For young geckos, IMHO, the feeder insects should be dusted everytime you feed them, so long as it is a vitamin formula specifically designed for leopards. Gut loading your crickets may add additional nutrition, but does not necessarily guarantee your gecko is getting all the nutrition it needs. Most keepers I know gut load and dust. For an adult, you can usually back off the vitamin dusting to every other feeding or once a week depending on the geckos individual needs. Some keepers keep vitamin powder in a shallow dish in terrium so the gecko can take what it needs when it needs it, but I find it to be messy and hard to keep the vitamins fresh and viable.

As for heat and light, the best heat is an undertank heater properly installed. We have used ZooMed's for sometime without any problem; currently we have it on a timer to come on at night and during the day we have a small lamp with UV. There are a lot of arguments about whether Leos need light, but in my experience they eat more and are much more active when supplied with spectrum lighting during the day when they are asleep. What is most important is getting the proper temperature distrabution in their homes, hot side and cool side and being able to maintain that.

BTW Properly sized heating pads used per the directions (They will say "perfect for 10 gallon tanks" ect.) are made for belly heat and are fine. What you want to avoid at all costs are the heated rocks!

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