Is an 18x18x24 too big for a baby/juvenile?

[JoshMason17]

Hello everyone,
Today for my birthday I recieved a crested gecko. He's (or she's) absolutely awesome! I got him from Josh's frogs, and they said he was hatched on 5/11/19 and weighed 3.3 (maybe it was 3.6) grams on 7/30/19. I just unboxed him like 10 minutes ago and put him in his tank, but that got me thinking, is his tank too big? I will attach pictures of the tank.

 

[Geecko123]

tanks can't really be to big. but I don't have a crested gecko.

 

[DaGeckoMan0260]

Yes, a 18x18x24 is way too big for a baby crestie. I kept my baby crestie in a 8x8x12 exo terra until she reached about six grams. Then I put her in her forever home where she is now. The main reason you don't want to have them in too big of a tank is because they can't find their food dish.

 

[Elizabeth Freer]

Hello everyone,
Today for my birthday I recieved a crested gecko. He's (or she's) absolutely awesome! I got him from Josh's frogs, and they said he was hatched on 5/11/19 and weighed 3.3 (maybe it was 3.6) grams on 7/30/19. I just unboxed him like 10 minutes ago and put him in his tank, but that got me thinking, is his tank too big? I will attach pictures of the tank.

Happy Birthday, Josh! A crestie is a great gift!

An 18 x 18 x 24 is a good size enclosure even for a juvie.

If you're concerned about him finding food, leave 2-3 food dishes out for him, 1 food dish at ground level and 1-2 food dishes higher up. Look for lick marks -- juvie lick marks may be hard to spot.

Some folks use magnetic food ledges. I keep a 4 inch pot of pebbles in my crestie's enclosure. I place George's food dish on top of the pebbles. That keeps the substrate (Eco Earth's coco fiber) out of the food.

 

[JoshMason17]

Ok well, so far I've received one answer saying it's too big because it won't find food and another saying it's fine. I'm going to compromise between the answer since I don't have a smaller tank other than Tupperware, so I'll just put food in the magnetic ledge I already have, I'll add some on the other side of the cage on a plastic bottle cap, and then some in a small water dish on the ground. Lucky for me, Josh's Frogs sent a care guide and said that their geckos are raised on Pangea Complete with Insects, which is exactly the food I currently use for my day gecko, so it works out. Thank you, guys. If there's anything else I should do please let me know!


Also, here's Angus:

 

[Elizabeth Freer]

Angus is super cute!

Pangea Complete with Insects is one of the Pangea diets my crestie George eats too.

 

[Hilde]

I've always raised my cresties in large enclosures, never ever had a problem. Some were on their own in 20 gallon tanks, but the majority of them were raised in groups in 50 and 65 gallon setups.

Not one of them starved because it couldn't find the food, either CGD or insects. If you check the threads in these links, you can see there are a lot of plants for insects to hide in, but the geckos still found them.

http://www.geckosunlimited.com/comm...ylus-ciliatus/40358-crestie-nursery-tank.html
http://www.geckosunlimited.com/comm...rested-hatchling-tank-naturalistic-setup.html

Wild crestie hatchlings have no problem growing up in an 'enclosure' the size of the forest they're in, so why would anyone think they can't find their food, or are too scared of big open spaces like a 10 or 20 gallon enclosure?
Kritter keepers or tiny containers don't have enough room for them to do anything, they have more room in bigger enclosures, can act more like geckos, not crunched up captives.

 

[JoshMason17]

That's what I was thinking. There's always the counter-argument of "most wild babies die and we're trying to get them to thrive not survive", but I think the animals are just fine, even the big cage is a fraction of the size of their wild environment. Plus, it builds character haha ;-)