Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi,
I just got my first two leopard geckos a couple of days ago, and I'm sure these are really stupid questions but:-

I have a 3 foot tank set up so it is about 85F at the hot end during the day, but when the light goes off at night, the temperature at this end drops to about 72F. Is this OK?

Also, when is a good time of day to feed them? I put about ten crickets in the tank at about 9 in the morning, and they were all there by ten at night. I'm worried that by the time the leos catch the food all the calcium dust will be gone and the gut loading will have worn off!

Cheers,
Jim

Feed them at dusk/night they are nocturnal animals.
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Tim W. My Pictures
0.1.0 Dumeril Boas
0.1.0 Kittens
0.0.1 Leopard Geckos

It rubs the lotion on it's skin.
Bleach, good to clean tanks. Ammonia, good to clean tanks. Bleach mixed with Ammonia, good to make ammonium chloride gas to kill you while your cleaning tanks.

The warm end should stay at a constant of at least 88-90F. Are you using an UTH? you can plug in a thermostat to keep the temperature constant day and night.

Don't leave the crickets in the tank for too long, they'll stress out you leos. Maybe try feeding at night, if they don't eat them in an hour or so, take them out; OR if you have a feeding bowl or dish to keep the crickets in, you can leave them in the tank overnight. That's what I'm doing at the moment.

Hi,

Thank-you all for the replies.
All of the books I've read seem to contradict each other, and the opportunity for a learner lizard keeper like me just to talk to some one is much appreciated.

I'm using a heat mat which covers about half of the cage wall which is on constantly, and a standard 60W lightbulb during the daylight hours. The heat mat gives an area of about 80F-ish next to Gordon and Eddie's hide and humidity box, but it doesn't seem to do much about the ambient temperature in the tank during the night, which drops to around 70F at the hot end by the time you get about 6" from the mat.
To sort this out I was using the bulb, but this gets turned off at night.

Based on all your advice, I'm going to go out after work and buy:-

1) 60-75W Red/Day&Night heat bulb, which I will leave on 24/7 to keep the ambient temperature up (I am sure the other end of the tank will be cool enough).

2) A deeper sided food bowl, because my crickets are dispersing around the tank straight away despite me chilling them and breaking one of their hopping leg each.

Which leaves me with another question:-

If I use Red/Day&Night heat bulb all the time, do I need a seperate standard bulb to keep them day/night cylce? They are kept in a room with plenty of natural light during the day, and darkness at night, so I'm thinking that should be enough without additional bulbs?

Thanks again for you help

Jim

That's fine, the natural light in the room should be enough to give them the sense for day and night. Where are you placing your thermometer? You should place it right on top or closest to the substrate as possible, as long as the substrate temp (warm end) reaches 88-90F, then that's fine.

Thanks again Gothra

I spent the evening last night tinkering with the temperature, and I now have a wondeful gradient of 90F-70F along the length of the tank. Gordon and Eddie seem to be much happier and bolder now now as they are quite content to eat Mealworms from my fingers, or if I leave them in a dish overnight.

But I am slightly concerned because neither of them will touch the crickets I try to feed them. The crickets have each have had a leg removed and are left in bowl that they can't escape from but they seem to be untouched in the morning.

My plan is to not feed the geckos tonight (as they had 3 or 4 mealworms last night), and try to tweezer feed some crickets tomorrow night when the geckos are bound to be hungry. How does this sound as a plan?

Cheers again,
Jim