New Leo owner with a few questions :)

[GeckoNub]

Hello peeps

I got my leo on tuesday and hes my first reptile.

The guy in the shop didnt seem to be very knowledgable and kept him on sand and with crickets in the tank all the time. He said both were fine though ive read and been told differently.

For the first few days we kept him in a glass tank on a bookcase, we thought it was safe from our 2 cats as it was snug to the back of the shelf with barely any space at the sides...we were wrong Friday morning at 5am my boyfriend woke me up to say the glass tank was smashed on the floor and he couldnt see the gecko.

I was distraught thinking the cats had eaten him Thankfully we found him hiding under the couch. He still has his tail but 2 toes on one of his back feet had little cuts on them and one was bent a bit. I asked a friend about it and he said he should be ok aslong as they dont bleed, which apart from the initial cut they havent, and that he may just lose the broken toe when he sheds but will be ok with a stub.

Hes now in a plastic hamster home that is almost as big as his first tank. He has his heat mat under it, a hide, mealworm dish, water dish and calcium dish. We have a new wooden vivarium now but just waiting for the thermostat to be delivered as we didnt buy one initially as the petshop guy said we didnt need one. The thermometer in his home atm say the warm temp is 90F so hes ok.

Since we got him he did 2 poops on wednesday night, ate 2 crickets on thursday night, ate a mealworm friday morning when i got them, did a poop saturday night and ate a mealworm sunday night. I noticed a bit of sand in the poop he did on saturday but since friday he has been on kitchen paper.

Ive been offering crickets every day and he has 8 or so mealworms in his dish all the time. I picked the really white ones out cos i read they were better as they are softer from just shedding.

He doesnt seem to be scared much, he has walked on my hand a few times, licked me and is very nosey He seems to spend a lot of time at night trying to climb out, especially when i put his food in so he ignores the crickets. When he did eat them they were taken from me holding them with the feeding tongs.

He seems like a calcium addict and eats it out of the dish a few times a day, even fell asleep on it last night hehe. The guy in the pet store gave me something called Reptiluxe. He said it was calcium and vitamins but on the tub it says it is pure calcium supplement. I asked him about extra vitamins and he said this had everything in that my leo needed. Was he wrong and i need to get extra vitamin supplement powder?

Im still a little worried that he isnt eating enough but have been told it may be cos of the stress, and he has been through quite a bit. Im also wondering if i should leave him in the plastic tank for a week or so hoping he will eat more or if i should move him to his new vivarium once we get it set up. I know he will stress again moving to another new home and dont want him to get too hungry. His tail is still fairly fat and he doesnt seem to be thin in the body.

Also i lost a cricket outside today while putting them into the tub i transfer them to to feed him. It is pretty cold outside during the night, i live in england, so im hoping it will just die fro the cold. Is there a possibility that i may see a lot of baby crickets if the one that got away was female?

Im still having problems knowing where to store my crickets. I have them in a plastic fish tank and even though they were cleaned and put into that a few days ago it still kinda smells. I have egg carton and toilet rolls in there, they have some cabbage and a bottle cap with sponge in with water in for them to drink.

They are now in my shed that is attached onto the house so it is fairly warm, about 70F

I also transfered my mealworms to a tub to try and breed them and put them in the same shed, is this warm enough for them?

Sorry this post is so long, i thought it best to put everything into 1 post that is worrying me instead of splitting it all over the forums

Thank you in advance for any help

 

[cyndi0502]

1) he should be fine, he'll start eating a bit more when he calms down from his tank being knocked down and the initial move.

2) you need 2 more hides. you said you had one on the hot side, but he needs a moist hide to aid in shedding and a cool hide. that will make him feel more safe.

3) my male leo eats out of the calcium dish all the time. as long as it's pure calcium without d3 he knows how much he needs. as for the vitamins, i don't use that brand so someone else can answer that

4) the cricket will most likely die. i've had plenty escape and they just die.

5) crickets always smell, so there's really no way around that. 70F is fine for the crickets, but generally for mealworms people like to keep them a bit cooler so they last longer. i know people who still keep them at room temp, though.

 

[IonBaller07]

1) Like he said he needs two more hides one on the cold side and a moist hide, the moist hide can be simply made from tupperware.
2) It is normal for them to be a little sketchy after they are just bought, especially if he just got thrown down and possibly harassed by a cat, hopefully my cat will resist.
3) Hopefully he will not have issues with impaction, if you took him off the sand and he is passing it right now then theres really nothing else you can do.

As for the crickets:
1) The lone cricket should just die from either the cold or just in a week or two he should just die, I doubt there will be baby crickets unless....well if unless you just have horrible luck.
2) As for the smell I use commercial cricket food and commercial cricket water/gel. And I use a carrot in case they need other food because Ive never smelt a bad carrot but cabbage smells bad anyway. And the water/cotton ball can gather bacteria and make it stink more but the gel (as long as you change it as necessary) shouldn't stink.
3) For the temps, both the mealworms and cricket should be fine just living at 70 degrees. but if you are trying to breed them you might want to up the temps a little, they should still be fine but it'll go faster with high temps, but if you have a small amount of mealies you can pop them in the fridge at about 40-50 degrees to keep them from growing.

Hope some of this helped.

 

[GeckoNub]

Thanks a lot for the replies

I dont have room in his temporary house for more hides thats why i was thinking of moving him into the new viv asap, just worried with having to move again to the new home it will stress him out too much to eat

I just got in from my mums and checked his tank and he did another poop, but atleast half of it was a pale grey color. Looked like it was mostly the calcium powder, didnt see any sand. He doesnt seem to have any lumps on his tummy to indicate impaction. I dread to think what he was doing in the pet shop, i first had him on sand cos the pet shop guy told me to and i didnt wanna upset the gecko too much by changing substrate straight away...but i often saw him just licking it up and it did worry me.

I sometimes wonder if my glass tank was pushed off by an act of God to say "get him off the sand!" :main_laugh:

With the crickets, i hadnt thought cabbage might be causing some smell...it sure doesnt smell nice comming outta me I read orange is ok to give them for moisture and it makes them have vitamin C too which is good for the gecko...is this right or will it just stink and make everything mouldy and sticky?

I had the mealies in the fridge for a few days when i got em but read it stops them eating and i got quite a few dead ones.

Thanks a lot for helping me out, im grateful for every response as having a new kind of pet is really scarey and with everything thats happened so far i feel like a bad mother that dropped their baby on its head :bigcry:

 

[Lovey]

I'm new so I have no advice, sorry But I just wanted to say I'm glad he's okay from the accident with the cats! how scary is that? I probably would have cried, lol. But glad you found him and he's okay

Good Luck!