Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I bought an AFT about 2 months ago. It is 7 months old, and I keep it in a 10 gallon tank. It is healthy and eats regularly (and a lot).

I am not sure if he is shedding or not. How do I know when he is shedding or needs to do so?
How much time passes between?
How can I help him if he has trouble?

Thanks

AFTs tend to eat their own sheding so you most likly will not find any shedded skin. You can tell if its getting ready to shed by his color getting lighter to a greyish color. As for needing to shed... i haven't herd of an animal not when they needed and if something does happen soacking him in warm water or increasing the humidity will help losen old skin, but don't try to pull it off right away, this can hurt the little gecko.

Yeah I saw it's skin getting lighter one time. At the same time it was doing this thing, going in a circle in his hide (plastic box) rubbing against it. I thought it had shed and that's why it was lighter. Now his skin is darker.
Ok, so if I mist the tank reguralry I don't need to worry about anything. I was just a little worried as I haven't seen any signs of him doing it.

Thanks for the help.

Keeping the humidity up for AFTs helps the shedding process quite a bit. I mist my AFTs once a day to ensure that at least most or part of their day has a higher humidity. If the gecko got lighter and was rubbing its nose/face then it was most likely shedding or about to. So keeping the humidity up is somewhat important. Normal room humidity is anywhere between 30%-45% so a mist once a day to get a good soak on the soil is enough to bring it up to about 60% which is plenty. And a misnomer that I've noticed is that people ask about how often their animal sheds. It's all up to them. You can tell when they need to shed, i.e. my chinese water dragon who I've had for 4 months and just went through his second shed. He obviously has had something wrong, and it was low humidity. But nonetheless, shedding is based on how fast they grow, which for Afts can be as little as every 10 days to as much as once a month. So just keep an eye on it, keep the humidity up a little, and help them shed, only if they need it.