Pea**** day gecko sexing advice

[Nathanb]

OK, so I've been after a breeding pair of peac0ck day geckos for ages and I thought I'd hit jackpot today when I found a 'breeding trio' at a store 60 or so miles away. The store were keen to move them on so I went and took a look, they seemed happy after observing them for a while in the tank in the shop - no aggression, they were all active, bright eyed etc. When the store got them out I had a quick look at their undersides and it appeared at first glance to the naked eye that they were 1:2. I've got them home and put them in the tank and the definite male has spent all evening hammering the other 2 (so badly that they were both hiding at the bottom of the tank in the plants). I've pulled the definite male out and put him into one of my baby grow on tanks (not ideal as it's only 20x20x30) but at least the other 2 are out now and he's seperated. I've managed to get a photo of the underside of one of the other 2 and I'm now not so convinced that it's a female....
Photo is attached, what do other people think?

Also when I got the 3 of them into the tank they were all absolutely starving and very thirsty -
I've not seen 3 geckos this size eat so many crickets and buffalo worms in 1 sitting! Is it possible that the aggression is just due to lack of food and him exerting his dominance?

My plan at the minute is to move him to a 30x30x45 tomorrow on his own and I've ordered a much bigger tank for the 3 of them as a longer term home and I'll move the 2 (hopefully) females into that, leave them seperated for a week or 2, get them all fed up and then try re-introducing the male, can anyone see any problems with this approach? I do also have another female on her own - would it be safe to look at moving her in with the other 2 females?

A lot of questions here I know! I keep other day geckos, but I've not seen aggression like this since I kept P grandis!

 

[mkschaefer]

Based on the picture, that is a female. This species is best kept as pairs. They breed well and I haven't had many issues with sexed mature pairs. Generally, groups of 1.2 are difficult with Phelsuma and are more to manage than a male with multiple females. I would just keep them as a 1.1.

 

[Nathanb]

Yeah - I do generally try and keep them as pairs (apart from my klemmeri which I have pairs and a large communal group). I checked with the store this morning and their guy said they've had them in for a couple of months, they quarantined them at first to make sure they were all ok and then advertised them - they've not witnessed any aggression at all. He pointed out that they actually have/had 3 breeding trios in store at the minute - Pea****s, Gold Dust and lined day geckos and none of them have caused any problems (to be fair all 3 tanks are next to each other and I didn't see any signs of aggression etc in any of the 3 tanks). According to the breeder all 3 groups have been together for a good few months.

The females themselves are both getting on absolutely fine (I would have expected them to turn on each other) After a minor ordering mistake a much larger new tank should be here on Weds next week and I'm going to get a slightly larger temporary home for the male tomorrow. Once the new tank arrives I'll put the females in for a week, add the male and then watch very closely - if I get lucky with the extra space, multiple basking spots and breaking up their line of sight accross the tank they'll do fine. If not I'll try taking the one female out and see what happens!