Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I just purchased my first gecko this past weekend. It's about 3 weeks old and doing very well. It starting eating when I first brought it home, and it's extremely feisty. I have a couple questions though:

1. It poops wherever it wants. Everything I've read said that they find one place in the tank to use the bathroom but mine has yet to do that.

2. It sleeps damn near all day and runs amuck all night. Is this normal?

3. How exactly should I set up this humid hide thing? Well I should be asking "did I set it up right?" I put some peat moss in some tupperware and cut a hole in the side and wet the peat moss a bit. Is that ok?

4. Speaking of the humid hide, he/she just discovered it today and when it walked in there it started licking the moss then tried to EAT it. Is that normal? What should I do about this?

Here are 2 (rather bad) pics of it...I'll try to have better ones later...

Congrats on your first gecko, it looks like it's off to a good start. I'll try to answer some of your questions:

1. It's still pretty young, maybe as it grows older it will start defecating in a certain spot.

2. Sleeping all day is perfectly normal, they are nocturnal animals and will be exploring at night and looking for food at night also.

3 & 4. Peat moss in a tupperware sounds okay, I hear the moss keeps good moisture. If he's starting to bite and attempt to eat it, I'd try changing it to something else, like maybe moist paper towels. Did you actually see him try to ingest the moss? Maybe he was licking it for the moisture. If he doesnt know how to use a water bowl yet, you should mist some spots around his cage for him to lick.

Hopefully that answered some of your questions, what substrate is the lil guy on? Its hard to tell from the pics.
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Sal
Geckos "R" Us

www.geckosrus.com

First thing...take him off the sand!!!!...baby leos should NEVER be kept on sand...don't listen to pet store workers. Humid hide sounds ok. They are nocturnal...so its behavior is absolutely normal. And to get it going to the bathroom in one spot, try moving all of its excrement to wherever you want it to go for a few days, and it should start going there.
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Christina

2.3 leos
-0.1 tangerine het rainwater albino w/jungle background (Blinkers)

-0.2 jungles (Vahz & Skissor)

-1.0 tremper albino (Spitfire)

-1.0 tangerine rainwater albino (Bronx)

n/p
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Christina

2.3 leos
-0.1 tangerine het rainwater albino w/jungle background (Blinkers)

-0.2 jungles (Vahz & Skissor)

-1.0 tremper albino (Spitfire)

-1.0 tangerine rainwater albino (Bronx)

n/p

>>1. It poops wherever it wants. Everything I've read said that they find one place in the tank to use the bathroom but mine has yet to do that.

- this should change as your leos grows up

>>2. It sleeps damn near all day and runs amuck all night. Is this normal?

- yup, that's a leo for you

>>3. How exactly should I set up this humid hide thing? Well I should be asking "did I set it up right?" I put some peat moss in some tupperware and cut a hole in the side and wet the peat moss a bit. Is that ok?

- this sounds fine

>>4. Speaking of the humid hide, he/she just discovered it today and when it walked in there it started licking the moss then tried to EAT it. Is that normal? What should I do about this?

- this could potentially be a problem, I’d recommend changing the humid hide substrate to paper towels for a few months just to be safe. After that time, put the moss back in and watch for signs of your leo trying to ingest it.

Congrats on your new leo! Please keep us posted.