Help with setup...

[Leona]

Ok, I'm trying to get my female leopard gecko to start eating again so I think maybe some advice on her tank setup would help some.

Right now, she is in a ten or fifteen gallon tank by herself. She has two hides, one (a half log thing) in the center that's partially on top of her UTH. Another one (a small cardboard box that fits in her tank) on the side of the tank with no UTH. In addition to the UTH, we also have a low watt heat lamp to help keep up the temp. on the warm side. And she has a water bowl, plants (one standing and one on the side of the tank with a suction cup thing), and a little -clean- milk cap with calcium in it. She is on reptile carpet.

What I have questions on is the temperature and the humidity. What is the best way to add humidity to her tank? We bought moss, but I don't know if it should go in the cool hide or what, and how often do you moisten it? And the temperature is difficult to maintain and control. The cool side is always close to the warm side's temperature, and I don't know how to keep the warm side warm and the cool side cool. I really need help with this, especially.

Any help at all would be very nice and much appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Shadraak]

well for starters everything sounds fine, they dont need humidity, other than a humid hide for shedding (can be made easially with ziploc container, hole cut in it and moist papertowells/moss etc) to eat what i would do is offer at night with lights off, they're nocturnal, how long has it been without food? , do you know how warm the warm side is at ground level? if it's warm enough there'd be no reason for the heat lamp 24/7.. UTH, would be your best bet for belly heat as that's how they digest, what food item are you feedign? crix? mealworms? etc..

 

[larry26]

For tempature control you need a digital theremometer and a thermostat or rheostat. For humidity you should have a humid hide that you keep in her tank. to keep the hide humid use paper towles or moss as a substrate and keep it moist but not soaked. I prefer the paper towles beacuse i used moos and my gecko accidentaly ate some and became impacted, but its really up to you. Also a good temp rage is a warm spot of 92-95 and no lower than 80 on the cool side

 

[Leona]

First of all, thanks for both of your replies.

Shadraak, It's been a few months since she's eaten by herself, but we've been giving her Marcia's slurry and force feeding a few worms every now and then. We are going to take her to a vet to get checked up, but my mom's been so busy lately because my grandfather died recently, so we haven't really had the time. And she usually eats crickets, mealworms and the occaisional waxworm, and sometimes we'd get some supers. We've offered her all of these things, but she just doesn't seem interested.

larry26, do you know how much a decent thermostat is? The cool side of her tank (we have cheap thermometers:shame usually reads about 80, but it pretty much corresponds to the mercury thermometer we have in our livingroom (which is where she's kept). If the digital thermometer and thermostat is necessary, we'll get them.

I am just completely baffled. We've had her a little over a year now, and when we first got her she was eating perfectly fine. Her previous owner even had her on sand and she was eating even then (impaction is not a possibility for she is no longer on sand). I feel terrible, because I feel like I did something horribly wrong for her.:cry:

 

[Leona]

I also want to add that she is not loosing any significant amount of weight, she's at about 50 grams now. Her color is the same it's always been, and she doesn't look like she's sick. If she had parasites, would she get skinnier and lazier? She's as active, if not more so, than ever, and like I said, has not lost any significant amount of weight. This is so frustrating.