WC vs CB Phelsuma Guimbeaui
- Thread starter jpmarcel
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Knobtailman
New member
Hello, those guys are awesome looking guimbeaui. Try taking them outside for a little bit each day or week or if you can't, put a UVB/UVA bulb for lighting. Also try gutloading insects with some carotene such as carrots or squash.
Just use metal halide lighting of 70 w and up at a colour temp between 4000 and 5500K and you will see a difference, or better, will see vanish the differences. Take care to use modern versions with ceramic and not quartz globes for best effect.
Works faster if you take care for good vitamine, especially vitamine A supplementation.
Ingo
Works faster if you take care for good vitamine, especially vitamine A supplementation.
Ingo
jpmarcel
New member
Can you suggest a certain brand name or website for the metal halide lighting?
Thanks,
Jason
PhelsumaUK
New member
There's no quota from Mauritius...so unless they're coming from Hawaii (assuming that they're still there and its legal to collect??) there shouldn't be any WC of this species available. The only Phelsuma legally available as WC are ...from Madagascar...P quadriocellata, lineata, madagascariensis and laticauda (inc sub species...the adjustment for change of classification of grandis etc didn't appear on this years quotas..)...and from Tanzania P.dubai. Anything else requires special permission for purpose of recognised captive breeding project/scientific research and wouldn't be available to purchase.
heiser
New member
Yes, this is why I asked. Hawaii is also closed as people were playing Johnny-gecko-seed and planting phelsuma in parks to collect them later and shipping them to the mainland as no CITES is needed between states. Hawaii closed the export of all reptiles to keep people from spreading them for profit (the same people also played Johnny-chameleon-seed with Jackson's). But, you can occasionally get a few from Zoos and I was hoping maybe a group came in (or Hawaii re-opened...fat chance) or a new feral population was found (e.g., Florida). The Hawaiins were always huge, colorful and male heavy. I used to be able to buy them all day long for about $90/$75 males/females in singles at shows and $30-$40 in multiples, but that was many years ago....
Regards,
John
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Hi,
I am located in Germany, thus I do not know, if that helps.
However, I do prefer HCI NDL from Osram or CDM-T 942 from Philips.
For Phelsuma cages up to 25 g, a 35 W version is sufficient. Up to 100g, 70 W still does and for larger tanks I do use 150 0r 250 W versions.
In any case, you have to combine these bulbs with fluorescent tubings (T5 HO is best) to provide enough light also outside the Spot illuminated by the metal halide.
With the bright sun UV commercialized in Europe by Lucky reptile, we even have a metal halide in hand which provides significant UVB output.
Hope that helps
Ingo
Hi all,
Just wanted to comment on Ingos post.
Some Phelsuma species, among them P.guimbeaui, P.cepediana and P.laticauda ssp. do not develop the same colours in captivity as wild specimens. A lot of reserch have been putten into this with no direct answer. There are definitely moore factors involved then just lightning, even if this of course is very importante.
Then we come to boosting animales with vitamins, and mainly vit. A and vit. D3, and for that matter those two combined. Both are fatsolable vitamins those are highly toxic when overdosed (wich is very easy to do). It is very risky buisness to recomend lots of vit. A for Phelsumas !!!
Phelsumas do not respond well to high doses of vit.A
Regards
Magnus
Just wanted to comment on Ingos post.
Some Phelsuma species, among them P.guimbeaui, P.cepediana and P.laticauda ssp. do not develop the same colours in captivity as wild specimens. A lot of reserch have been putten into this with no direct answer. There are definitely moore factors involved then just lightning, even if this of course is very importante.
Then we come to boosting animales with vitamins, and mainly vit. A and vit. D3, and for that matter those two combined. Both are fatsolable vitamins those are highly toxic when overdosed (wich is very easy to do). It is very risky buisness to recomend lots of vit. A for Phelsumas !!!
Phelsumas do not respond well to high doses of vit.A
Regards
Magnus
Magnus is right,
maybe I made it too short.
Anyhow, when recommending high doses of vitamine A. I of course imply that there is an awareness for the therapeutic window of this vitamine in Phelsuma. Of course "high" here is a relative recommendation to what is present in your standard Phelsuma food sources.
Please correct me, if I am wrong, but to my experience and knowledge, a dose of 100 iu/(week*kg) supplementary vitamine A is safe for Phelsuma, even if given on a regular basis.
With respect to D3, for Phelsuma I am convinced that there is no need to dose more than 50 iu/(week*kg) but threefold this dosis still is safe.
With respect to bright lights, to my experience, especially green and blue scale colouring has a high chance of responding well to almost natural light intensities (including UVA but not necessarily UVB parts of the spectrum).
I hope this more precisely expresses my opinion on the topic in question.
And again, Magnus is absolutely right stressing the risk in overdosing lipophilic vitamines. The same is true for referring to observation, that in some Phelsuma (eg cepediana), even with bright lights and balanced supplementation, captive specimens still loose color. But even in these cases, my impression is that colours at least benefit to some extend from these measures. Meaning they do not reach or fully maintain "wild habitat" colouration, but come closer to that than without such arrangements
BR
Ingo
maybe I made it too short.
Anyhow, when recommending high doses of vitamine A. I of course imply that there is an awareness for the therapeutic window of this vitamine in Phelsuma. Of course "high" here is a relative recommendation to what is present in your standard Phelsuma food sources.
Please correct me, if I am wrong, but to my experience and knowledge, a dose of 100 iu/(week*kg) supplementary vitamine A is safe for Phelsuma, even if given on a regular basis.
With respect to D3, for Phelsuma I am convinced that there is no need to dose more than 50 iu/(week*kg) but threefold this dosis still is safe.
With respect to bright lights, to my experience, especially green and blue scale colouring has a high chance of responding well to almost natural light intensities (including UVA but not necessarily UVB parts of the spectrum).
I hope this more precisely expresses my opinion on the topic in question.
And again, Magnus is absolutely right stressing the risk in overdosing lipophilic vitamines. The same is true for referring to observation, that in some Phelsuma (eg cepediana), even with bright lights and balanced supplementation, captive specimens still loose color. But even in these cases, my impression is that colours at least benefit to some extend from these measures. Meaning they do not reach or fully maintain "wild habitat" colouration, but come closer to that than without such arrangements
BR
Ingo
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jpmarcel
New member
Thanks Magnus and Ingo. This is the type of information I was looking for. Maybe you can point me towards articles or web pages of the research that has been done.
With my p guimbeaui it appears the CB maintain good levels of blue and green but the spots are not half as bright orange/red as my wild caught.
I've started adding Naturose (haematococcus algae) to some of my other phelsumas (v-nigra) food to see if it brightens up there reds. I've seen Naturose work well with dart frogs but I'm not sure if there has been success with phelsuma.
Jason
With my p guimbeaui it appears the CB maintain good levels of blue and green but the spots are not half as bright orange/red as my wild caught.
I've started adding Naturose (haematococcus algae) to some of my other phelsumas (v-nigra) food to see if it brightens up there reds. I've seen Naturose work well with dart frogs but I'm not sure if there has been success with phelsuma.
Jason
Thanks Ingo,
I did not want to blame you in any way, but I see many times that people are recomending all kinds of vitamin/mineral komplements for their animales.
Most keepers unfortunately do not know how to use that information.
Many of the today available products are definitely not an overall vitamin/mineral
supplement, that should be use on regular basis with every feeding or so.
Instead they are moore or less pure medicine, that should be used with animales that allready have problems. If they have not, they surely will get some !!
I am absolutely sure that vitamin/mineral supplements kill moore animales then they save, because they are used incorrect.
Regrds
Magnus
I did not want to blame you in any way, but I see many times that people are recomending all kinds of vitamin/mineral komplements for their animales.
Most keepers unfortunately do not know how to use that information.
Many of the today available products are definitely not an overall vitamin/mineral
supplement, that should be use on regular basis with every feeding or so.
Instead they are moore or less pure medicine, that should be used with animales that allready have problems. If they have not, they surely will get some !!
I am absolutely sure that vitamin/mineral supplements kill moore animales then they save, because they are used incorrect.
Regrds
Magnus
PhelsumaUK
New member
Spot on Magnus!...a 'pinch' of suppliment shaken over the crickets before feeding is actually a dosage many times the equivalent of the RDA for many of the vits in a human..unless you're going to use one pinch for literally thousands of crickets. The other problem is that the suppliments are not designed for Phelsuma specifically..They're often just a regular suppliment for birds/fish/domestic animals which has been tweaked with reptiles in mind. In the absence of specific data, the mixes used for other animals, which have been designed with some scientific basis, are probably a reasonable starting point, but the tweaking, probably with good intentions, tends to distort things. For example, turtles appear to need higher Vit A...so some 'general reptile' suppliments have got vit A that is out of proportion with other vits (notably D and E). Some reptiles 'need lots of extra calcium' so the suppliments have vast amounts of calcium added. Excess calcium prevents the uptake of other minerals (zinc, magnesium etc) as well as causing hormone feedback problems. Potassium excess assists in calcium uptake, so there is one reptile suppliment that contains a ratio of potassium that's about 1000 times what it should be (in a human RDA ratio). Calcium uptake may be better but what about the calcium/sodium ratio? The calcium/phosporous ratio should be somewhere between 1:1 and 2:1 (working on the ratios in other animal groups). Whilst the Ca/P ratio in crickets isn't perfect, the ratio in suppliments is often much too far the other way. The right ratio is the important factor...you're not trying to drown out the phosporous.
I'm not saying that there's no place for suppliments, just that they need to be used sparingly as Magnus says. Its not easy to know which one to use. Perhaps the best approach is to use one brand one week and another brand the following week. I make my own from scratch as it enables me to look at the effects of other additives. The question of how much is safe is a hard question to answer. Obviously a fair bit is likely to be cleaned off the cricket if dusted on. You can guage it a bit better by mixing it with the fruit..but even then, with something like vit A, its not only about the intake but also the uptake..which will depend on the diet of the gecko.
...and back to the original question!...There's not a huge amount of readily available published research on the causes of pigmentation in geckos. Good quality light can help you get the best out of the gecko at that particular time. Balanced supplimentation plays a role. I suspect that carotenoids may be involved in the reds/oranges but simple supplimentation with these has no effect. In a roundabout way, I suspect that diet is the answer, particularly in the case of blue colouration...'course I can't prove any of this yet!! :lol:
I'm not saying that there's no place for suppliments, just that they need to be used sparingly as Magnus says. Its not easy to know which one to use. Perhaps the best approach is to use one brand one week and another brand the following week. I make my own from scratch as it enables me to look at the effects of other additives. The question of how much is safe is a hard question to answer. Obviously a fair bit is likely to be cleaned off the cricket if dusted on. You can guage it a bit better by mixing it with the fruit..but even then, with something like vit A, its not only about the intake but also the uptake..which will depend on the diet of the gecko.
...and back to the original question!...There's not a huge amount of readily available published research on the causes of pigmentation in geckos. Good quality light can help you get the best out of the gecko at that particular time. Balanced supplimentation plays a role. I suspect that carotenoids may be involved in the reds/oranges but simple supplimentation with these has no effect. In a roundabout way, I suspect that diet is the answer, particularly in the case of blue colouration...'course I can't prove any of this yet!! :lol:
Hi,
I am very much aware of such problems. Thus, for a company, which asked me for a receipt, I designed supplements mixtures convenient to use for the "standard Herper" but still dosed safely and -at least I hope so- intelligently.
For the more experienced guy who still wants convenience, there are several opportiunities to mix (eg, extra calcium, Calcium plus D3, B- Vitamines).
Check out herpetal.de to get an idea
Ingo
I am very much aware of such problems. Thus, for a company, which asked me for a receipt, I designed supplements mixtures convenient to use for the "standard Herper" but still dosed safely and -at least I hope so- intelligently.
For the more experienced guy who still wants convenience, there are several opportiunities to mix (eg, extra calcium, Calcium plus D3, B- Vitamines).
Check out herpetal.de to get an idea
Ingo
danscantle
New member
Once upon a time, in a land far, far away (the 2001 Daytona Show) Strictly Reptiles was selling "Captive Bred" guimbeaui, ornata, and cepediana. No sense in going into the details here, but suffice it to say that A TON OF WILD CAUGHT MAURITIAN PHELSUMA were dispersed across the hobby.
Palex134
New member
I just finished reading The Lizard King...