Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi Everyone,

I'm mostly a frog guy but I've always been fascinated by a few gecko species, U. phantasticus and ebenaui being two of them. I ordered a wild caught adult pair of ebenaui which should be arriving on Tuesday. I have a few questions that I could not find anywhere and would really appriciate some help with.

1) I'm assuming since these are wild caught animals that they will be relativly dehydrated when I recieve them. Whats the best method of rehydrating them? Just placing them in their new terrrarium and misting everything well? How about a pedialyte/water mixture, I know it works for frogs but how about for uroplatus?

2) I'm also assuming that they may have a large load of parasites to deal with. How would I go about deworming them? For some frog species I've dried out panacur, scraped it into a powder and then dusted crickets with it but is there an easier way to go about it with uros?

3) I just wanted to have someone double check everything and make sure I'm not forgetting or am unprepared for part of their care. I have a 20 hex with cork bark background on three sides, planted with a few different species of plants. There are verticle as well as horizontal perches. The substrate is a soil mixture to help keep the humidity high. The temperature in the terrariums stays between 70F and 76F during the day and falls to the high 60's at night, in the winter it sometimes falls in the low 60's at night. I'll be feeding mostly crickets, do they enjoy catching flying insects like wild caught moths or flies? I have one 15" flourescent light running across the length of the terrarium, its enough light for the plants and hopefully not too much for the uroplatus. Am I forgetting anything? Any quick advice or tips? Anyone have pictures of their setups? Thanks a lot for your help in advance,
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Devin
devin@amphibiancare.com
www.amphibiancare.com
3.2 Dendrobates tinctorius 'Dwarf French Guiana'
1.1 Dendrobates tinctorius 'Powder Blue'
5.1 Mantella aurantiaca
1.1 Mantella crocea
1.0 Ceratophrys cranwelli
0.1 Hyla chrysoscelis or versicolor
1.0 Bufo americanus
0.0.1 Salamandra salamandra
1.0 Ambystoma tigrinum
0.1 Chamaeleo calyptratus
0.0.1 Chrysemys scripta
0.0.1 Chrysemys picta belli
1.0 Terrapene carolina triunguis

i have five ebaunie 2.3 in seperate colonys (1.2 and 1.1 respectivaly.) they are pretty good for begginers to uros. get a large tank. 10 is good but a 20 long is better. dont worry about them being dehydrated to much. just heavy mist them a couple of times an hour if they look a little dry. it's what i did for mine and they all turned out good. as for parasites its really hard to treat something that small, so dont bother. if you are worried take them to herp vet and i had no problems yet.
as for they 20 hex mine seem to prefer longer more ground based tanks but thats just what they seem to like . keep them cool, humid and i personaly think that think that an incandecent bulb would be better on their eyes but that what i use. any other questions feel free to ask.

You seem to know the majority of what you need to, so that is good. You should definitely give them panacur, especiall since you already have it and are familiar with using it. Do you have the paste form? I used the paste and just gave my U. phantasticus a portion about the size of a grain of rice. That's the appropriate size with the paste. When you first get them I would put the pair in a 10 gal with several bamboo branches and plastic plants with several layers of paper towel in the bottom. This is to carefully watch them and so that you can clean out poop easily and constantly so if they do have any parasites there is little chance of reinfection or infecting the other mate. This is the "sterile" enviroment if that's how you want to put it. The bamboo and plastic plants can be cleaned easily without soaking in the poop and paper towel is easy to clean. At first I would mist them 3-4 times a day fairly heavily. This will help with rehydrating. You can use pedialyte but I don't think it's totally necessary and it leaves residue on everything in the tank.
You seem to know what to do. Get us some pics and keep us updated. If you have further questions, let us know.

Robert Gundy
Robert Gundy Reptiles

Thank you both for your advice. I think I will still treat them with the panacur just as a precaution. I'm glad to hear from both of you that I shouldn't have to worry about dehydration too much. Robert, how did you go about getting the geckos to take the small portion of panacur? Thanks again in advance,
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Devin
devin@amphibiancare.com
www.amphibiancare.com
3.2 Dendrobates tinctorius 'Dwarf French Guiana'
1.1 Dendrobates tinctorius 'Powder Blue'
5.1 Mantella aurantiaca
1.1 Mantella crocea
1.0 Ceratophrys cranwelli
0.1 Hyla chrysoscelis or versicolor
1.0 Bufo americanus
0.0.1 Salamandra salamandra
1.0 Ambystoma tigrinum
0.1 Chamaeleo calyptratus
0.0.1 Chrysemys scripta
0.0.1 Chrysemys picta belli
1.0 Terrapene carolina triunguis