Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi,
I just got my first two leopard geckos a couple of days ago, and I'm sure these are really stupid questions but:-

I have a 3 foot tank set up so it is about 85F at the hot end during the day, but when the light goes off at night, the temperature at this end drops to about 72F. Is this OK?

Also, when is a good time of day to feed them? I put about ten crickets in the tank at about 9 in the morning, and they were all there by ten at night. I'm worried that by the time the leos catch the food all the calcium dust will be gone and the gut loading will have worn off!

Cheers,
Jim

hey dude. what do u have male and female or female female? i have a male with 2 females. u dont need any special uvb lights being as their nocturnal. they eat at night preferable because their nocturnal. the crickets if u leave them all day will start to eat ur gecko. put them in at night.its better. coat them at that time. i prefer keeping a under tank heating pad on during the day and off at night. if you want to breed them give them a month of the pad off to cycle them. if you need any other information on them email me at bschulleri@earthlink.net

Cheers, for the reply,
I have 2 females, and they appear to be settling in nicely, they have recently started crawling on me to be handled, so I'm pretty sure they are healthy and unstressed.
I keep a heat mat on 24/7 which keeps the hot end of the tank about 80-85, and i use a 25 watt standard bulb to simulate the day for them.
All in all things are going quite well.

Thanks again for your help,

Jim

hey. what kind of bulb do u use? is it a reptile uvb bulb or just reg?

just a standard regular bulb.
I had a try with a red nocturnal heat bulb (nothing special on the UV), but they gecko's didn't seem to like it so i swapped back to the heat matt and the small regular bulb during the day.
Laters,
Jim