always dark?

[Dachindae]

Eezo, my tokay, is in a big enclosure with PLENTY of fake plants and hiding places and she gets some roaches and/or crickets every other night with supplement dusting. Her humidity and temps are correct.
but she is always very dark. When I got her, she was the "regular" tokay color, powder blue with orange dots.
But now I never see her with that light color. She's always dark, like she's stressed
I never handle her and the only times I take her out in her PVC pipe is to clean.

any idea why she is always dark? :c

 

[Marauderhex]

Try covering multiple sides of her enclosure with something opaque like paper so that she can't see out, nor can anything see in, except for one side, so you can visually check on her.

Also, could you give us a full run down of the husbandry you have set up for her? Include cage dimensions, heat sources, temps, humidity, substrate, hides, anything you can think of.

 

[Aimless]

Can you also post a pic of her setup?
Also, are there other herps or mammal pets that she can see? She might feel threatened, if so. Is she right next to a TV or loud computer, or even a window?

 

[123user]

My guess is that it has something to do with temperature. I think they turn darker in order to absorb more heat and lighter to absorb less. this is just my guess.

 

[billewicz]

My guess is that it has something to do with temperature. I think they turn darker in order to absorb more heat and lighter to absorb less. this is just my guess.

Bingo! Nice job Kervin. An old trick of gecko sellers is to throw the animal in the fridge for a few minutes before you photograph them. Tokay will go very light colored, blue, etc. when cold.

The other trigger is mating. Mating will bring out the best colors as well. It is the love and the bane of Gecko keepers is the fact that they change color because of mood, temperature, stress and mating conditions.

 

[Dachindae]

Sorry about the long wait. I got super busy for a while.

She is next to my computer, but I'm on my xbox most of the time which is across the room and I don't play loud music. I try to be very quiet around her cage. Right now, this is the only place I can have her until I get a fecal test done and her quarantine is up and I can have her safely around my other herps.
[edit]
Only other reptile she could possibly see is my leopard gecko, but I keep the side of the Leo's cage covered.


Temps: I took them and they seemed a little low. I moved the heat source and these are the new readings.
Ambient: 80F
Hot spot: 95F
Night hot-spot: 80F
Cool spot: [near the bottom] 75F
The heating pad on the door is on the lowest setting but I just turned it off now that I moved her heat source around. The pad is staying there though until I get something to cover the doors a little more.
She gets about 12 hours of light/dark respectively. I mist every morning, and night, and a large water dish helps maintain humidity.


Here she is

and here's her cage
There is a feeding dish in the back that I put 6 to 8 large dubia nymphs in every other night. Since adults seem a little big for her.
She has 2 PVC pipes she can go into, and a horizontal PVC pipe in the back is covered by plants and there is a cork bark pipe behind that too. She has PLENTY of hiding spaces.
Her cage is cleaned once every other week. [replacing paper towels, wiping down the glass, and a 200:1 F10 SC solution is sprayed in and allowed to dry before she is returned to the enclosure. Takes all of ten minutes]

 

[Aimless]

is she that dark if you see her out in the middle of the night? mine tends to be a little darker if she's out during the day (I think she feels exposed) but after the lights go off she's always nice and light.

that definitely looks like a stressed out gecko, but she has plenty of cover and is obviously getting enough to eat.

what about noise/vibrations/ scary images from a nearby TV, game console, laptop, etc?

 

[billewicz]

Do you not have the correct screen top for this enclosure? She looks big and strong and I suspect she could push out of the top front corner where the plant stem is. (I believe you can order a replacement if yours is damaged or missing.)

Also, I'm not a fan of hot spots for Tokay. They are not desert animals that naturally have sun and shade/burrowing heat gradients of 50+ degrees. Tokay are tropical with heavy tropical forest canopy and filtered sunlight at best around them.

On the equator under the forest canopy, it's fairly even in temps and humidity, i.e., hot and muggy everywhere. It's all about ambient temps for Tokay. The only real gradient is between day and night time temps, and rainy and 'dry' season temps.

As for misting, I mean heavy misting, enough to provide water drops on surfaces for her to drink, will soak the paper towel. The paper towel will grow a funky pink and black mold if it does not dry out. I prefer Cyprus mulch to hold extra moisture that can me evaporated by placing half of that heat pad under the bottom of the enclosure. Since there is not a thermostat on that pad, you can slide more or less of the pad under the bottom to get to the ambient temp you are looking for. You could put the heat pad on a timer to turn off for a couple of hours, like midnight to 4 am, to drop the night time temps a bit.

This has three advantages. One, it evaporates the moisture more consistently from the wet mulch, and two, it creates a more even heat throughout the whole enclosure. (I've seen U-tube video of Tokay 'basking' under heat lamps. The only reason they are under the lamps is that the rest of the enclosure, especially in their hides is too COLD! But hey, we saw it on U-tube so it must be true???)

Third. You can usually spot clean the poop corner more easily by removing the droppings and the mulch in that spot. They like to use the front or sides a lot of times.

The point is that you can clean without disassembling any of the furniture every time. Every time you take out and put back all the tubes, bark and branches, Tokay are very stressed out. If your girl were about to lay eggs, or in the middle of clutches, she would stop laying because of all the commotion, sometimes for the rest of the season! Cyprus mulch can stay for months at a time without completely being changed or rotting.

I'd get bigger/wider tubes soon as well. She's getting big.

 

[Dachindae]

AHA. The heat was the issue! She has gone back up a couple of shades and is now at her powder blue self again
I left for a couple of hours and I came back to see her powder-blue and bright orange self on the coconut husk covered tube. She bolted before I could get a photo though. She is very shy.
I think I'm going to get some of that opaque stuff that you stick to bathroom windows to make the doors less see-through so she doesn't feel the need to bolt every time I move.

The top lid is actually weighted down with rocks. I tested the weight with my boa constrictor. If a 5 1/2ft boa can't push it off, a tokay can't. The cage came without a lid so it was super cheap. I was going to work on making a new lid, half plexiglass and half screen. I just checked Exo Terra and I didn't see any replacement lids for this size tank.
The spot where the stem is has been double checked and is actually taped down on the side next to the light lamp.

She doesn't get much noise. I play my games pretty quiet, I don't listen to loud music, and her corner is pretty quiet.

I plan on moving her to substrate after I get a good fecal sample. As a rule, I keep all new herps on paper towels for 2 1/2 to 4 months so I can keep an eye on their poop and get a sample easier. She keeps pooping when I'm asleep and it's more dried out by morning so I haven't gotten a good sample yet. I might try feeding her a little more often so I can get her to poop just a little more and I can get a good sample.
When she gets a clean bill of health, she will be moved to a bark or mulch substrate

 

[Aimless]

nice, I'm glad she's better!

only one word of caution: a nice burly snake might be stronger, but I'll bet dollars to dimes that your Tokay is much, much smarter than your snake.

 

[Dachindae]

nice, I'm glad she's better!

only one word of caution: a nice burly snake might be stronger, but I'll bet dollars to dimes that your Tokay is much, much smarter than your snake.

Haha, I don't doubt it, Bobo is kinda dumb.

I've got it pretty well taped down though and I check it/replace the tape as necessary. I've got the measurements and I'm going to try and make her a half screen, half plexiglass lid

 

[billewicz]

AHA. The heat was the issue! She has gone back up a couple of shades and is now at her powder blue self again

I think I'm going to get some of that opaque stuff that you stick to bathroom windows to make the doors less see-through so she doesn't feel the need to bolt every time I move.

I plan on moving her to substrate after I get a good fecal sample. As a rule, I keep all new herps on paper towels for 2 1/2 to 4 months so I can keep an eye on their poop and get a sample easier. She keeps pooping when I'm asleep and it's more dried out by morning so I haven't gotten a good sample yet. I might try feeding her a little more often so I can get her to poop just a little more and I can get a good sample.
When she gets a clean bill of health, she will be moved to a bark or mulch substrate

A couple of thoughts that seem to go against conventional thinking. (Let me start with, I've been working with over 300 Tokay for almost 5 years. The are set up in 5 different rooms.)

It is my experience that Tokay residing in rooms that have very little human contact or interaction are far more reclusive, flighty and jumpy. Tokay that have daily interaction eventually become fearless of ones comings and goings. These Tokay will not disappear when I'm there and will greet me at the door for food. Once they have learned that I'm not a threat to them, they become far more visible and enjoyable.

I have observed that the two rooms I'm in all the time, the Tokay are very calm and inquisitive. In two other rooms the Tokay see me daily but not for any length of time. They will hang out for a minute and then slither back into their hides. The last room generally is very quit. I may only actually walk into it twice a week instead of just peaking in. I almost never see the Tokay in that room. If I go in at night the jump, dart and flee for cover. This room was originally my import room. A place where all the imports were kept isolated from all the other reptiles. I'm not bring in Tokay anymore, but the room is still isolated and quite.

The rooms with the most interaction, and where the Tokay have become a custom to my presents also are the most productive in the same ratio as their comfort level. The same rooms also have a better longevity ratio as well. Meaning, over the years I've lost more Tokay for no apparent reason in the isolated room than in any of the other rooms combined.

If your enclosure has good hides and is not disturbed internally for long periods of time, it's my conclusion that covering the enclosure has no positive value to the conditioning and acclimation of Tokay.

As a side note, other than for sick, isolated Tokay, I always use Cyprus mulch to hold the humidity higher. As a consequence, if you turn the bottom heat off for that night, the stools stay moist all night long.

Heavy feeding the night before should also have a stool ready to pop out as soon as you get your Tokay out for their trip to the vet. HA!