I am new here and not sure if this is the right place to post, since obviously and unfortunately this is me trying to figure out what happened instead of trying to fix something. If I should be elsewhere please let me know.
About your leo:
- Sex: Female
- Age & Weight: ~7 years, weight unknown
- How long have you owned your leo: ~7 years
- Where was he/she obtained (ex. Pet store, breeder, wild caught, friend): Pet store
A) Health/History
- How often do you handle your leo: Usually once or twice a week, about five minutes each time. For the last few weeks it's been about once or twice a day in attempts to soak her feet to help with shedding issues--I would put her in a shallow container with just enough warm water to cover her feet and keep her there for about five minutes before gently brushing at the skin with a q-tip. One day I also put her in a plastic critter keeper with a few dry paper towels and just had her in the bathroom with me while I took a short shower, hoping the moist warm air would help.
- Is your leo acting any different today? If so how does he/she normally act which differs from now. Two weeks ago I noticed she was scratching the floor with her toes a lot; I hadn't seen her do so before, I think it might have been due to her trying to shed that skin.
- Has he/she had any problems in the past, if so please describe. For the first four years of my owning her I was very new and stupid and didn't do anything right--no gut loading crickets, no moist hide, no undertank heater. Just an overheat lamp and two hides and calcium dust on the crickets. After that I read up on proper gecko care and removed the overhead light for an undertank one, added the moist hide, and started gutloading. I didn't see any issues with her from these (aside from the toe shedding issues, which she's had all her life), but I thought it was worth mentioning. About five months ago, my cat managed to pry off the lid of her enclosure and attacked her. We caught him quickly, but she dropped her tail and lost an eye--she kept it closed for a few days, then it opened but was milky, then it cleared out but was dark and unfocused. She's been blind in it ever since. She's also had issues with shedding on toes for years, and has lots of lost toe tips. About two weeks ago lost another toe tip which had turned black--after I soaked her feet in warm water and pulled away the dead skin she eventually succeeded in brushing off the dead part, leaving no wound that I could see. The toe in question was also about twice the size of the other ones, presumably due to swelling.
B) Fecals
- Describe (look any different than normal): They looked normal, but two weeks ago it looked like there were a few outside of her bathroom spot, which was unusual (although it might've been a bit of smudged cricket poop instead)
- When was the last time he/she went: About two weeks ago I believe
C) Problem
- Please briefly describe the problem and how long it has been going on: Her regrown tail suddenly went from fat and short to long and thin. Since she had just shed, and the tail now suddenly also looked longer, I wasn't sure if she had really lost weight or if the weight had just been spread out more now that her tail appeared longer. About a week ago she had also stopped eating (she is normally a very active eater), but she was also shedding at the time (including a big bit that got stuck on her face for a day or two--I helped her remove it by gently holding it while she pulled away and it came off cleanly. After that I also noticed her drinking a lot from her water dish, which she usually doesn't do), so I thought it was due to shedding. Last week my family went on a week long vacation, something we usually do once a year without problems. I sprayed a new moist hide I had put in, put in an extra large water dish, dropped in five crickets and hid a bit of cricket gutload in the back corner where she couldn't get it to keep them eating that instead of bothering her, and then left. When we got back today, I found her lying on the cool side corner of her tank, dead. Her appearance was the same except for some green / yellow stains on her belly, as if something had rotted.
Housing:
A) Enclosure
- Size: 30 long by 12 wide by 18 high
- Type (ex. glass tank): Glass
- Type of substrate: Paper towels
- Hides, how many, what kind: She has a warm dry hide and a wet cool hide, the latter has sphangum moss in it. I noticed she wasn't using the latter very often (at least that I could see), so before we left I pulled the moss out of there and put a third hide in between the warm and cool sides with moss as a mixed heat moist hide.
B) Heating
- Heat source: undertank heating pad, takes up around 1/4 of the tank
- Cage temps (hot side, cool side) Ranges from 90-80 on hot side, 80-70 on cool side depending on external temperature
- Method of regulating heat source: I have a power limiter that the heating pad plugs into, however recent experiments showed that keeping it on or in didn't seem to make a difference--the heat pad seemed to remain 80-90 regardless.
- What are you using to measure your temps: a reptile thermometer / hydrometer from the pet store, set on the floor of the tank
- Do you have any lights (describe): no, but for the last three months she's been exposed to direct sunlight from a window behind her tank
C) Cage mates
- How many (males, females): None
- Describe health, or previous problems
Describe Diet:
A) Typical diet
- What you're feeding (how often, how much): 5 gutloaded large ++++++++ crickets 2-3 times a week. The only other food she's been offered were a few waxworms after the aforementioned cat attack, but she was switched off those and back to crickets quickly.
- How are you feeding (hand fed, left in dish, ect): just dropped them in tank
B) Supplements (describe how often)
- What vitamin/minerals are you using (list brands): Rep-cal calcium and mineral supplements, dusted on the crickets every feeding
- What are you gut loading food with: fluker's dry cricket feed, recently I'd started adding washed shredded carrots and romaine hearts as well
The only other thing I can think of to mention is that I noticed an unusually high amount of dead crickets in her tank at the most recent feeding (with two of the five showing up dead within a day or two, and one of those looking oddly white), but the crickets had come from a farther away pet store than usual and I thought it was simply due to them being more banged up than normal (it seemed there were more dead ones than usual in the cricket keeper also)
Up until the week before she had always been very active, eating normally and hunting well despite her blind eye, moving around the tank at night, shedding without issues aside from the toe tips, not showing signs of weight loss, etc. I just really don't know what happened and I wish I did. She was a very sweet girl I've had for so many years and I will miss her. I want to know what went wrong so it never happens again. My best guesses right now are some type of compaction--maybe she ate some of the moss? I know I'd been spraying it extra lately and had seen her in there every now and then, maybe she was licking it--or that adding the new vegetables to the crickets I didn't wash them well enough and she got poisoned in some way. I was also handling her a lot more trying to help with shedding but since she was regularly handled all her life I don't think that would have been enough of a stress on its own?
Any and all help would be appreciated. I have uploaded some pictures I think will be useful.
This is her tank. The heating pad covers pretty much all of the ground beneath the hide to the left, which has a few interior compartments she spends most of her time hiding in. The past few weeks, though, she seemed to spend more time resting on the ground outside of it (away from the window side) than inside it, which was unusual. The log was her other usual hide, stuffed with moss. Before I left, I added the third hide, moved the moss from the log into there, and swapped out her usual shallow water dish for the big one.
This is how her tail looked for months--round, fat, and soft.
This is how her tail looked after the sudden change. It was longer, thinner, and had almost a wrinkled look, as if it had lost a lot of water.
Pictures of her as I found her when I returned home.
About your leo:
- Sex: Female
- Age & Weight: ~7 years, weight unknown
- How long have you owned your leo: ~7 years
- Where was he/she obtained (ex. Pet store, breeder, wild caught, friend): Pet store
A) Health/History
- How often do you handle your leo: Usually once or twice a week, about five minutes each time. For the last few weeks it's been about once or twice a day in attempts to soak her feet to help with shedding issues--I would put her in a shallow container with just enough warm water to cover her feet and keep her there for about five minutes before gently brushing at the skin with a q-tip. One day I also put her in a plastic critter keeper with a few dry paper towels and just had her in the bathroom with me while I took a short shower, hoping the moist warm air would help.
- Is your leo acting any different today? If so how does he/she normally act which differs from now. Two weeks ago I noticed she was scratching the floor with her toes a lot; I hadn't seen her do so before, I think it might have been due to her trying to shed that skin.
- Has he/she had any problems in the past, if so please describe. For the first four years of my owning her I was very new and stupid and didn't do anything right--no gut loading crickets, no moist hide, no undertank heater. Just an overheat lamp and two hides and calcium dust on the crickets. After that I read up on proper gecko care and removed the overhead light for an undertank one, added the moist hide, and started gutloading. I didn't see any issues with her from these (aside from the toe shedding issues, which she's had all her life), but I thought it was worth mentioning. About five months ago, my cat managed to pry off the lid of her enclosure and attacked her. We caught him quickly, but she dropped her tail and lost an eye--she kept it closed for a few days, then it opened but was milky, then it cleared out but was dark and unfocused. She's been blind in it ever since. She's also had issues with shedding on toes for years, and has lots of lost toe tips. About two weeks ago lost another toe tip which had turned black--after I soaked her feet in warm water and pulled away the dead skin she eventually succeeded in brushing off the dead part, leaving no wound that I could see. The toe in question was also about twice the size of the other ones, presumably due to swelling.
B) Fecals
- Describe (look any different than normal): They looked normal, but two weeks ago it looked like there were a few outside of her bathroom spot, which was unusual (although it might've been a bit of smudged cricket poop instead)
- When was the last time he/she went: About two weeks ago I believe
C) Problem
- Please briefly describe the problem and how long it has been going on: Her regrown tail suddenly went from fat and short to long and thin. Since she had just shed, and the tail now suddenly also looked longer, I wasn't sure if she had really lost weight or if the weight had just been spread out more now that her tail appeared longer. About a week ago she had also stopped eating (she is normally a very active eater), but she was also shedding at the time (including a big bit that got stuck on her face for a day or two--I helped her remove it by gently holding it while she pulled away and it came off cleanly. After that I also noticed her drinking a lot from her water dish, which she usually doesn't do), so I thought it was due to shedding. Last week my family went on a week long vacation, something we usually do once a year without problems. I sprayed a new moist hide I had put in, put in an extra large water dish, dropped in five crickets and hid a bit of cricket gutload in the back corner where she couldn't get it to keep them eating that instead of bothering her, and then left. When we got back today, I found her lying on the cool side corner of her tank, dead. Her appearance was the same except for some green / yellow stains on her belly, as if something had rotted.
Housing:
A) Enclosure
- Size: 30 long by 12 wide by 18 high
- Type (ex. glass tank): Glass
- Type of substrate: Paper towels
- Hides, how many, what kind: She has a warm dry hide and a wet cool hide, the latter has sphangum moss in it. I noticed she wasn't using the latter very often (at least that I could see), so before we left I pulled the moss out of there and put a third hide in between the warm and cool sides with moss as a mixed heat moist hide.
B) Heating
- Heat source: undertank heating pad, takes up around 1/4 of the tank
- Cage temps (hot side, cool side) Ranges from 90-80 on hot side, 80-70 on cool side depending on external temperature
- Method of regulating heat source: I have a power limiter that the heating pad plugs into, however recent experiments showed that keeping it on or in didn't seem to make a difference--the heat pad seemed to remain 80-90 regardless.
- What are you using to measure your temps: a reptile thermometer / hydrometer from the pet store, set on the floor of the tank
- Do you have any lights (describe): no, but for the last three months she's been exposed to direct sunlight from a window behind her tank
C) Cage mates
- How many (males, females): None
- Describe health, or previous problems
Describe Diet:
A) Typical diet
- What you're feeding (how often, how much): 5 gutloaded large ++++++++ crickets 2-3 times a week. The only other food she's been offered were a few waxworms after the aforementioned cat attack, but she was switched off those and back to crickets quickly.
- How are you feeding (hand fed, left in dish, ect): just dropped them in tank
B) Supplements (describe how often)
- What vitamin/minerals are you using (list brands): Rep-cal calcium and mineral supplements, dusted on the crickets every feeding
- What are you gut loading food with: fluker's dry cricket feed, recently I'd started adding washed shredded carrots and romaine hearts as well
The only other thing I can think of to mention is that I noticed an unusually high amount of dead crickets in her tank at the most recent feeding (with two of the five showing up dead within a day or two, and one of those looking oddly white), but the crickets had come from a farther away pet store than usual and I thought it was simply due to them being more banged up than normal (it seemed there were more dead ones than usual in the cricket keeper also)
Up until the week before she had always been very active, eating normally and hunting well despite her blind eye, moving around the tank at night, shedding without issues aside from the toe tips, not showing signs of weight loss, etc. I just really don't know what happened and I wish I did. She was a very sweet girl I've had for so many years and I will miss her. I want to know what went wrong so it never happens again. My best guesses right now are some type of compaction--maybe she ate some of the moss? I know I'd been spraying it extra lately and had seen her in there every now and then, maybe she was licking it--or that adding the new vegetables to the crickets I didn't wash them well enough and she got poisoned in some way. I was also handling her a lot more trying to help with shedding but since she was regularly handled all her life I don't think that would have been enough of a stress on its own?
Any and all help would be appreciated. I have uploaded some pictures I think will be useful.
This is her tank. The heating pad covers pretty much all of the ground beneath the hide to the left, which has a few interior compartments she spends most of her time hiding in. The past few weeks, though, she seemed to spend more time resting on the ground outside of it (away from the window side) than inside it, which was unusual. The log was her other usual hide, stuffed with moss. Before I left, I added the third hide, moved the moss from the log into there, and swapped out her usual shallow water dish for the big one.
This is how her tail looked for months--round, fat, and soft.
This is how her tail looked after the sudden change. It was longer, thinner, and had almost a wrinkled look, as if it had lost a lot of water.
Pictures of her as I found her when I returned home.
