Reptile & Amphibian Forums

a few questions from a newbie with a not so good local herp shop.

1. I have an UTH.. do leos need any special lighting? or will a regular strip light be okay? (so we can see better)-

2. My local herp shop only feeds jarred baby food to their geckos.. is this healthy? a good treat?? ( didnt think they eat friuts and veggies)

i have a 10 gallon with bark substrate, water bowl, a butter tub with moist potting soil and a lid, a feeding bowl and 2 additonal hides, and UTH. no lights. Is this all okay. Getting ready to buy my first and want to make sure everything is right.

You need to check the temp of tank with the uth on. I have a uth as well but this only warms up my tank to 80 F so I purchased a heat bulb as well to get it to the the necessary 88 to 92 F. A calcium dish with no d3 should be in there as well. This could be put in a milk cap. Should have a humid hide not sure if u said u did. Otherwise u are all set and ready to go.

I would def. take off the bark substrate and if it's a baby i would put on paper towels. You can get a red light to put on top if like said before the uth doesn't get warm enough then that will work. Regular lighting can hurt the leos eyes as red bulbs have no effects.

Baby food is a no no unless it's sick or not eating. You should be feeding crix or silkworms, mealies as a treat and waxworms maybe 1 or 2 every other week.

Also like said before you should have a calcuim dish with no D3 in it in the tank at all times, you should also be dusting the crix with vitamins and calcuim w/ D3 once a week.

You should have 2 hides one on the cool side and one on the hot side. The hot side should be 85-90 and the cool side should be 70-75. I would get a digital probe thermometer or a temp gun.

thumbs up for trying to find as much info as possible before you buy one ..

a 10 gallon is fine for 1 gecko for there whole lives. but i use a 20 gallon for more space geckos like to explore and move around and usually the owners find to get into making there home fun as well.
you said theres bark in her tank . i would suggest getting rid of it a gecko could eat it and get a possible blockage ( its up to you ) sand is a bad choice ..
I use Tile , works wonders keeps heat in
you need a humid hid i think you said you had one a tub with moss in it and it should be misted / i use a small kitchen plastic container cut a whole put paper towels in it and mist it ... works just as well .
you only need 1 hut to the size of your new coming gecko unless you get a bigger tank you can add a few or get another gecko ( remembering they must be female )
you said a water dish thats good new water every day .
PURE CALCUIM ! .. only in a small disk or plastic gallon milk jug lid works fine
( a note : you must use pure calcuim to coat the crickets / mealies )
Baby food is no good .. mainly we only use cricket's they work fine ( get crickets to the size of your gecko )
coat them .. feed about 5 ..at a time
you have a UTH .. thats good .. usually it needs a basking light above and i use a 40 watt red bulb on all the time - for temp wise ..
( get a digital temp ) so you can ajust the temps to the right temp for her/his tank

and mainly i hope this was helpful ( ...
good luck with you and your new Gecko

Christina

Do you know how many people get reptiles and don't really bother to find out how to take care of them, choosing to just listen to whatever the petstore owner says? Great job asking around and getting info! I can tell that your gecko will be taken care of very well! I agree with the no sand/bark posts above . . . also, if you use papertowels for a substrate, be careful with the UTH as it might heat up the bottom of the tank a bit too much . . . if this happens, you might want to get a dimmer switch for the UTH (Home Depot or Lowes is a good place to get them) . . . no baby food, go for crickets and mealworms, maybe an occasional waxworm if you get the gecko and he/she looks a little skinny . . . the only time I ever gave Gibby baby food was when I first got her (she wasn't eating for the petstore, so they adopted her out to me for free) I would wipe the veal baby food across her mouth, she would lick it off, I would repeat . . . quite the lengthy process! It did the trick though! She was eating on her own again after a week of this (the petstore was force feeding her catfood prior to that, so who knows how long it had been since she had eaten on her own?) OOps, I just realized how long a post this is . . . sorry, I got a little off subject . . . good luck to you!