Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I recently purchased a juvenile leopard gecko (approx: 4 inches long). I am currently housing her in a 10 gallon aquarium. When she was first purchased, roughly 10 days ago, she was very active, and ate regularly about 5 crickets per day for 3 or so days. I was concerned at first that the temperature in the tank wasn't warm enough, about 82 degrees ambient air temperature on the warm end, and 70 on the cool end. I put in a stronger light on the warm end and now the ambient air temperature is roughly 90 degrees, about 100 directly under the light and about 75 on the cool end. However, now my gecko hides more, I rarely see her at all, and when I feed her I don't witness her eat anymore. I put crickets in and they are missing in the morning so I assume she eats them but I am little concerned, is it possible that the cage is too warm?

Yes, if you're registering 100 degrees under the heat lamp your warm end is too hot. Your previous temps were too low. You should get some sort of thermostat, rheostat or dimmer switch to control the temps more accurately.