Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi all,

I'm new to reptiles so bear with me..

Alright, my questions/settings

I captured a house Gecko outside on my patio one night about 2 months ago...He is doing great and eats fruitflies as a champ...20-30 pr. night when he is in the mood(about 1 1/2 to 2" long). He now lives in a 1/2 gallon octagon(yes it is for fish), but he seems to be happy with it.

About 3 weeks ago I captured 2 Anoles in a nearby Creek with my 5 year old....We decided to keep them and put them in a 20gal reptile terrarium...Which I spent about $100 to get a good environment for them(All bells and wistles right...). Anyways both of them seems happy...They are light green during the day and changes to brown at night. 1 is about 6" long and the other about 4" Including tails. I still have yet to see them eat, but the crickets are disseapearing and I have seen legs and other small leftovers in the foodbowl so I guess they are eating.

Now to my problem/question....They seem to like the top netting of the cage the most(sometimes they hang on the glass). That's where they hang all day and night...Actually I have never seen any of them move at all...Except the little one 1 time. Is this normal?

And my second question...The reptile guy at the petstore said that I could not let the Gecko in with the Antoles because they might eat it and the crickets(small type) would most likly eat it up....Is this correct?

Appreciate all the help I can get...I did read V7.0 of the care taking site.

Thanx Y'all
./Michael

If you need to see pics of their sizes I can take a couple and post it here.

How warm are your temps in the cage for the anoles? Seems that if they are brown at night (which is when they'd normally be green even if brown all day) and they are hanging on the screen they are too cold. Also, just because there is pieces of cricket left, doesn't always mean they are eating. Anoles hunt during the day (they are dinural) and the cricket could be cannabilising eachother for lack of other food source (mainly water).

Other then that I don't know a thing about geckos. I've seen them mix house geckos and green & brown anoles at the pet store, but none of them looked healthy so I don't think it's a good idea.
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Chantel a.k.a. sillygirl
"I came, I saw, I adopted"

2.4.0 green anoles (Stumpy (M)), and the rest remain nameless.
2.2.0 green tree frogs (Romeo & Juliet, Bonnie & Clyde)
0.0.3 D. tinctorius (Cobalt froglets)
0.0.1 Anerythristic 'B' (Charcoal)corn snake (Popcorn)
0.0.1 Snow Corn (KandyKorn)
0.2 Amel Corns (KornSilk & KornMuffin)
0.0.1 Giant African Millipede
2.4 Domestic house cats (Bad Boy (m), Bart(m),Sasha(F),Little Bit(F),Spirit(F)
1.0 Rottweiler (Jake)
1.2 Rats (new additions with no names yet)
1.0 Husband (David, who loves all my critters too)

SillyGirl,

The temp is around 85...Heated by a 75watt spotlight. In addittion I have a heat pad that runs at night when the lamp is turned off. For humidity I have home grown moss that gets watered 2 times pr. day and act as a water source for the crickets and a secondary source for the 2 anoles. The crickets has 2 places in the tank where cricket food is placed...the one with high vitamin. I actually replaced the fake Ivy with a real plant today and it seems to have brought wonders to the Anoles they are spending all their time in the plants now. In addittion I created a water dripp on the plastic tree...seems to make them drink a lot more.

I also placed the Gecko in there with them and they dont seem to mind...

Nah, don't put the gecko in with them! The geckos and the anoles really try to keep apart as much as possible and the gecko is probably the one who's going to get hurt from this. Most adult house geckos only need around a 10-gallon, though, so it's really easy to relocate them.

Well, I noticed you read the anole caresheet here in Kingsnake, so I trust you found all the information to keep them there
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Got hips like Cinderella / Must be having a good shame / Talking sweet about nothing / Cookie I think you're Tame

Yeah I think I found what I need in the Anole care sheet....I saw may largest anole eat for the first time today(the one in the pic above). I opened up the top...He jumped from the moist moss up on a plant leaf looking at me. I dropped 3 crickets in and he chased down the large one and ate it sideways....I dropped in some more and he ate a total of 4 crickets. AWESOME!!! The only thing I have done different the last few days has been that I have started feeding my crickets with an orange gel that provides water/food for the crickets and vitamins for the anoles when they eat them. Rock on. The Anoles seems to get along with the house gecko very good espessially since the geckos are night animals....He sleeps inside the treeroot all day long. The anoles has never been inside of it even before I got the gecko. They stay in the plants or on the ground.

The problem with mixing the anoles and geckos is more for the sake of the geckos than the anoles, since anoles are the ones that are aggressive. House geckos aren't exactly nocturnal, either, they're crespucular, so they do spend time with the anoles and get very stressed by them, believe me! It's also going to possibly help spread parasites. If you can't house both anoles and geckos appropriately, you should let the house gecko go back where you found it.

Another thing is not to feed your animals too much at once. If the animal, being cold-blooded, can't digest fast enough, it could cause an impaction. Impactions are dangerous and often fatal, so that's why it's really important to watch that the food items aren't too big, that they aren't fed too many, and what substrate the animals are kept on, the warmth of the tank (and the ability for the animals to thermoregulate), etc. If the crickets are small, four doesn't seem excessive for an adult. If the crickets are big, it's probably way too much.
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Got hips like Cinderella / Must be having a good shame / Talking sweet about nothing / Cookie I think you're Tame