Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'm new to lizards, and I recently bought a pair of fire skinks from a pet shop. This is an independently owned pet store that generally provides very good in-store care for their reptiles, but sometimes their imports come in sick and weak, and they sell them anyway. (For this reason, I'm pretty much ready to write off pet shops entirely and just go straight to breeders from now on. (I've had too many bad experiences and haven't learned fast enough from them.)

Anyway, to get to the point, these fire skinks seemed a little bit sickly even as I was buying them, BUT because I had special ordered them I was obligated to buy them! They are low energy, don't eat enough, and pretty stressed. I am saving up to bring them to the vet, but in the meantime I wanted some advice on what I can do to strengthen them up!

Please let me know if there's anything in my setup that I can change to help them out! I have a 20 gallon long with coconut mulch substrate, deep enough to burrow in. They have a humidity gradient - it's more dry and hot on the side with their basking lamp, and the other half of the tank is kept humid with a spray bottle. They have hides on both sides of the tank. Temps are 85-90 on the hot side and 70-80 on the cool side. I'm feeding crickets, mealworms, waxworms, and fruit. However, they never eat the fruit and I don't think they're eating enough of the crickets/worms to provide proper nourishment.

Is there anything in my husbandry that can be changed to give them a fighting chance?

Thank you.
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1 amel corn - Geislandi
1 okeetee corn - Valis
1 snow corn - Orlando
2 fire skinks - Loki and Prometheus
2 Chinese tree dragons - Trapezoid and Trapezium
2 cats - Lucky and Moony
7 betta fish

Your actually keeping them correctly. I would try butterworms,silk worms if you can get them as they are good to fatten them up.

I dont dust crickets with vitamin powder as my fire skink doesnt seem to like that but I do gut load the crickets with good food few days prior to feeding them this might help you in long run.

For now your set up is great . If your fire skinks arent an actual pair they will fight and 2 together wont work out .

Yours just came in "beat up" imagine wild caught but your set up is fine . I use a UV basking bulb only because my motto is since have a basking area anyway might as well have bulb with UV.
Mine isnt a big basker but light is on 10/12 hours a day.
I have heard some will eat baby food chicken,fruit mine wont but for you worth a try .

Mist them once a day .

The fruit mine gets is from what I feed the crickets otherwise he wont touch fruit either. Good luck hopefully they will pull through

how much are they eating? I think mine could eat 20 mealworms a day if I let him, but I try to limit it so I only give him some twice a week, and he's doing great....as long as they are eating some, then I wouldn't worry too much yet about that. Do you have UVB light for them? They do need it to properly synthesis important vitamins.
I prefer cypress mulch, as it is very easy for him to burrow in. Something I also try to do is split the cage environment into quadrants...you have one end cool and one end hot already, now just take a cup or two or water and pour it along one of the long sides (so they will have have a cool damp, cool dry, warm dry, and warm damp area). Also make sure they have a fairly large, but shallow water bowl, and make the cage as cluttered as possible! (the craft section of Walmart usually has some really nice fake plants that look great in cages. I too have had bad experiences with pet shops (private and chain stores both) but have also had some really good ones. I hope I could help, I'm no expert (only the experience with one fire skink) so hopefully someone else can offer help too.

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-David

Check out my pet pics at:
http://www.myspace.com/obx_fisherman

1.0 ball python (Pandora - don't ask)
1.0 argentine boa (Prometheus)
0.0.1 colombian boa (Athena)
0.1 hogg island boa (Andromeda)
0.0.1 brazilian rainbow boa (Inara)
1.0 Dumeril's boa (Hannibal)
1.0 kenyan sand boa (Diablo)
0.0.1 normal corn snake(Cypress)
0.1 amel. corn snake (Morgan LaFay) RIP
0.0.2 baby corns (Romulus and Remus)
- 1 normal, 1 ghost
0.0.1 banded cali. kingsnake (Cain)
1.0 tangerine honduran milksnake (Narcissus)
0.0.1 snow corn snake (Valkyrie)
1.1 garden phase amazon tree boas (Pegasus, Lenore)
0.0.1 baby yellow amazon tree boa (affectionately called
Snuggles)
0.0.1 albino san diego gopher snake (maybe Octavian)
0.0.1 sandfish skink (Slick)
0.0.1 fire skink (Phoenix)
1.0 bassett hound/black and tan coonhound mix (Luke)
0.1 Boxer (Zoe)
1.0 bearded dragon (Leonidas)
1.1 ferrets (Ares, Enyo)
1.2 cats (Galahad, Ripley and Sassy)
2.0 rats (Pan, no name yet)

Like you I use UV bulb to as figured would kill two birds with one stone light/UV certainly cant hurt.

You gave me some good info as am looking for fake nice plants . Never thought of Walmart thanks

Michael's (the craft store) is good too for fake plants and for driftwood (such as Cholla). Just make sure you check any fake plants to make sure there aren't any protruding wires or any dried hot glue on the leaves.
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Holly

0.1 Lavender California Kingsnake (Lizzie Borden) (missing )
1.0 Bearded Dragon (Charley Manson)
1.0 Orange Marmalade Cat (Oliver)
1.0 Egyptian Arabian (Bagan)

2.0 Toddlers (Justice & Trevor)

I live dried up Cholla cactus find it underrated great addition to lizards tanks .

Sadly in my area of Miami not a craft store within several hours drive and than might not have a thing.
I got the fake plants which are nice at Walmart . I do get driftwood very cheap as lots here in the lakes and just clean it and dry it .

Thank you