Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'm planning on getting a male/female pair of red eyed crocodile skinks soon, and I just have a couple questions about housing.

First, I've read that you should have a couple inches of cypress mulch in their cage to maintain humidity, but I'm extremely paranoid about having any kind of loose substrate in reptiles' enclosures, so is impaction EVER a problem for this species? I assume, of course, that you'd need to feed them out of their enclosure so that none of the mulch gets in their food.
And how do you go about cleaning the mulch? Do you just search for any droppings and pick them out? How often does there need to be an entire substrate replacement?

My next question is about water. I will, of course, provide a large water dish for them, but I absolutely hate dealing with water changes. So is there an inexpensive filter that I could buy at Petsmart or something that would make it so that I wouldn't have to change the water very often? Even with a filter, how often would you recommend a water change?

Finally, I've read many differing opinions about heating and UVB. Is a 5.0 UVB REALLY necessary? And, in your experience, does this species appreciate a heat pad, or do they generally ignore it?

I appreciate any advice!

far from an expert in red eyed croc skinks...but something about your post caught my attention. Water changes... as I am pretty sure these crocs don't need large pools of water in their cage, just a bowl to drink from...daily water changes is just part of owning an animal. Its not that hard to do.

If you absolutely don't want to deal with daily water changes, then you are better off going with a reptile that is from a desert environment who get 90% or more of their moisture from the prey they eat.

Substrate ingesting is always a possibility but if the pieces are large enough, shouldn't be an issue with these skinks. It more fine grain substrates that can cause impaction if ingested in quantities. Cypress mulch should be fine. If you are still worried, feed in shallow bowls and/or just cover a section of the substrate with a paper towel and place food ontop one at time...waiting till the skink comes out to eat them. Or feed them on tongs.

Oh, as I don't know alot about these skinks..if they like high humid environments you could set up filters in a water feature...but cleaning filters regularly and making sure the water feature poses no danger to the skinks..probably be far more work than changing a water bowl once a day. Not to mention more costly.
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PHLdyPayne

Forum Princess

Thanks for the advice! I went to Petsmart recently and bought a small water pump. That way the water won't be flat and stagnant - hopefully that should make water changes less frequent, right? It would just be a bit frustrating to change the water daily, because the bowl that I bought is quite large and heavy and is positioned in a specific way in the substrate.

One final question - heat pads. Necessary or not? I've seen some people recommend them but others don't. Do the tribbies seem to enjoy them?

How are your skinks doing? Did you get the water situation figured out? And the heating/lighting? Curious what you ended up doing...
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Lisa Rakestraw
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My skinks:
1.1.1 Corucia zebrata (Berman and Joni, baby Charlemagne)
2.2.2 Eumeces schneideri (Jack and Mabel; Kaa and Cochisa their babies)
0.0.4 Egernia striolata