The ideal setup?

[Meta]

I've been looking at people's tanks for weeks. I have a 15 gallon to work with. This is what I am thinking:

warm hide on left, humid hide next to it, cold hide opposite side. basically all of these hides will be lined up against the back wall. food and water bowls in front right corner. couple questions tho.

1. should the humid hide be on top of the UTH with the warm hide?
2. my room temp is like 70. is that fine for cool side?
3. does wetting a paper towel in the humid hide provide enough humidity? is there a % to aim for? how can it be achieved?
4. i cant find a calcium without d3 to put in the tank at all times. where is it!
5. tips, suggestions, ideas?

 

[OnlineGeckos]

1. Humid hide should be on the warm side, on the warm floor. It doesn't have to be directly on the hotspot, but where it sits on should be warm.

2. As long as it doesn't drop below 70 they should be fine. If it does drop below 70, look into getting a ceramic heat lamp to supplement the heating needs.

3. wet paper towel will do just fine.

4. Pangea, Amazon, herpsupplies, etc. Lots of places have them, including local pet stores.

5. Looks like you're doing fine.

 

[Pinky81]

My humid hide is on the cool side. I found that the closer you put it to the warm side the quicker it dried out. Paper towel in the moist hide is fine, I did find that paper towel doesn't hold moisture as well as moss and you'll need to check it more often especially if its on the warm side.

My tanks are 20L and a 40gal breeder and I do not suppliment heat on the cool side. In a 15gal you don't want to add extra heat on your cool side as it defeats the purpose of it being a "cool" side. Just make sure your warm side is at proper temp over your UTH and let the cool side be whatever room temp is. you want you Leo to beable to move from hot to cold to regulate its temp...if the leo gets cold then he/she will move back to the warm side...but if you have a heat source on both sides..i.e. UTH on one side and heat emitter on the other what happens if your leo get too hot??? It will have no cool side to go to cool down.

 

[Meta]

what tile is best? at lowes they have 6x6 tiles i like, but their mostly smooth. people here say to get stuff with texture or w/e. how smooth is too smooth tho

 

[4mb3r]

All of mine have 2 hides. one on the warm side and the humid hide on the cool side. moist coco fiber in the humid hide. i use heat cable on one side of the tank. that is the only heat source they need

 

[OnlineGeckos]

what tile is best? at lowes they have 6x6 tiles i like, but their mostly smooth. people here say to get stuff with texture or w/e. how smooth is too smooth tho

Slate or ceramic tiles are fine, try not to find ones that are too smooth or they'll just slide all over. Just imagine your gecko, without sticky pads, but with regular feet with toes & nails.