Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello everyone, this is my frist post, but hopefully not my last!
i'm an employee at Petco and recently we had afew geckos that needed a good home because they were unsellable due to an illness they once had. I took home a skunk gecko and a Tokay Gecko (not my frist reptiles)

anyway, i set the Tokay up in a 20H, i had a 20L but heard that they need a higher tank then a longer one. Attached is a picture in which you can see the tank setup. I was wondering if you could give me some suggestions as to what it needed/should have. Right now as you can see there isn't much, but does he need a place to hide? more foliage? a den? any suggestions would be welcomed, thankyou.

Here is the picture

PICTURE

Hi,

first the tank should be at least (!!) Three times as tasll as on that picture. 65 to 100 g is OK for a single Tokay, bigger is better, smaller IMHO is not OK.
Second you should cover all walls except the front with fake backwalls or at least colour them dark to make the gecko feel more secure.
Third, a high densitix of plants also helps to keep humidity up and helps the gecko to feel secure.
fourth you should add a variety of smooth branches of at least twice the diamter of the tokays bofdy for climbing and add vertically orentated hidings in the upper third of the tank (bird nestboxes, crevices built form larger peices of bark etc etc)

Hope that helps

Ingo

P.S.: Its a male

Is it your opinion or did you read ina book that a single tokay should be in a cage that is between 65-100g?

In the book Tokay Geckos and Related Species it states 2 geckos per 20g.

My tank is 2x2x3 for my pair though
-----
-The guy who posts messages(Kevin)

Tarentolas@hotmail.com
Geckos
1.1.0 Gekko gecko(Geico and Gekko)
1.1.0 Eublepharis macularius(Leo the male Blizzard and Cleo the Hi-yellow female)
2.0.0 Hemitheconyx caudicinctus(Gex the striped male and Bandit the banded male)
1.0.0 Tarentola mauritanica(Croc the light phase)
1.0.0 Hemidactylus turcicus(Med)
Other Lizards
0.1.0 Basiliscus basiliscus(Bassie)
1.0.0 Physignathus cocincinus(Louis)
0.1.0 Anolis carolinensis(Apple)
1.0.0 Chamaeleo calyptratus(Ace)
1.0.0 Iguana iguana(Rex)
Boidae
1.0.0 Python regius(Lenny)
0.0.1 Boa constrictor imperator(Carl)
Turtle
0.1.0 Chrysemys picta(Painty)

I do have 20 years of experiences in keeping and breeding tokays. Since I knew the Reputation of Mc Keown as a competent herpetologist, I made the effort to order the mentioned book and have it shipped to germany.
Sadly I have to say that its not worth the money for the paper its printed on and obviously competence in herpetology does not always guarantee competence in herpetoculture.
Or maybe he just did not spend much effort on the booklet (the bibliography is ridiculously small).
Especially the housing section is horrible.
And on a side note...I would have expected from soneone like Mc Keown to know that Gekko stentor is not a valid name and that it is used for two Gekkos with quite different needs: G smithii and G. siamensis (rainforest dweller vs rock dweller). So it matters a lot, which "green eyed" you buy!!!
Also he should have known that G. ulikovskii is a rock dweller and and and.
I am currently writing a book on husbandry and breeding of Gekko species and I am collecting a lot of literature and expoeriences but I am afraid I won´t include a lot of information from Mc Kewons book.
And again, again and again...after long time Tokay experience, I say its torture to squeeze these agile runners into small tanks. Personally I never keep adults in tanks smaller than 200g, but since too many people just stop listening once I recommend such sizes, I always recommend 65 to 100, although I think thats on the very small side.
The most agiel tokays I know are free roamers or inhabit very large tanks like my 770 g rainforest enclosure.
If a tokay were a super expensive lizard, people would be willing to spend the space and money needed for its proper housing. Since tokays are cheap, people are often not willing to do so.But they are very willing to listen to people stating that these gex do neither need much space nor intense care. Sad world.
In big tanks tokays are among the least agressive lizards I know of and show much more of their fascinating natural behaviour than in a tiny 40g.

Thats my 2 cts and I won´t stop posting them.

Ingo

Bravo! I have McKeown's book also, when I bought it it seemed pretty skimpy on detailed information. So I am looking forward to seeing your book when it is finished...I hope you can post here when it is complete, or does that count as advertising?

I am currently in the process of building a 24"x36"x60" enclosure. Haven't done the math on how many gallons that is, but I seem to recall from an earlier post you would consider that "adequate" for a pair of tokays, or possibly a pair of smithii. What's your two cents on that?

There are a lot of us who greatly value your opinions on these forums, so I hope you won't stop posting them.

Chris

24"x36"x60" is 30 cubic feet

The math 30 cubic feet X 7.480519 gallons = 224.4156 gallons

1 cubic foot = 7.480519 gallons

Israel

Thanks for the info. You're not helping my lazy streak though by doing it for me...

Normally I wouldn't of said anything, but I had just figured the gallons for that size enclosure out and a 48"x30"x72" which equals 418.9091 gallons.

Israel

Just to let you know i was just curious of if you read that somewhere.

I noticed thats my tokays don't even open there mouths in a big cage.That is pretty amazing.

How many pages will your book be?
-----
-The guy who posts messages(Kevin)

Tarentolas@hotmail.com
Geckos
1.1.0 Gekko gecko(Geico and Gekko)
1.1.0 Eublepharis macularius(Leo the male Blizzard and Cleo the Hi-yellow female)
2.0.0 Hemitheconyx caudicinctus(Gex the striped male and Bandit the banded male)
1.0.0 Tarentola mauritanica(Croc the light phase)
1.0.0 Hemidactylus turcicus(Med)
Other Lizards
0.1.0 Basiliscus basiliscus(Bassie)
1.0.0 Physignathus cocincinus(Louis)
0.1.0 Anolis carolinensis(Apple)
1.0.0 Chamaeleo calyptratus(Ace)
1.0.0 Iguana iguana(Rex)
Boidae
1.0.0 Python regius(Lenny)
0.0.1 Boa constrictor imperator(Carl)
Turtle
0.1.0 Chrysemys picta(Painty)