Substrate

[JesseJinx]

My Leo's current substrate is the reptile carpet. I've read many things about how they should not have any kind of loose substrate. Is this true? Has anyone had a bad experience with it?

 

[acpart]

No one keeps babies on loose substrate. Some people do keep adults on sand or other loose substrates. Some people claim that the chance of impaction isn't worth using a loose substrate. Other people feel strongly that a healthy adult won't become impacted on a loose substrate. I keep just about all of my leopard geckos on ceramic tile, but I do have one pair of retired (female) breeders in a bowfront tank with a substrate consisting of mostly coco fiber with some (not much) desert sand mixed in and some leaf litter from outdoors. They have been in this for 2 years and are doing fine. I went with the coco fiber because my other leopard geckos have lay boxes/humid hides with coco fiber and this hasn't been a problem.

Aliza

 

[Jetfire]

I just keep my leopards on plain old sand;I like to try and keep my critters in relatively naturalistic enclosures,for the most part. Leopards have evolved to live in rocky,sandy environments,and I'm not about to argue with Mother Nature. Babies of any species I keep on paper towels for the first couple weeks @ least.

one side note- stay far,far away from any dyed calcium sands,unless you wish for your gecko's belly to become that color until it sheds.When I got my first leos a couple months ago,the person who sold them to me was keeping them on a reddish calcium sand,and their bellies were just dyed from where the color bled from the sand.took them 2 shed cycles to get rid of the staining after they were switched to regular sand.

 

[acpart]

I believe that in the wild, leopard geckos are generally on hard packed dirt that may have some loose grit on the surface. They don't live on Lawrence of Arabia type sand.

Aliza

 

[JesseJinx]

Thanks everyone. I think I'll stick to the carpet at least until he's an adult.

 

[Josh2]

I like to go with tile or slate myself. It's cheap at home depot and it's super easy to clean

 

[lisa127]

I like tiles, but myself use newspaper. I have a dedicated reptile room that all reptiles live in, so I'm not worried about it looking great in the living room or something. All my reptiles except the box turtles have newspaper substrate. I wouldn't put leopard geckos on loose substrate.

 

[pecka]

So I'm thinking of using tiles. What about the spaces I between tiles? Dosnt stuff get down in there and make it hard to clean? What about the stick on tiles?