Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hey all,

I have kept and bred leopard geckos before but lately I've noticed that their smell is getting REALLY bad. I try very hard to be very sanitary. I use paper towels as a substrate and they are fed mealworms and crix dusted of course. The smell of the tank (60 gallon long) had gotten very pottent so I cleaned the tank, disenfected all their branches and hide spots so I can't seem to figure out whats that smell?? What is the best product to use for disenfecting??? Does anyone use anything in particular to make the cage smell good???? please help, I've gotten to the point where I might need to sell my precious babies because I can't stand their smell. Any advice will be extremely welcome

cresty

You sure it's the geckos and not their crickets? I find that sometimes my critter keeper full of crickets gets pretty darn stinky - it's a good plan to at least wipe it out with a wet paper towel or similar before refilling it with fresh crickets, and every couple of times I like to actually wash it out with soap or bleach solution and then rinse it very well.

Presuming that's not it, you can use a bleach solution to clean out the terrarium, which should nullify just about any smell, but of course be sure to rinse the hell out of it after and make sure it's completely dry and not smelling at all like bleach before reinserting geckos. The same goes for all their stuff - you can use bleach solution on it, just make sure you rinse it *very* well, and be absolutely sure there's no bleach left behind afterward.

I've found this to work well, and it's a good idea to do this every now and then anyway, just to make sure there isn't a pile of bacteria or other nastiness accumulating.
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0.1 Albino Leopard Gecko - Tigger
0.0.1 Crested Gecko - Pooh-Bear

It might be a good idea to have a fecal ran, coccidia can make their poo smell god awful.

Two good thoughts. Most of the time leopard geckos just don't smell. If there is a dead cricket or two, or (my first thought) the animals are sick, there will be a distinctive smell from their container. You may wish to isolate the gecko(s) for a couple of days to monitor both it's eating and its poop. If it is either not eating or its poop is greyish you may have a problem with the gecko.

I had one that was working through a sand impaction, and the sandy poo had an awful small to it. After a few weeks of treatment the small went away and the poo turned to normal. I think it was just backed up and bacteria was multiplying in it's gut.
I avoid sand for any age leo. I just leep getting too many rescues with issues from it. Impaction is only one problem. Scratched eyes seem to happen a lot also.

update;

After inspection of the tank, I found several dead mealworms and some crix. I checked the color of the poop and it looked normal to me. I have noticed that their eating habits have slowed down but I thought it was because of the major heat here in cali. Im hoping that its simply dead food and not some sort of illness. I dont use sand, I have always used paper towels for substrate so i dont think its impaction, it might be an infection. Some one mentioned coccion something, what is that and how can it be treated?>???

Thank you all

cresty

Scan down to coccidia in this site...
http://www.drgecko.com/protozoans.htm

Here's another site...
http://www.vet.uga.edu/ivcvm/2000/Terrell/Terrell.htm