a couple of questions

[bobjuniordancer]

Hey guys! I just have a couple of random questions, and was hoping that you might be able to answer them for me...

-My leopard gecko is about 6 inches from head to tail and he weighs 29 grams. Is this a healthy weight? Too fat? Too thin? I've had him since January 2013, but I don't know exactly how old he is. I'd say 4-5 months old. I got him at a pet store, so there's no real way to know. He eats 18 meal worms a day (6 in morning, 6 in afternoon, 6 at night) and crickets a couple days a week. He doesn't really like them, which is why he doesn't get them that often. He also gets the occasional wax worm, usually 1 every 3-4 weeks, just as a treat.
-Is that a good diet plan for him?
-I use the zoo med blue day light for him, but it gives off UVA. Not UVB. So I was wondering, is UVA bad for leopard geckos? I've heard that UVB can cause burns or other health issues since they're nocturnal and the only D3 they need is from dusting his food a couple days a week. But I wasn't sure about the UVA...
-He does his business every day or two. Is that the usual cycle? Or is he not going enough?

Let me know what you guys think!

 

[Ozy]

They don't need lighting. How are you heating the warm side? What is your substrate? What do you supplement with and how often? How many and what kind of hides do you have? How do you measure the temps?

 

[HipHerp]

Many feed mealies exclusively, so you're ok there. Just be sure to dust them with calcium powder w/ D3 and/or gut load the worms with calcium rich food prior to feeding. I keep my mealies in a tub with ground up fortified oatmeal and add bits of carrots and potato slices for moisture and nutrition. Every few days I leave the tub outside the fridge for 24 hours so the worms can become active enough to eat. I also feed waxworms as a weekly treat, though since they are so fatty they aren't a staple of their diet. I would mention though that feeding 18 mealies per day per gecko seems a little much, and leos can get too fat, I feed mine a similar amount every other day and they have become quite fat and happy on that regimen. I know it's gratifying to watch your babies chow down and plump up, but just like people too much of a good thing can be a problem down the road. Check out Ron Tremper's website for more feeding tips,: LEOPARDGECKO.COM | Leopard Gecko Care. Good luck.

Hip

 

[Embrace Calamity]

I wouldn't recommend the blue light, since it's not really a natural color of light for them to see. It certainly won't hurt him any, though. But if you want overhead heat, I'd personally recommend either a regular basking bulb or a ceramic heat emitter. That's just my preference though. Everyone feels differently about lighting/overhead heat.

~Maggot

 

[bobjuniordancer]

They don't need lighting. How are you heating the warm side? What is your substrate? What do you supplement with and how often? How many and what kind of hides do you have? How do you measure the temps?

I use the blue day bulb and a UTH. The substrate is repticarpet. I supplement with the flukers calcium with d3 every 2-3 days, the rep-cal herptivite multivatamins (i think it has d3 in it also, but i'm not sure) 2 days a week, and I leave a bottle cap full of zoo med repti calcium without d3 in his tank at all times. I have like 2 1/2 hides lol. One log on the cool side, one log on the warm side, and one fake plant in the middle of the tank that provides shade. I put in a moist hide when I know he's going to shed in a few days and I keep it in a few days after he sheds, too. I have a zilla temp./ humidity tracker on his warm side, since that's what I'm most concerned about. The cool side is always room temp. (about 70-75 degrees). I also use a zoo med repti temp. infrared temp. gun to check the surface temps of all his hides, substrate, etc.

 

[bobjuniordancer]

Many feed mealies exclusively, so you're ok there. Just be sure to dust them with calcium powder w/ D3 and/or gut load the worms with calcium rich food prior to feeding. I keep my mealies in a tub with ground up fortified oatmeal and add bits of carrots and potato slices for moisture and nutrition. Every few days I leave the tub outside the fridge for 24 hours so the worms can become active enough to eat. I also feed waxworms as a weekly treat, though since they are so fatty they aren't a staple of their diet. I would mention though that feeding 18 mealies per day per gecko seems a little much, and leos can get too fat, I feed mine a similar amount every other day and they have become quite fat and happy on that regimen. I know it's gratifying to watch your babies chow down and plump up, but just like people too much of a good thing can be a problem down the road. Check out Ron Tremper's website for more feeding tips,: LEOPARDGECKO.COM | Leopard Gecko Care. Good luck.

Hip

For my mealworms, I use this rainbow mealworms (the company I buy my mealworms from) mealworm bran kind of stuff. It's oatmeal-ish lol. And then I use apples and carrots to feed them. Sometimes I use the nature zone total bites for feeder insects food, too. For dusting them, like I said above, I use the flukers calcium with d3 and the rep-cal herptivite multivatamins. I keep the mealworms in a container and I'll keep them in the fridge for a week, take them out for a few days (letting them warm up and gutload before giving them to my leo), and then put them back in. I take some out and stick them in a smaller container to keep my stash available for easy access when feeding my leo when the rest are in the fridge for the week. I feed him 18 mealworms a day because the guy that I work with at an animal sanctuary said that that was a good diet to keep him on since he's still quite young and is still growing. He said when he gets older to go to feeding that much every other day. Ron Tremper, he said, he really admired, but he said that the 2 meal worms per inch of gecko every other day or whatever is a little bit low and that it was an estimate. He thinks that with the rack system Tremper has and how many leos he has, there's probably someone going around with a bucket of mealworms and just throwing a small handful in to each one. He didn't say that was a bad thing, but Tremper doesn't have the time to specifically count out the mealworms and tend to each leo he has there.

 

[bobjuniordancer]

I wouldn't recommend the blue light, since it's not really a natural color of light for them to see. It certainly won't hurt him any, though. But if you want overhead heat, I'd personally recommend either a regular basking bulb or a ceramic heat emitter. That's just my preference though. Everyone feels differently about lighting/overhead heat.

~Maggot

Would you recommend the red night bulb? Or is that bad, too? Or the black night bulb? I would use a CHE, but the Zoo Med people I spoke with from customer service said that any wattage of it would melt the wires in my fixtures, since they're not made for it. I don't want to spend $30 on the CHE and then another $30 on another fixture. I'm on my fourth one now, as it is. If they made a regular basking light that was designed for night time, then I would get it. But I want it to stay on 24/7 and leopard geckos are nocturnal, so... yeah lol. Recommend anything like that?

 

[Embrace Calamity]

Would you recommend the red night bulb? Or is that bad, too? Or the black night bulb? I would use a CHE, but the Zoo Med people I spoke with from customer service said that any wattage of it would melt the wires in my fixtures, since they're not made for it. I don't want to spend $30 on the CHE and then another $30 on another fixture. I'm on my fourth one now, as it is. If they made a regular basking light that was designed for night time, then I would get it. But I want it to stay on 24/7 and leopard geckos are nocturnal, so... yeah lol. Recommend anything like that?

Definitely not the red bulbs - or any color bulb, for that matter. Geckos have exceptional color vision, so it's all disruptive to them (especially at night for nocturnal geckos). When you say melt the wires, do you mean the fixture that actually holds the bulbs? What kind of fixture do you have?

~Maggot

 

[bobjuniordancer]

Yeah, the wires in the fixture that holds the CHE. I have the mini deep done zoo med fixture. I called zoo med specifically so that I wasn't going to start a fire with something that wasn't going to handle it. They said because the CHE can get to like 300 degrees its best to use a certain fixture that can handle it. Mine they said would melt, even with the ceramic socket. It would be too hot for the wires. That's why I'm trying to find a food bulb to use as a 24/7 substitute.

 

[bobjuniordancer]

Do you think any of these would work? Or are they all bad because of colors, etc? http://www.drsfostersmith.com/repti...bulbs/nocturnal-lighting/ps/c/6016/6028/19110

 

[Embrace Calamity]

Yeah, the wires in the fixture that holds the CHE. I have the mini deep done zoo med fixture. I called zoo med specifically so that I wasn't going to start a fire with something that wasn't going to handle it. They said because the CHE can get to like 300 degrees its best to use a certain fixture that can handle it. Mine they said would melt, even with the ceramic socket. It would be too hot for the wires. That's why I'm trying to find a food bulb to use as a 24/7 substitute.

Hmmm. I wasn't aware of that. I think most people (myself included) who use CHEs just use regular dome fixtures. Though, you do have to make sure there are holes in the back to allow for excess heat to escape. I used one without holes in there and the CHE broke down so I had to buy a new one, but no issues with any three of mine since learning that lesson. I see Zoo Med recommends these: http://www.petdiscounters.com/assets/images/product_images/image/zoomed_wire_cage_clamp_lamp_a.jpg The problem with them, I've found, is that they don't focus the heat at all, so it really doesn't do much to heat the enclosure. I was using a really high wattage for the 20 long and barely keeping temps up, but now that I'm using the dome fixture (with holes), I only use a 60 watt (which is now proving to be too warm with adding the UTH, so I'll have to get a 40 watt). I wish I knew what to tell you, but I honestly don't. =/

EDIT: If you plan on using it at night, I really wouldn't recommend any colored bulbs. Nocturnal geckos have color vision approximately 350x better than ours, so they see this light much better than we do, even if it looks really dim to us.

~Maggot

 

[Ozy]

Why are you using the bulb? You should be able to get proper warm side temps with just the UTH. If that Zilla temp/humidity tracker is the stick on the wall kind you don't need that. Just worry about the temp on the FLOOR.

 

[Embrace Calamity]

Why are you using the bulb? You should be able to get proper warm side temps with just the UTH. If that Zilla temp/humidity tracker is the stick on the wall kind you don't need that. Just worry about the temp on the FLOOR.

The problem with just the UTH, though, is that it doesn't do much to warm the air, just the surface. So a gecko might end up having to spend its time sprawled on the floor to stay warm (depending on the strength of the UTH and the ambient room temps). A gecko's feet are on the floor, but the rest of its body is exposed to the air most of the time.

~Maggot

 

[bobjuniordancer]

Yeah, I'm only using the light to increase the air temps. My UTH only heats the substrate. The air is room temp on both the cool and warm side without the light, which for me is about 72 degrees. It's just too cold. The light brings it up to around the 80-82 degree mark, which is better than nothing. I just can't find the proper bulb to work. Question, though. I use a screen cover on my tank. The heat is definitely escaping. Do either of you use a covered tank? If so, how are you doing it? Do you recommend possibly covering the tank with something or do they make a special tank cover like that to hold in more heat? Maybe then the UTH might increase air temps too and I won't even need a light...

 

[Embrace Calamity]

Yeah, I'm only using the light to increase the air temps. My UTH only heats the substrate. The air is room temp on both the cool and warm side without the light, which for me is about 72 degrees. It's just too cold. The light brings it up to around the 80-82 degree mark, which is better than nothing. I just can't find the proper bulb to work. Question, though. I use a screen cover on my tank. The heat is definitely escaping. Do either of you use a covered tank? If so, how are you doing it? Do you recommend possibly covering the tank with something or do they make a special tank cover like that to hold in more heat? Maybe then the UTH might increase air temps too and I won't even need a light...

If you were to cover the screen, you could only do it on one side. Covering the cool side would trap the heat over there and raise the temps on that side too much. I don't think it would be enough to keep the temps 88-93, but I guess it's worth a shot. Some kind of plastic would probably be your best bet. I'm still a fan of the CHE method personally, but I'm not sure what to tell you about the fixture.

~Maggot