrent types of roach and got nothing. Now my fimbriatus on the other hand loves discoids!

Hope this helps!

Mike
 

Terra5Designs

New member
how soon after hatching is best to start feeding though? Also ignoring my past experience with uroplatus, how sensative would you say these are to temps? why would you not want to do a more natural habitat for rearing the young then you suggest?

yeah, roaches are great but it takes almost starvation to get a roach eaten sometimes. i've tried dubia, one of the hisser species and lobsters with little luck.
 

miguel camacho!

New member
aside from mike's suggestion, ill tell you what ive done with mine since i have hatched out quite a few satanics....

get a critter keeper, doesnt matter really how small it is (for now). put a small amount of dried moss fiber at the bottom. put in some twigs as well. mist once daily after the lights go off. dont give it any extra lighting, and if you do make sure you keep the tank far from the light source. cooler temps are better. start feeding small crickets or flightless fruit flies after 5 or 6 days pass. they'll be slow sometimes to get the idea of eating, but theyll take it up. just be sure to keep them cool. the moss fibers also often mold over quickly, so change that often. i havent found humidity to be that big of a deal with hatchlings, just make sure they get their daily water supply.
 

Terra5Designs

New member
i've always used a more natural setting. i have little five gallon vertile tanks...or close to it. 8" x 8" x 10" that i placed him in. it's got real dirt, plants and one smaller ficus. the floor is about 2 inches from the lowest branch. humidity is 90 pecent and temps are 74. I thought as neil and sacha say, going natural is good.
i think a smaller tank foot print would be better though, how does 6" x 6" sound?
keep ya posted. thanks for the advise!
 

miguel camacho!

New member
sounds good. thing with the natural settings when just starting up newly hatched phants is you can lose sight of them easily, then you go about poking around more to find them. keeping it simple for the first month or so makes it simple for them to find their food and perfect their hunting technique. what i suggested earlier is just temporary for starting the animals out, makes it easy to clean and mine have done great with that setup. i never wanted any of my hatchlings to take in a mouthful of substrate while dive bombing crickets, so thats why i used the dried moss. peat moss should work, as long as youre talking about fiber, not the ground peat moss. actually, even ground peat moss would work, i would just suggest packing it down fairly well once you have it moistened.

but yes, you will probably find that when working with young/hatchling satanics, smaller cages make things go a lot more smoothly, then bump it up and give them more room after they've reached the 2 month point.
 

Terra5Designs

New member
right on. how about a 50%dirt to 50% milled peat and sand mix, two twigs about the side of the wrist and one maybe a bit bigger. on plant but i've got a leaf cutting growing out of a peat ball (nylon and peat) which is just a single upright vine of
pepermonia and that's it. i do have the ground well packed down nice and flat and the space is pretty vacant really. sound good? i'm cutting glass for the smaller size like you said, 6" x 6" foot print and only about 12" tall. the top is half glass and half screen as the front bottom is also screen of about 1" x 6", one inch up from the bottom. room light only. hows that sound?
 

Terra5Designs

New member
He's been named Sow'en :
bdd368c3.jpg

i hope the photo works, photobucket is acting up again. the photo is just after his mister turned off.
 

Terra5Designs

New member
Thanks, he's cute alright, strange though, he just hangs out right there on that clump of oak leaves that are still attached to that twig. under at day, up on top at night.
 
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