So to start off with this post, I need to mention that I recently adopted two leopard geckoes from a close friend of mine, important things to note are that it is very obvious that these animals were being handfed almost primarily by my buddy's girlfriend probably for the entire duration that they have kept these animals.
The individual that I lost today was an albino, whom I think is female, and she has always seemed an easy self-feeder and is pretty good at cleaning the worm dish out. She has always been fat until sometime last week she seemed to stop eating. Several days ago I noticed some browning around the back of her mouth on the edge, which is an obvious suggestion that while grabbing a meal worm she must have picked up some mealworm skin or something else in the feeding dish and it may have caused a mild infection, however up to this point I had not witnessed any mouth rot issues with this gecko. I can say that empirically because the other gecko I adopted had some mouth rot before I adopted him.
So I have been keeping an eye on both of them, and for a measure of cleanliness I have mostly laid off on using moss as the geckos tend to drag poop and dead skin into the container and an occasional meal worm too, so I have been giving them soaks in a sink of warm water while I take a shower and assisting with their shedding after they've gotten as much off as possible. I have also used hydrogen peroxide and salt water on both lizards to help with their mouth issues.
I believe the mouth rot issues came as a result when I tried to put in a more shallow meal-worm dish to make it easier for them to feed, and as a result, both geckos would walk through the bowl and kick a bunch of mealworms out, the mealworms eventually hide under one of the gecko's hides and just leave a pile of poop. So I went back to using a taller porcelain dish which is what they were used to and it keeps the vivarium cleaner. As a reference point the cage has a tile substrate and with the shallow mealworm dish, virtually the entire floor of the cage would be covered in mealworm feces and skin when the shallow dish was in use.
The last few days I have noticed the albino hanging around the food dish just laying, however the food dish is not on the side of the tank where the heating pad is located. Last night she did the same thing, and she seemed very weak so I slid her onto the warm side of the cage. This morning I got up to leave to go to class and she was back in the same spot not doing anything and very very cold - so again, I slid her back onto the warm side of the cage. I came back from class 2 hours later and found her on her back stiff-dead.
Piecing all of this information together, my best guess as to how she died is from dehydration. She was sitting by the food dish for the past 2 days which is also her pooping spot, which tells me that she was trying to poop and couldn't. She did develop a small infection, which is due to my neglect of not keeping the mealworm dish clean of insect skin and poop, I treated the infection with a swab of hydrogen peroxide and rinsed her mouth, as well as assisting her with some stuck shed on the toes. Last week I noticed she was starting to get skinnier, so I tube-fed her some fluker's insect powder blend - which is what I've been using to help the other gecko while he deals with the mouth rot, she took most of it in but regurgitated it fairly quickly. In summary I believe she stopped eating/drinking because of pain associated with her mouth condition, became dehydrated which caused digestive blockage and passed away within 2-3 days. There are two water dishes in the tank and they did have water. The only other factor had to have been heat as the tank had a small sized heating pad which was good enough for the corner they sleep in, but I did recently move from southern california to northern california which is a big change in temperature lows. I definitely should have upgraded the heatpad asap but both geckos seemed to be doing good with a heat lamp during the day. I think because this gecko was used to eating alot, there simply wasn't adequate temperature at night for her metabolism to stay high enough, she died at a very healthy weight, and what's even more bizarre is the last two days were pretty warm here.
The other gecko on the other hand seems to have made a complete turnaround in the past few weeks and is very energetic, however still wants to be handfed.
Please give me any suggestion you have on how I can improve this tank. I've tried several different types of dishes as well as putting in a tupperware container with moss, but the dirtier the tank gets - the more likely a gecko will get sick.
The individual that I lost today was an albino, whom I think is female, and she has always seemed an easy self-feeder and is pretty good at cleaning the worm dish out. She has always been fat until sometime last week she seemed to stop eating. Several days ago I noticed some browning around the back of her mouth on the edge, which is an obvious suggestion that while grabbing a meal worm she must have picked up some mealworm skin or something else in the feeding dish and it may have caused a mild infection, however up to this point I had not witnessed any mouth rot issues with this gecko. I can say that empirically because the other gecko I adopted had some mouth rot before I adopted him.
So I have been keeping an eye on both of them, and for a measure of cleanliness I have mostly laid off on using moss as the geckos tend to drag poop and dead skin into the container and an occasional meal worm too, so I have been giving them soaks in a sink of warm water while I take a shower and assisting with their shedding after they've gotten as much off as possible. I have also used hydrogen peroxide and salt water on both lizards to help with their mouth issues.
I believe the mouth rot issues came as a result when I tried to put in a more shallow meal-worm dish to make it easier for them to feed, and as a result, both geckos would walk through the bowl and kick a bunch of mealworms out, the mealworms eventually hide under one of the gecko's hides and just leave a pile of poop. So I went back to using a taller porcelain dish which is what they were used to and it keeps the vivarium cleaner. As a reference point the cage has a tile substrate and with the shallow mealworm dish, virtually the entire floor of the cage would be covered in mealworm feces and skin when the shallow dish was in use.
The last few days I have noticed the albino hanging around the food dish just laying, however the food dish is not on the side of the tank where the heating pad is located. Last night she did the same thing, and she seemed very weak so I slid her onto the warm side of the cage. This morning I got up to leave to go to class and she was back in the same spot not doing anything and very very cold - so again, I slid her back onto the warm side of the cage. I came back from class 2 hours later and found her on her back stiff-dead.
Piecing all of this information together, my best guess as to how she died is from dehydration. She was sitting by the food dish for the past 2 days which is also her pooping spot, which tells me that she was trying to poop and couldn't. She did develop a small infection, which is due to my neglect of not keeping the mealworm dish clean of insect skin and poop, I treated the infection with a swab of hydrogen peroxide and rinsed her mouth, as well as assisting her with some stuck shed on the toes. Last week I noticed she was starting to get skinnier, so I tube-fed her some fluker's insect powder blend - which is what I've been using to help the other gecko while he deals with the mouth rot, she took most of it in but regurgitated it fairly quickly. In summary I believe she stopped eating/drinking because of pain associated with her mouth condition, became dehydrated which caused digestive blockage and passed away within 2-3 days. There are two water dishes in the tank and they did have water. The only other factor had to have been heat as the tank had a small sized heating pad which was good enough for the corner they sleep in, but I did recently move from southern california to northern california which is a big change in temperature lows. I definitely should have upgraded the heatpad asap but both geckos seemed to be doing good with a heat lamp during the day. I think because this gecko was used to eating alot, there simply wasn't adequate temperature at night for her metabolism to stay high enough, she died at a very healthy weight, and what's even more bizarre is the last two days were pretty warm here.
The other gecko on the other hand seems to have made a complete turnaround in the past few weeks and is very energetic, however still wants to be handfed.
Please give me any suggestion you have on how I can improve this tank. I've tried several different types of dishes as well as putting in a tupperware container with moss, but the dirtier the tank gets - the more likely a gecko will get sick.