Hey! Welcome to the forums Im really glad that you are doing the research needed to provide a great home for your new pets. Unfortunately it can be confusing to try and find good information online and on caresheets, it sounds like you have (unfortuntately) run into some poor advice. Although it sounds like you have a good general idea there are a few things you should consider. I want to apoligize...as this is going to be a very long response...im a bit of fanatic about these things and i love keeping reptiles so much and want people to have the best experience with them too so that they will continue to keep them - and have healthy, thriving animals.

First and for most...dont use Cali-sand. There are no regulations on what products for animals can claim - calicum sand claims to be digestible and even GOOD for the animals! In reality it is not digestible, is expensive, hard to keep clean (and therefore - unsanitary), and down right dangerous as it can cause impactions that can lead to surgery or even death :-/. Although not every single leopard gecko that lives on calcium sand (or any type of sand) dies from impaction - or even gets an impaction, but some do...and thats enough risk for me. Not to mention, impaction aside you cant argue that its not expensive and dirty - any particle substrate is as when your leopard defecates and urinates the bacteria immediately sinks into the sand and begins to spread out - making it harder to properly clean. There are many other substrates you can use with leopard geckos that are safer, cheaper and easier to keep clean such as tiles, paper towels, non adhesive shelf liner, and indoor/outdoor carpet. If sand is to be used it should only ever be considered for adult leos and only using fine grain screened playsand. And if it is used you should really empty and clean and put all new sand in each week to try and keep up on the bacteria. Hatchlings, or juvi's should never be kept on any type of sand or particle substrate as they are more likely to ingest it and get impacted.

As far as the whole heating and lighting thing...the simplist thing to do is use an Under tank heater to heat the bottom of the tank (covering about 1/4-1/3 of the tank bottom). Usually this is enough to provide adequate belly heat - unless the house is really cold or the substrate very thick. You want the warm side to be 88-92degreesF - this needs tob e measured with a digital thermometer (as opposed to a stick on or something) with a probe that you can stick the probe right against the substrate (you can get them at walmart for 7$). If you use a thin substrate like paper towels or shelf liner you will definatly need to get a dimmer for the heat pad. You can buy a dimmer at Home Depot - its really cool actually, you just plug it into the wall and plug the heat pad into it and control it with the dial - using the digital thermometer you can make small adjustments to keep the perfect temps. You do need to constantly monitor and adjust the temps as the dimmer is not a thermostat - but i use them in all my cages and have great sucsess.

Using that set up you dont usually have to use a light bulb - but sometimes you do, and its a good idea to have one on hand in case. You can use any type of household bulb to heat the tank. If you need supplemental heat to the heat pad then go with a lower wattage bulb. If you want to heat with just a heat bulb try a higher watt...althoiugh its best to heat with a heat pad ideally as leopards spend most of their time with their bellies on the ground and need the belly heat to digest the food. you can adjust the light with a dimmer the same way you do a heat mat - just plug it in and push the switch Just make sure you get the plug in version.

The only other thing i might add is that if this is your first venture into reptiles you might want to start with just one. You will still be getting your "reptile-legs" and it is less stressfull for you and the lizard to do things one on one. And if you do go with 2 or 3 be aware that you should house them seperately to have the best sucsess and avoid early breeding and undue stress. When your leos are young and growing you really want to be able to observe how much they are eating and defecating and behaving - you dont want them getting stressed by other leopards, as they truly are solitary creatures. Babies should also be kept seperate until you are sure of the sexes - two males will fight if kept together, and a male and female should never be placed together as he will stress and overbreed her (males and females can be housed in a 1:2 or 1:3 ratio - but then you have to deal with breeding, even if you dont incubate the eggs you still must be able to provide for the females during the breeding process - which can be a stressfull event). Females can be housed together, and often are, but can fight as well or stress each other into not eating. Many more experienced keepers keep leos together, even younger ones...but they are familiar with the species and how to recognize subtle signs of stress and know how to intervene early to correct a problem...this kind of knowledge really only comes through experience).

Another thing with keeping leo's together is that its harder to monitor their health. Say you come home one night to your tank of 3 leos and there is a big pile of vomit or diarrhea....whose is it? At first you cannot tell and would have to seperate them and monitor them to locate the problem lizard...during this you lose time where you could be working on a solution to the problem - and possibly transmitting illness between your leopards.

If you do decide to keep your adult leos together, always have another tank ready if there is a problem


You are definately heading in the right direction to be a great reptile keeper. You sound like you are researching hard and are dedicated to taking proper care of your animals - which is the right attitude to have. You just need to make sure the resources you are using are top knotch! I highly recomend the new book "the herpetoculture of the leopard gecko" by Ron Tremper and Philipe de Vosjoli. It is amazing and packed with great info.

I hope i havent bored you too much

Mim
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0.1 Bearded dragon
2.1 Leopard Gecko's
1.0 Tokay Gecko
0.1 Mexican Black kingsnake
1.0 Ball Python
0.0.1 Reverse Okeetee Corn
1.0 Blood Red Corn
0.0.1 Mali Uromastyx
0.1 Bullmastiff
3.1 Cats

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