Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi there, I am totally a newbie in raising a leopard gecko, and I hope you guys can be nice and help me out here with several questions.
1. I use a heat lamp to help the gecko distinguish between day night. So is there a min or max day hours a gecko should have? The cage is in my room and I normally wouldn't go to bed/hit the lights till 11 or 12, even tho I turned off teh cage lamp usually at 6 in the afternoon. So is the lights in my room gotta have any negative impact on my gecko? like mess up his daily cycle? If what I am doing is wrong, can anyone give me instructions on when to turn on and off the lights? Also, what would be the best place in the house to put the cage?
2. Also, cuz sometimes I play music or video games in my room, is it true that loud noises stress out a gecko? Or if they can tolerate to a certain level?
3. Is it really necessary to gut load your feeders before feeding? I know how people would tell you to make those fancy mix to feed your feeders but would I be just fine feeding my crickets fruits and commercial cricket food such as Natural Zone total cricket bites?
4. Is it a better idea to leave your crickets (with their hind legs removd) in a feeding dish in the cage, take the gecko to a bowl or something with crickets in there so he can hunt for them, or to simply leave the crickets roaming around in the cage?
5. Just wanna make sure, the day temp should be 88-90 and the night temp should be 78-80 right?
Thank you very much.

1. I use 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of night time. It has worked fine.

2. Your music and t.v. shouldnt bother your gecko if the volume is at a reasonable level. If you blast your boom box and your leos cage is near, obviously it would stress them. But not at a reasonable level.

3. Yes. It is definately necessary to gutload feeders. Your geckos are only as healthy as what they eat. And they get all the nutrition that they need. Naturally, whats in the crickets will end up in your geckos.

4. If your geckos have a hard time hunting, its a pretty good idea to break off the hind legs of the crickets, you dont have to leave them in a dish if you dont want to. When you first get leos, some people do this because the gecko will not stray to far from its hide. It makes it easier for them to catch.

5. Yes, you are correct with the temps.

Thank you very much for your answers and informations, you never know how desperate a newbie could be, trying to do his best for a pet he just acquired yet there are so much caresheets out there giving sometimes contradicting informations. So if my gecko has less then 12 hours night time, is that gotta affect him negatively? So you have your cage at a dark place and turn on the heat lamp during day time and turn off during night time?
Thank you very much.

No, it wont affect them negatively, as long as its not a big difference in day/night time. If you had the lights off for 16 hours a day and only 6 hours of daytime. Your gecko might be confused. I think just as long as the cycle is consistent it shouldnt hurt them. 12 hours day and 12 hours night would probably be best. And you can buy timers for cheap that will do it automatically. I have my geckos in my room and its a little darker than the rest of the house. My lights are off the majority of time, except for the heat light over the tank. At night i use a red party bulb in it so i can see them.