What does it cost?

[wags91m]

I am thinking of getting a leopard gecko within the next two or three months. Though as I read I am starting to wonder. What will this cost me? I have looked through the forum but had a hard time finding something that gave me a cost on anything for one gecko pertaining to cost. I know it won't be easy to give me an exact price due to how hot i keep the viv, having another light on sometimes and then having to adjust temps from my house temp (66ish) to recommended temperatures.
I'll try to explain what I would like then hopefully someone could estimate costs pertaining to food, maintenance and electricity if possible. I have a 30 gallon tank, I would be using a UTH and possibly a light just to have more lighting in the tank, but nothing with high heat output. One gecko, most likely will buy a baby, and willing to feed whatever is most popular or cost efficient depending on how everything plays out, I think from what I had read that would be crickets or meal worms.
Like I said I'm not sure how hard it is to figure these costs, especially since a lot of people seem to have multiple geckos, I just plan to keep the one and have a display tank of some sort. Also about how many crickets/meal worms would a given gecko eat in a week, and how long to crickets/meal worms last if you, say, buy 500 at a time?
Thanks.

 

[Pokersnake]

I will give you information specific to my experience, which may or may not help you.

I have an UTH for my gecko(s). Since getting it I have not noticed much of a change in my electric bills. I figure for the 3 under tank heaters and the 60W heating bulb (all my heating supplies for 4 different critters) I'm spending $3-$6 a month. My guess for your one uth and one bulb, maybe$2-$4?

For one sub-adult leo, I am feeding him 10 meal worms ever day or every other day, depending on his want for food. So up to around 70 meal worms a week. For a young individual or a baby, your numbers may be higher or lower, depending on the individual. Some will eat like pigs, and others will be picky. Some people believe in feeding a young gecko as much as it wants, others believe in a diet regiment. It's really up to you. I spend $11 on 1,000 meal worms (the last time I bought was 2 months ago) and I feed 2 geckos on that. I remove them from the refrigerator about a week's worth at a time so I don't waste any, and so they can gut load before I feed them to my guys.

If you decide you want to try and cut your food costs (and can tolerate beetles) you can start your own meal worm breeding colony. It's cut my cost from $11 every 2 months to $4 (for substrate) every month. You also get to know everything that the worms have fed on their entire life. I use organic wheat bran (because it's the only kind available) and baby carrots as a water source. It takes some time out of your day to check on the colony, but I find a kind of wormy zen, picking out dead ones and replacing carrots, etc.

 

[wags91m]

Thankyou very much for the info, I think I may go the work colony route as well, not only does it seniors cost efficient (even though we are only talking a couple bucks) but just easier overall if they breed easily and I can maintain the colony. Is it hard to start/keep the colony? And what would I need to do so?


Anyone else can feel free to home in on any questions as well I don't mean to make this a one on one discussion.

 

[BadKelpie]

You can start a roach colony. You can get 200 lobster or turkistan roaches on ebay for $40 (I actually ended up with 400 lobsters for that price because I ordered the turkistan and the guy was low on them so offered me a great deal for lobsters instead) $5 for a bin, $2 for egg cartons, then feed them high protein cat food and fruits and vegetables, give them a water source, and you're set. They breed fast, don't smell, and are very healthy feeders. If you buy 500 crickets at a time, you can bet you'd lose many in shipping, and about half by the time you get them all fed, and they STINK. Roaches don't die, they just keep on breeding. Once you get your colony set up and running, you'll never have to buy them again. Most people really like dubia roaches, but they're expensive and kinda hard to find. The lobster roaches climb, so many people won't keep them, but they're easily contained by smearing 3" wide strip of vaseline along the top. And they're cheap. I made my sister order them when I got sick of buying 120 crickets for her every week for her beardie.

I also have a mealworm colony, but it's new, and the babies are still super tiny. I just have them in a plastic shoe box with whole wheat flour, throw in some carrots or apples occasionally and they're happy. I used to raise them for my jack dempsey cichlid (big mean fish), so I know this method works well.

I don't have a gecko yet, I'm gonna wait until the mealworms and roaches are up and running a bit better so I don't have to buy extra feeders.

Oh, and you don't really have to buy fruits and veggies, you can use your carrot ends, potato peels, the bottom part of the lettuce that gets thrown away, and whatever other trimmings you have when you make cut up veggies.

 

[wags91m]

And the turkistan roaches? Do they climb? I would prefer to have something that I do not have to worry about escaping on me.

And I am familiar with the fish, though have grown bored with a pet I can't interact with, yet don't want a dog, and dislike cats. So reptile looked to be the best.

I am also planning on doing the same with starting a colony of feeders so I don't have to rely on running low and can maintain my own needs as a gecko keeper before getting a gecko.

 

[Joao]

Heres a formula you can use to figure it out. Check your electrical bill to figure out your Kwh rate (ex .12 cents per kwh). Hopefully this isnt too confusing.

(Watts of device)x ( hours of use per day) x (days per year used) / (1000) x (kWh rate) = how much you spend a year.

Heres an example of a 16 watt zoomed heat mat

16x24x365/1000x .12 = $16.81 a year to operate running 24/7

 

[Blacksupra94]

Heres a formula you can use to figure it out. Check your electrical bill to figure out your Kwh rate (ex .12 cents per kwh). Hopefully this isnt too confusing.

(Watts of device)x ( hours of use per day) x (days per year used) / (1000) x (kWh rate) = how much you spend a year.

Heres an example of a 16 watt zoomed heat mat

16x24x365/1000x .12 = $16.81 a year to operate running 24/7

Do what this guy said, easy way to figure out what your spending on loads.

 

[12many]

i have a mealworm colony for about ummm 2 months? and so far no babies yet. Its pretty cold in my room so i bought a UTH for it to keep warm. So far, i see a lot of activitites with my beetles, but i dont know if they've laid eggs or not. I don't know what the eggs look like and some people say they're just too small to see.

Anyways, does having a UTH make breeding/growth faster? will it kill the babies as in the eggs?

 

[wags91m]

Anyways, does having a UTH make breeding/growth faster? will it kill the babies as in the eggs?

Yeah, does this help/influence the beetles?