Hello from the east coast... our new leo

[pixiepurls]

Hello! We traveled an hour and a half today to buy a sweet gecko from a breeder at the Prince William County Fairgrounds at a lizard/reptile show. It's my first reptile and my first leopard gecko. From the research I did ahead of time it seemed like the lowest maintenance animal we could get. I was tempted by the bearded dragons but wanted to keep things simple to ensure success (as in I don't want it to die like our hermit crab died).



We wound up with a fairly expensive (more then I meant to spend!) "Bell Albino Sunglow". She was fed crickets so we will begin with crickets with her. I bought some today but am not sure when to start feeing her (I made sure to get small). I wish I had written down how old she is I think he said 3 or 4 months old. I tried not to get one younger then that based on stuff I read online.

She is very sweet and docile, out of all the babies we held or saw held, she was the calmest and even licked our fingers. Any breeders we went to we asked them to point out the calmest ones, hoping we get a very docile one. She slept in the car and is now checking out her new home.

We bought her a 10 gallon tank, lined it with newspaper, used a plastic container and wet paper towels to create the hide thing, and we attached the heat pad to the bottom side of the tank (we need to get a proper table to put it on, right now its onto my dresser and would ruin the wood) so I'm going to be looking online for a proper frame/table to keep the tank on so the pad can go under like its supposed too. Going to try to get that in the next few days.



She's very sweet from first impressions, not sure how its easy to tell in the long run. Do we try to feed her crickets tonight or wait? We have distilled water in two water bottle caps set out as well and a few empty toilet paper rolls for her to play with.

 

[laurahlove]

She is very cute.

Sent from my LG-P769 using Tapatalk

 

[acpart]

Welcome to GF and the world of reptiles. It never hurts to try to feed her, but don't worry if she doesn't eat right away. It's good you're using newspaper instead of the sand she came on, since that's definitely not recommended for juveniles. As she grows, she may ultimately be more comfortable in a 20 gallon tank. Keep track of the temperature on the floor of the tank. It should not exceed the low 90's and you may need a thermostat to keep it at that temp. Newspaper is fine but I think ceramic tile is more attractive; up to you.

Aliza

 

[indyana]

Welcome, fellow east coaster!

To keep the tank up off the wood, you can just buy those little sticky felt pads that they sell in stores to keep furniture from scratching the floor. I stack 2-3 into each corner of the tank bottom, depending how deep the lip of the bottom frame is, to raise it up off the surface below. No need to get a fancy frame.

It sounds like you're off to a good start, and I'm glad you decided to join GeckoForums. It's a great place to look up answers to questions and chat with other leopard gecko keepers.

 

[pixiepurls]

thanks, I will try that as I believe we have some and I've been worried about getting the temp right.