Reptile & Amphibian Forums

So this is only indirectly related to monitors, because I don't currently keep any monitor species... but I like to apply your methods to the reptiles I do keep (tortoises do especially well in a 'monitor' setup).

Lately I've been racking my brain trying to come up with a better way to house nocturnal reptiles (like my leopard gecko and ball python). The leopard gecko in particular has really been cause for confusion, because he is in a 70 gallon tank (with a glass top and enclosed heat lamp, plus a heat pad beneath the tank), and I've just used all of the common methods of keeping them. I'd like to know how you, with all of your reptile experience, would setup an enclosure for a nocturnal reptile, specifically a leopard gecko. If you have any insights as to the BP, let me know. I've been a little more satisfied with his setup though. Cypress mulch with a lot of wood debris to squeeze under.

I've always been confused about nocturnal reptiles, because it seems like there has to be a better way to keep them. Since you have worked with a lot of reptiles in your lifetime, including a lot of snakes, I assume that this is something you probably worked out for yourself long ago.

when we bred Leopard Geckos years ago, it was always on super dry substrate like newspaper. i know that if i were to do it again, i would use a nice "monitor style" soil substrate...
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robyn@proexotics.com

Pro Exotics Reptiles

That's what I was thinking. I've always used dry substrates with a 'moist hiding spot', but I can't help but think that there's got to be a much better way.

I am mostly just confused as to how to adjust a monitor-like soil setup to work with nocturnal reptiles. It's always been easy to apply these strategies to my diurnal reptiles, but I never really put too much thought into the nocturnal dudes.

With the gecko cycling as often as they do, and just laying two eggs, I think using alot of dirt like we do with monitors would be a pain to go digging for them. Geckos seem pretty easy to nest, so the small box seems adequate and easy. Though certainly it might enjoy a monitor set up more, with all that to dig and burrow in.

to be perfectly honest, I'm not very interested in leopard geckos (a little too 'ordinary' for me), so I don't plan on breeding. I just have one large male, so I was trying to come up with a way to make his life as nice as possible in captivity. The only animals I'm really interested in breeding right now are tortoises, and monitor husbandry really transfers right over to tortoise husbandry. Obviously they aren't going to climb as much, but I've been using the same principles. Cattle trough with a top and a lot of dirt (about a foot, though I might change it this summer so that I can put 2' of dirt in the trough to really let them dig), hot basking spots, and as much food as they want to consume, which altogether equals fantastic growth so far!

All of my other reptiles I just try to apply monitor husbandry to the rest of my collection because I notice better results with it.

I am going to skip the shoebox breeder rack systems used to breed bizillions of leos.

In the late seventies, I move to seattle to work at Woodlawn park zoo. I moved a couple blocks from Erine Wagner(curator of reptiles at the time).

He bred everything(not monitors, hahahahahaha). But lets just stick with Leos. He had a room above his garage. It was a gecko ranch. He had gecko corrals.

He make a desk high shelf that went around most of the room. On his shelf, he had little glass walls, say ten inches high. These glass walls, formed the corrals. Each corral was about 2foot by 30 inches or so. Each has a spotlite, much like monitor cages. Each cage had sand as a substrate, but he did not use enough for them to burrow. He had an assortment of boxes for hiding, a couple of nesting boxes, and a dish of water and a dish of fine sand for them to eat.

He fed crickets and superworms or mealworms, etc. All he did was gather eggs and sift the cages with a kitchen sifter. He made millions of little buggers. (remember, late 70's)

What was funny was, he had bibrons geckos in there too, but they got out of their pens and sorta had free roam of the room. A funny thing was, he could not find the eggs. He looked under stuff, the window jams( lots of geckos lay here) etc etc.

He found babies, but no eggs or nests. Well one day he solved the mystery. He saw a female bibrons laying eggs under the spot lites. They would lay an egg, then roll it in sand(sand stuck to it) then bury the eggs under the lite(nice and warm)

If you are a detective, you will realize what was going out. Ernie was throwing out the baby with the bathwater. hahahahahahahahahaha. When he sifted the cages, he thought the sand coated eggs was poop. hahahahahahahahahahahaha

Anyway. Leos are desert dwellers, much like Those fat headed things(Nephurus) and live is a sandy soil. I imagine they are much like our Coleoynexxisxxx(sp) and use a wide varity of soils types, but arid soil is the key. Sandy, silty, hardpan, etc. Cheers

Thanks. I'm going to take my time and think about what I've gathered and try to plan the 'better leo habitat'. I was thinking probably a very sandy soil, but I wanted to find a way to make a lot of crevaces that he could hide in that would give him access to much higher humidity. Off the top of my head I was thinking having sloping sandy soil, and having a plywood stack protruding out of the highest end (so that the further the gecko goes into the stack, the higher the humidity). I figured that might give him a good way to regulate his heat and humidity underneath the heat lamp. The only downside is that I figure I would have the replace the stack often because half of it would be submerged in soil.

I'm not sure if what I said made any sense, but maybe I'll try it out and post some pics.