Concerns with New Adult Male Crested Gecko

[LSeelt]

I adopted a new adult male crested gecko (and oh boy is he sweet!) but he was housed in completely the wrong set up!

He was in an 18x18x24 tall Exo Terra enclosure, with what I think is Coco Bark (like the dark wood chips that people use in their gardens) as a substrate. They then had one very short bunch of silk plant leaves on the bottom floor, and two huge pieces of cork bark as what I can only think to be meant as hides.

There were no vines or leaves, and nothing high up. The top 2/3 of the tank was completely empty.

So I switched him into the isolation tank I have (which is pretty small but only temporary while I clean his enclosure that he came in) with some hanging plastic leaves, a water dish, a small dish of repashy and paper towel for a substrate so I can watch his poops.

Now, my concern is that he is standing upright in the corner of the tank trying to climb the glass but is unable to. I've never seen a gecko scurry like that. He started to try to climb the leaves, but only got about an inch off the ground. He slipped off the glass a couple of times trying to climb it.

I've checked for poor past sheds and stuck shed on his feet and legs, but it all looks okay.

Any ideas?

Also, he was only on dusted crickets at his old home (and there were still some in there with him that he isn't interested in) and he hasn't been showing an interest in repashy until i put it on my finger and he licked it off. He's been drinking water no problem like a champ.

 

[cassicat4]

It's possible he's coming up to a shed, or the tank's humidity is too low. How often do you spray?

My geckos all seem to lose their "stick" in the days leading up to a shed. I would watch and see if he sheds within the week.

Do you have any vines/bamboo/styrofoam PVC pipes/corkbark you could add to the enclosure? This would give him something to climb.

If the gecko was on crickets only, it may take time to transition him to the Repashy. Keep Repashy available at all times, and I wouldn't be offering it by hand at this point. A healthy gecko won't starve himself, and when he gets hungry enough, he will eat it. However, he is still settling, so I wouldn't be concerned if he doesn't eat for another week or so. Try and keep your handling to a minimum, as well as the amount of time you spend in his space. Only go in to change out his food and water, to spot clean, or to mist, but otherwise leave him to settle.

Do you have any pictures of your gecko?

 

[LSeelt]

I mist 2-3 times a day, keeping the humidity at 80-90% when I spray at night and first thing in the morning, then letting it dry out to about 50% during the day.

He does look now as though he could be coming up to a shed. He didn't earlier today though. I only JUST got him today.

He's not climbing and sticking a lot more too, so maybe he was just settling in. It's hard to even reach into his enclosure without him rushing onto me. He seems to really enjoy being handled.

I'm not planning on hand-feeding him much more than the tiny bit earlier. Mostly because he was walking through his dish of repashy and I wanted him to kind of realize it was food, which I think worked because I'm not seeing any more repashy footprints, LOL!

Here's a photo: