First Reptile Ever!

[Miss Ashley]

Hi everyone,

I'm Ashley Nguyen from Los Angeles, CA. I have a 1 year old American Pit Bull Terrier that I rescued from the shelter, a 12 year old standard gray Chinchilla that I saved from undesirable housing conditions, and now a baby Leopard Gecko that I got from Petco (I know, not the best place to get pets.. I'll definitely be going with a rescue or one from a breeder next!).

Here are some pictures of my family because everyone loves pictures! :main_thumbsup:

My dogter and I

Hailey Havoc:

Felix:

Swiftblade, my little .. guy/girl?

Habitat:

Currently, he is in a 10 gallon tank with a heating pad on one end. He has the hollowed branch as hiding on the cooler side and the little coconut hut is on the heated end (heat pad sticks outside the glass on the bottom). The whole bottom is covered with a terrarium, to prevent impact. There is a shallow water dish and a dish with a bit of his vitamins with meal worms. The baby crickets are also dusted in the stuff. I have a thermometer that measures his tank at 87 F right now. He also has a 50 watt basking spot lamp over the heated side of the tank. There is also shade provided by a large fan leaf plant (he loves to climb on top of it and in between the leaves). For moisture, I soak the leaves of the fan plant (it's fake and made out of some type of glossy cloth? Hard to explain :/ ). I also lightly mist the terrarium liner, as it can retain moisture as well. I have a few questions, since he is my first reptile.

1) The second ingredient in the vitamins is "Precipitated Calcium Carbonate" - is this calcium? Does this count as calcium? Should I get him/her some calcium?

2) The vitamins list that it doesn't have D3. What is D3? Do I need to supplement D3?

3) I am pretty creeped out by crickets and do not want to raise them. I realize this means I won't have the benefit of "gut-loading" them. Is there somewhere I can buy gut-loaded crickets? Is there a huge difference between regular crickets purchased at Petco and gut-loaded one's? If I can't get a hold of gut-loaded crickets, what supplements can I give my little bugger to make sure he/she has the best quality life?

4) Is it a bad idea to have meal worms and crickets in the tank? Should I rotate between them? I currently have both inside his/her tank.

5) What color would he/she be described as? I read somewhere that they gradually change color over time? Currently, I can only see black and white on my leo.

6) How old do you think he/she is?

7) Does he/she look healthy? Or at least in decent health? If not, what else can I do? I noticed that my leo has a thin tail.. are there any ways I can fatten it up? Is it normal for a baby leo to have a thin tail?

Thank you! I look forward to learning from all of you!

 

[acpart]

Welcome to GF. Here is my best shot at your questions:
1) The second ingredient in the vitamins is "Precipitated Calcium Carbonate" - is this calcium? Does this count as calcium? Should I get him/her some calcium?

2) The vitamins list that it doesn't have D3. What is D3? Do I need to supplement D3?

Without going into detail for these 2 questions, I recommend you do one of the following
--get some calcium without D3 (yes, calcium carbonate is OK) and put some in the tank in a bottle cap; get some calcium with D3 and dust or sprinkle it on the feeders
OR
--get some "Repashy calcium plus" and sprinkle it on the feeders.
Long story short, they need calcium for strong bones and D3 to metabolize the calcium but not too much D3

3) I am pretty creeped out by crickets and do not want to raise them. I realize this means I won't have the benefit of "gut-loading" them. Is there somewhere I can buy gut-loaded crickets? Is there a huge difference between regular crickets purchased at Petco and gut-loaded one's? If I can't get a hold of gut-loaded crickets, what supplements can I give my little bugger to make sure he/she has the best quality life?

Gutloading essentially means feeding the crickets nutritious foods that get passed on to the gecko. Precisely when and how to gutload the crickets can be complicated, but the simplest thing to do is to have some "cricket food" (you can buy a jar at petstore, use chicken mash or grind up some grains and make your own) at the bottom of the cricket container so the crickets can eat and put in some vegetable parings or carrots to hydrate them. You can also get the water gel or use a wet sponge so they can drink (don't put a bowl of water in there or you'll have drowned crickets). You can do this for the crickets you buy at the store while you're waiting to feed them to the gecko.

4) Is it a bad idea to have meal worms and crickets in the tank? Should I rotate between them? I currently have both inside his/her tank.
It's good to have a variety of feeders.

5) What color would he/she be described as? I read somewhere that they gradually change color over time? Currently, I can only see black and white on my leo.

The black will gradually fade and turn into spots though you'll probably be able to see where the bands are. The gecko will likely get yellower as it matures as well. Young geckos that are only black and white are often Mack Snow geckos but I'm a bit doubtful knowing where you got yours from

6) How old do you think he/she is?
I'd guess it's 1-2 months old, but that's only a guess

7) Does he/she look healthy? Or at least in decent health? If not, what else can I do? I noticed that my leo has a thin tail.. are there any ways I can fatten it up? Is it normal for a baby leo to have a thin tail?

It is normal for a baby to have a thin tail and yours looks healthy to me as far as I can tell

Aliza

 

[Pinky81]

+1Aliza

I would only add to ditch that circular temp reader..its useless it only reads the temp of the glass or air. You need to know what the temp on the tank floor. So its best to buy a digital thermomter with a probe that you put directly over the UTH on the floor.

 

[Blazebabe]

Hi and welcome to GF i'm new here myself and your animals look great and your leo seems happy enough.

Terry

 

[tlbowling]

Hi Welcome to the forum Thanks for the pix of the fam.

 

[acpart]

+1Aliza

I would only add to ditch that circular temp reader..its useless it only reads the temp of the glass or air. You need to know what the temp on the tank floor. So its best to buy a digital thermomter with a probe that you put directly over the UTH on the floor.

Actually it was a hygrometer (humidity), not a thermometer just to get a sense of how humid it was getting. That picture is from when I first set up the cage and the hygrometer is long gone as well as the plastic lay box/humid hide (now a ceramic one set into the coco fiber with a brown ceramic removable cover) and, unfortunately, the African violets which just don't like that cage.

Aliza

 

[Miss Ashley]

I will be picking up a digital thermometer today!

I have ultimately decided that we might as well raise crickets as feeders. For those of you that raise crickets, we plan on going to Petco and buying a container. We are then going to buy highly nutricious cricket food and water gels that are supllemented with calcium. What else do crickets really need?

Also, how many crickets should I give in a feeding? How many times should I feed him a day? He is also fed mealworms (how many of those per day, as well?) Let's say he eats 2 crickets and 2 mealworms a day, can I just buy 14 (a week's worth) and raise them in thei own container until he finished them all?

How do I gut load the mealworms? Do I just put the same cricket stuff in the container they came from in the store?

 

[gixxer3420]

Welcome to the forum.

 

[BGalloway]

Hi, welcome to geckoforums. All your pets are just so cute. Pitties are awesome and so are chinchillas! Your leo looks really nice, it'll be interesting to see how his spots develop as he ages.
I feed only crickets, my gecko is stubborn like that, tried mealworms and he just snubs them. To keep crickets until you feed them off you'll need a container, kritter keeper type containers work well. I use a thin layer of dry oatmeal on the bottom and give the crickets a bunch of torn up eggcrate to hide in; the more surface area the better. Sometimes breakfast type restaurants will save you some stacks of eggcrate since they go through a ton a day, it never hurts to ask. I just give my crickets fresh leafy greens and veggies, they get dusted before being fed to my gecko. You can find more information about crickets and mealworms in the feeders section of the leopard gecko forums.
As for how many crickets per feeding? When my little gecko was that size I was told about 6 to 8 crickets per feeding (less if he's getting mealworms too), and you'll feed once a day unless you leave mealworms in a dish all the time. Depending on how may he eats and how many crickets die off before being fed to him you could buy a couple of weeks worth of crickets at a time. Hopefully someone who feeds mealworms can give you more advice.

 

[Holly12]

Hello welcome to GF thanks for showing pictures of your leo and the setup looks like you are doing well.

 

[acpart]

Actually it was a hygrometer (humidity), not a thermometer just to get a sense of how humid it was getting. That picture is from when I first set up the cage and the hygrometer is long gone as well as the plastic lay box/humid hide (now a ceramic one set into the coco fiber with a brown ceramic removable cover) and, unfortunately, the African violets which just don't like that cage.

Aliza

It took me till tonight to realize that you weren't commenting about my temp gauge, but Ashley's. I posted a picture of my fat tail set-up on another forum with the hygrometer and thought the comment was about that. Sorry, I'm in pre-Passover cleaning frenzy and not thinking straight.

Aliza

 

[Taquiq]

Welcome to GF!

 

[leonerdo55]

welcome!! and i have to say ur animals look amazing..ur dog esp