living space housing etc.

[b16hatch]

this is how are set up is. we have the heat pad on the left side wear his house is.we have the heat bold in the back and the uv in the front. when its time for night we swap the uv bold out with a 50w moonlight and turn the heat bold off.we feed at night. powerd the crickets with reptivite.just wondering if everything is correct with the lighting. etc. should we have more places for him hide? i mean im sure we should be j\w

 

[sleepyjones]

You should have 3 hiding places ... one in the warm side, one roughly in the middle and one in the cool side.
The plants you have do create a hiding place, which might be ok ... although the gecko might feel a bit out in the open with little cover.

People may disagree with this; but I think that tank is too small.

With the heat mat and the heat bulb I wonder if the temperatures in a cage as small as that might be too much on the "cool side"?

Have you measured the temps on the "hot" side and on the "cool" side?
and what size heat mat do you have in there?

 

[Fallupinreverse]

I agree with sleepyjones, you are lacking enough proper hides.

You also do not need the heat lamp at all if you have an under tank heater, especially for a cage that small. So that means you don't need either of the lights that you have, and they are probably making it far too hot in there for your little guy!

Also with heat in mind, you didn't mention whether or not you have some sort of lamp dimmer or anything regulating the UTH. This is very important with UTHs because they can and will get very hot by themselves, so without the extra lighting frying your little guy, your UTH may be doing it all by itself!

I'm wondering how big the gecko is that is staying in there? If he is still very young it may not be too small, but otherwise I think it's very likely that the cage is too small. Looks to be about a 5 gallon terrarium to me, is that correct? That'd be a decent size for a hatchling leo, but they would soon outgrow it and so I'm kinda worried about that. Another problem with a tank that size is that it's very very difficult to provide a proper thermal gradient, and so you may want to switch to a larger tank either way. Sorry to burst your bubble here .

Hopefully I came off more constructive than critical, I would really like to hear back from you and see if we can make this work for you!

 

[b16hatch]

well the tank only gets to 75 believe it or not which i read that is still cold like 10 or 5 degress off.during day time. we have a temp gauge on the side of the tank. also we have him in the basement with us.which its kinda cold down here. yes i want your opinions.thats why im here.asking questions bout things. the tank is foot by foot so maybe a its is. i wanna say it is a 5 gallon.
i hope this helps with the size of him. the lamp we have are zilla lamps fixtures with on and off switchs

 

[b16hatch]

here is a pics of the lights we are using. when its night time we swap the uv light out with the night glow light and turn the day light off.

 

[Dan K.]

you need a dish full of cal. powder.

 

[b16hatch]

we cover are crickts with it. talking about the d3 powder?? i take it your spose to have a litt dish out with the stuff in it?

 

[Fallupinreverse]

The temperature that you're reading is ambient temperature though (air temperature) and is rather unimportant to leos. The important temperature to look for is belly temperature, since that is where they spend all of their time. I can guarantee that the surface of your tank is not 75 degrees, and this can easily be tested by resting you hand on the warm side of the cage. What you need to do is get a thermometer with a probe (About $10 at a local pet chain) and put the probe down on the bottom of the tank. This will give you an accurate reading of the temperature that you're looking for.

I still maintain (and I'm sure that others will back me up on this) that you do not need, and are better off without, the lights.

The gecko does look still fairly small, so I suppose the cage isn't too terrible for him. You still do need to make sure to get at least one other hide similar to the one that you have, and make sure to spread them out to give the option of a hide on each side of the tank (Warm vs Cold). And also keep in mind that it's a small cage, and you will probably have to upgrade before too long.

When you do upgrade, you'll probably want to get a regular 10 gallon aquarium/terrarium. I forgot to mention it before, but the terrarium that you are using now is mainly ideal for smaller and more arboreal lizards/geckos. It's designed to be more square-like rather than rectangular because arboreal animals don't need as much floor space, and even with a small space such as that, you can make a lot of space for them to hang out on via vines and the sort.

Hopefully all this is coherent enough!

 

[Fallupinreverse]

I forgot all about the calcium dish, d'oh! But for the actual calcium dish it should be calcium without d3. Too much d3 can be harmful, so leaving the calcium with d3 in the cage is generally not recommended, while you can still use it to dust crickets (Since it's good in moderation).

 

[b16hatch]

thanx for everything i will definitely get a thermometer today. see why im confused about the lighting is that we went to the vet with are last one we had. he said we needed the uv bold. Im not at all saying your wrong. yes we will be looking for a bigger cage soon as well. so we dont even need a night bold either i take it?? we have this stuff called reptivite by zoo meds then on the bottle says with d3

 

[Dan K.]

cal without D3 in the dish then give D3 1-2 times a month. And the floor temp. should be 90-94 in the warm spot and a gradent down to 80s no lower then 78 on the cool side.

 

[Fallupinreverse]

thanx for everything i will definitely get a thermometer today. see why im confused about the lighting is that we went to the vet with are last one we had. he said we needed the uv bold. Im not at all saying your wrong. yes we will be looking for a big cage soon as well. so we dont even need a night bold either i take it?? we have this stuff called reptivite by zoo meds then on the bottle says with d3

Unfortunately your vet was misinformed. Leopard Geckos are nocturnal, and as such UV light does not hold any benefits for them. No, you do not need the night bulb either, the under tank heater will keep everything nice and toasty. Just make sure to get some sort of lamp dimmer or thermostat to regulate it, because it will get over 100 degrees if unregulated.

Reptivite with d3 is good for dusting crickets, but unfortunately as I said it is really not recommended to keep calcium with d3 in a dish in the cage. If you would like to take the advice of many and put a calcium dish in your cage then you should get calcium without d3 for that.

 

[b16hatch]

i sure will take any advice and like i said thank you very much for helping.are heat pad is a zoo med if that helps any but i will get a lamp dimmer to help regulate it

 

[b16hatch]

ok so went across the street and my sis had a cage

i know i need more places for him to hide.

 

[Fallupinreverse]

That's definitely a good start! Glad to see you're already making improvements

 

[b16hatch]

ok i went out and bought a thermometer and its only reading like 77 on top of my heat pad.
this is how your wanting to put the probe as well??the pad is only a 4" x 5"

 

[Khrysty]

I have the same thermometer..hm

Yeah, that's where it should be put. If your UTH isn't heating well enough you might need to get a ceramic heater or a heat lamp to put over the pad as well. With a ZooMed 10-20 gal UTH and an infrared 50 watt heat bulb I can get my oddly shaped custom cage to 92 on the warm side and 80 on the cool side. You may need to do something similar.

 

[2bacop]

your making great improvements!! I am in the position you are in. I am in the basement and so are my geckos so its hard to get the temps right. I have an infared bulb on all the time to help get the floor temps up and that keeps it around 90. the blue bulb doesnt really heat anything. The thing with the uv is this. The uv bulbs are used to help lizards produce d3 to help them digest the calcium. By having calcium with d3 already in it, the bulb is not needed. for most lizards a uv bulb is needed in addition to the d3 calcium but not for geckos. Is your vet an exotic vet, or mainly a cat and dog vet?

 

[sleepyjones]

Wow, some good improvements, well done.

There really is nothing wrong with using the lights to up the temperature a bit, sure it will up the ambient temperate, but it will also increase the temperature at floor level, obviously it also helps for viewing the gecko at night, when he's most active.

What's your gecko called by the way? I hate saying "Your gecko", so impersonal

 

[b16hatch]

ahaha thanx guys well are first one was called aladar.well we name him the same. so we put the prob in his hut lastnight and it got up to 95. so we moved it in the middle so it would get so hot inside. im gonna run and by a dimmer switch today as well try to reglate how hot it get inside of it. as far as are vet he was a exotic vet. if you guys have any more advice to help please do so. thanks