Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have had Leroy for over a year now, and he is kept in a 20 gallon aquarium with that fake carpet material with two hide logs and a water dish. I know what the diet is, but I would like to know if I should keep this substrate or switch to a type of sand. I have a heat lamp overhead that keeps it at 83 degrees during the day set at 12 hours. I used to have a female leopard gecko with Leroy, but she died of mouth rot soon after laying her first batch of two eggs. I put the eggs in sand and they rotted to death. I would like to get another female and have another go. Can I keep the two in the same cage? This is what I did with the last female. I heard I should give her a damp moss chamber to lay her eggs. Then I heard to place the eggs half buried in a half filled shoe box with vermiculite in a temperature regulated sealed aquarium at 80 degrees (I want females). Please answer with many tips on any subject except feeding. Here are my pics.

Here is my set-up. It is a 29 gallon with a uth and 2 overhead lights. One is red and the other is standard. They are both on timers. The red one is also on a thermostat that keeps the warm end at 88 to 89. The timer cuts power to the thermostat at 1.a.m. and comes back on at 6a.m. (Nighttime temp drop) The viv temps start to climb and then the timer on the standard bulb kicks it on at 11a.m. The 40 watt bulb is not enough to overheat the viv. The red bulb cycles on and off, helped by the heat of the standard bulb. The standard bulb's timer shuts it off at 8p.m. The UTH runs 24/7. It is not as complicated as it seems. All you need extra is the standarb bulb reflector and 2 timers. I knoe Leos don't need uv, but in the wild, the sun rises and sets every day. That is all I try to simulate.

1.0 Corn Snake "Motega"
0.0.1 Leopard Gecko "Zubi"

I know the subtrate issue is a big debate but I had my leo's on sand for a while and it got annoying when I had to clean the tank plus my male started to eat the sand so I changed them all over to non stick padded shelf liner. My leo's actually seem to like it better seeing as I don't scare them with the scoop anymore to clean up their droppings and I don't have to stress them to clean the tank anymore seeing as I just vaccuum out the tank once a week and wipe down the shelf liner every so often. Thats my personal opinion on the subtrate and as far as housing a male and female together I've tried that too but ended up seperating them because my female became agressive toward my male plus the male can stress the female by constantly trying to breed with her. I'd suggest just getting another set up and only putting them together for breeding.