Reptile & Amphibian Forums

is impactaction too great a risk for me to use a dirt (he is a full grown male)? it would make it easyer with the plants, then i can just plant them like my monitor enclosure. also (and this is more opinion) waterfall, good or bad (waste of space)? he can climb all over it, its one of those exoterra rock looking ones.
thanks
-jake

i'm currently keeping 1:2 adult cresteds in natuaralistic set-up 29g tank. i'd like to get one more female in there later this year - there's plenty of space for her.

yes, you can use potting soil in your set-up for the plants. be sure that it does NOT contain perlite. i cannot stress that enough. NO perlite. perlite will cause impaction and death.

as for the waterfall, that's a matter of personal perference. if you have the space and it adds to the decor, go for it. if you're using it for the humidity, that would be fine but it would be negated by a screen top.

well i am thinking about modifying the lid to make it half plexiglass and half screen to retain more moisture, in my monitor tank i have one plexiglass lid and one plain screen lid with a bit of glass in the middle between them.

that will work to help keep the humidity up. a cheaper, not not as attractive option is simply plastic wrap. i wrap about 1/2 the lid with plastic wrap to keep humidity up. just be certain if you use plastic wrap that you tape it to the cage lid to prevent your geckos from entering.

I have had one in my natural enclosure for several years. I FINALLY YANKED THE BLASTED THING, CLEANED FOR THE LAST TIME and put it in storage. It was a nice effect and with the fogger in it it kept things nice and humid. BUT it was forever getting clogged with crickets that would slip in any space they could and get in the water source and also getting all germed up and messy because the geckos would defecate on it and their waste would wash down into the water source. It was a constant battle of taking it out every few days, cleaning and disinfecting it and putting back in again. Nice effect, too much work and not worth the health risk to the animal if you slack off on keeping it clean. Just my opinion and my experience with this though.

I have a colony of six animals (2.4) in a 60 gallon tank. I keep all the plants potted and just use cypress mulch on the bottom. There is also cork bark, vines and grape vine in there for them.

I prefer to leave the plants potted because it is easy to remove them and clean off all the gecko droppings then just reset the pots in the substrate. It just keeps things nice and fresh looking in the tank.

They seem happy and breed constantly.

Steve