tail tip (the very, very tip) turning dark

[Dwaggie]

hey all!

this might be a bit overkill, but i've only had my leos for about three weeks now
my tremper albino girl, lychee, shed tonight and mostly without issues (i helped tugging a piece off her face and a bit off her foot, but i'm sure she'd have done it herself eventually)
thing is, i just noticed the very end of her tail has turned hard and dark
i've read about constriction issues with dead skin, which i... can't really tell whether it'd be a problem on such a small scale

do i need to worry about this?
or "only" keep an eye on it and leave her be for now?
it's a teeny tiny piece of tail, it doesn't seem sensitive (brushing a fingertip against it doesn't seem to bother her) and it looks clean
BUT i have little experience and i'm not sure if this is already a warning sign.

some overall data:
gecko is about 8ish months old (was hatched in summer `16), she's 54 gramm, i don't know how long exactly she is, i don't want to hold her down to measure
tank is 110cm x 50cm x 70cm high (the back- and side walls are cork with some "steps" glued on, they climb all over the place)
temps are about 28-30°C on the warm side during the day, and 20ish at night (but there's a heating rock running 24/7 in the warm corner, too)
she lives with her two female companions (hatched in the same month)
they have one big moist/cool hide with coconut earth in it (they seem to like sharing it) two "middle" hides and two warm hides, with a big piece of cork bark as a "squeeze beneath" hide (it's near the warm rock since they also sometimes seem to like napping next to it during the day)
humidity is around 30-40%,
when i got them, they were on excavation clay, which i've removed last week and currently they're on kitchen paper towels until i find some nice linoleum tiles (no sand anymore)

none of them have eaten yet.
i sometimes put in a dish with mealworms, but they haven't touched them
i also made the mistake of letting lose three crickets which are now living behind the cork on the walls.
since they're still scritching and occasionally making tiny chirps, i know they haven't been eaten yet, either.
the former owners gave me a box of bee larvae / wax worms (??? are they? they're called wax worms but i'm not sure they're the same as THE wax worms) which they haven't eaten either and which i'll have to dispose of, i guess.
they're turning brown and weird.

ANYWAY.
yeah.
i'd love to get a more experienced opinion whether or not i need to call a vet or if it's okay for now.

 

[Neon Aurora]

It's hard to tell what is going on with the tail, but it could be either a piece of shed skin constricting the blood flow (which may cause the tip to actually fall off) or it could be an injury (from one of her tank mates). I would keep an eye on it. Do a warm soak and see if you can get any skin off of it (sometimes it can be hard to see). If it looks like it's getting infected, you may need to see a vet for antibiotics. Otherwise I would just keep an eye on it and wait.

Otherwise, I have some general advise. Firstly, I really recommend getting rid of that heating rock. Those things are known to go haywire, get way too hot, and cause severe burns in reptiles.

Secondly, I think we should address the fact that none of your geckos has eaten in the 3 weeks you've had them. It's not terribly unusual, but it can be. What are you using to heat the tank with, other than the heat rock? 30 C is a tad low. You should try to attain 32 C, measured with a digital thermometer with a probe. Heat should be provided with an under-tank heater.

Are you positive these geckos get along? Sometimes, geckos have can be stressed by each other and won't eat. It's definitely not always the case, but it can happen.

They also could be ovulating. This will make them stop eating.

BTW, waxworms are not bee larvae. They are moth larvae.

 

[Dwaggie]

thank you for the quick answer!
i'll definitely keep an eye on it and give lychee a warm bath a little later

as far as i've seen with them, and what i've been told, the three get along okay. they've been kept together for at least 5 months at the former owners.
so far, i haven't noticed any bullying behavior
they often lie together when they're napping, don't snap or lash out at each other
it's not a guarantee they don't do that while i'm sleeping, but whenever i'm around, they're peaceful with each other

something i've noticed is that they all stay mostly in their wet/cold hide.
i try to encourage them to use their warmer hides by placing them there when i'm done handling them
maybe i'm handling them too much?
two of the three don't flee when i scoop them up, and don't bite or hiss at me, so i pick them up, sit on my bed or chair and let them walk over me
both lychee and papaya seem to like sitting on my shoulder under my shirt (...or they simply crawl down my collar to sit in my bra between my boobs. since they go there by themselves, i usually let them and don't move, and they just sit there until they've warmed up to their liking)

for heating, other than the rock, i now use a ceramic heating bulb. up until a few days ago, it was a heating lamp, (no UV, just.... hot normal bulb light)
there's no direct sunlight on the terra at any time, since i read they don't do well with too bright lights

i might need to add that it's not entirely pitch black at night in my room, since i have a nightlight and there's some subtle light from my snail tank heating lamp
do they need super darkness? i might get something to put over the glass front at night maybe.


i really liked the heating rock, since the ceramic heater scares me a bit, it gets so intensely hot (it's in a safe area in the tank, where the geckos won't be able to reach until they learn to jump or fly ;b )
i fear they'll have to make do with it for a little longer, i will have to save up some money to buy a heating mat (and figure out how it'll work, since the tank is made of wood, not glass, and i'm not sure how well heat would travel through it.... :/
i admit, heating mats and bulbs and whatnot.... this is the one thing i cannot get the hang of.


and yeah, about the bee/moth larvae name thing...
in german, i think it's Wachsmaden and Wachswürmer, waxgrubs (which would be bees in this case) and waxworms, somehting like that... so maybe that's why i can't keep them apart properly.
i'll learn.

 

[Neon Aurora]

As long as you're being observant and they seem to be getting along, you probably don't need to worry about that. It's advisable to have a plan in place in case you do need to separate them at some point (sometimes these things just go sour).

Yes, handling could definitely be a factor. Personally when I get a new gecko, I keep handling to a bare minimum until they are eating. It can take a while sometimes. But this is slightly more complicated because your geckos are female and if they are ovulating (which a lot of them do start around this time of year) it is normal for them to not eat.

Ceramic heat bulb is definitely better than an actual light, but the issue with these guys is that they are naturally adapted to using belly heat rather than overhead heat. I'm not sure how the wood would conduct heat, I've never had a wood terrarium. But in the long run, it would be best if you worked on finding a way to provide them with belly heat.

What are you measuring your temps with? I ask because you said they spend a lot of time in their cool hide. Sometimes this can indicate that the warm side is too hot.

The heating stuff can be confusing at first. The set up I recommend is an UTH that covers roughly 1/3 of the tank. That will be plugged into either a thermostat or a lamp dimmer (lamp dimmers are cheaper, but require more tweaking to keep temps right). The temps are measured using a digital thermometer with a probe, with the probe placed on the surface directly over the UTH. Warm side should be 32 C and the cool side should not go above 23 C.

I think you're doing fine caring for your girls, your setup just needs a little bit of tweaking. =)

 

[kjsmith]

When I first got my first leopard gecko she did not eat for 5 weeks I then bought another female from same breeder and she started eating and they both seemed to get along for about a year then the second one got so much bigger than my first one and my first one started bullying the bigger one. I had to separate them. I had a pretty big exoterra terrarium and separated them by putting a piece of plexiglass down the middle and added a second uth to the other side and all seems to be going great. I think my bigger one is a super or a giant because at 2 1/2 yrs old she weighs 100 grams. But not sure. I wished they continued being along but they didn't.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

 

[Dwaggie]

hey all!

i'm so sorry for the super late reply, life's been crazy!
thank you all for your advice and nice words!

good news!
the tail tip is fine and super smooth again
i think with the next shed, she removed that bit
now she's not having a hard tailtip anymore, only the smoothness it should have
her toes and eyes look alright, too, no stuck skin pieces anywhere