Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Okay, so I got my first gecko the other day.... and now everywhere I look, I see people saying that I need Calcium and vitamin supplements for my gecko... he's a leopard btw, about 5" long...Is it just regular old human calcium, or super special reptile calcium? If it's human type, I can't find it in powder form anywhere. Can I just crush up tablets? The girl at the pet store told me I had to use vitasand as a substrate, and me being stupid listened to her before reading more on impaction. Apparently the vitasand is loaded with minerals and vitamins and such... Was it a dumb idea, or is it okay? The bag says specifically that it is good for leopard geckos, the ingredients are: Calcium Carbonate, Magnesium Carbonate, iron oxide, beta carotene, ascorbic acid, calcium pantothenate, vitamin B12, biotin, vitamin B6 and B1, Niacin, Riboflavin, Folic Acid and Dicalcium Phoshate. It doesn't say anything about real sand... Any expert opinions on this? SOrry for the long post. thanks all in advance.

You can buy the calcium in a powered form, they make it specifically for lizards and it's not too uncommon so it shouldn't be hard to find.

Also, I've heard that calcium sand isn't good at all. The fact remains that it's too grainy and won't digest well, but I could be wrong. You might want to try running a bit under some water and see if it disintegrates or not. If it does it's probably not that bad, but it could still lead to respiratory problems and such.

Petstores should carry reptile made multivitamins and calcium powder. These are really finely ground to the point it has the same texture (or maybe even finer) than regular white flower. Rep Cal makes great powders, as does reptivite (not sure if that is the company that makes it or just the brand name).

As for the vita sand or whatever it was, don't use it. With all those chemicals in it, there is no way to control how much your gecko may eat. Also, it just isn't digestable in the grain size it is. A poster here or on the main forum posted an article either he did or found (can't remember, wish I booked marked it back then) did an experiment on calci-sand and vita-sand and some other brand. He put a measured amount of each into separate vats of hydrochloric acid then after a week, drained the acid, dried the sand and weighted it again and found no appreciable difference in starting weight and final weight. He also found the calcisand weakened the acid, making less powerful and the sand itself tended to clump up.

It's like water rushing down an incline. If there are big rocks in the way , the water is just going to move around them, but if there is fine sand or mud, the water is going to push it out of the way and make it's own path through it. The substrate calci sands are just way to big grained to be absorbed by the body in a reasonable amount of time, so it causes impaction in most cases.

Leopard geckos can be kept on papertowel, newspaper or washed children's playsand. They may be alright on a sand/soil mix but I am not sure about th is, no expert on leopard geckos.

Right on... Thanks guys... I wish I had thought it through better beforehand, but that is what she said I NEEDED to have... The sand is really fine, like beach sand, and when it gets wet, it's once again just like beach sand... What a rip off. $12 a bag, and I'm not even supposed to use it?! curses...
I have a bag of lizard litter that I had for my corn snake. just groung english walnut shells. would this be a better substrate, as long as I provide her with the vitamin and calcium supplements? I know paper towel would be the easiest, but it's just not attractive....

It definetly sucks to buy something and then find out it will hurt your pet. I'm getting a crested gecko as soon as I can. This is going to be my first reptile! I'm soooo exited and I know how it would feel to find that someting I put in the food caused it to get sick. How is he? It is a he right? What kind of colours does it have? Also how often do you hold it? I'm not sure if cresteds can be held more often but gidlines would help. I hope your new friend thrives and grows nice and big for you!