Wooden food dish for leo

[MrGloves]

Hello, Forum! I need some help with a new idea I had.

One of my hobbies is wood-turning, and I want to make a feeding dish for my leo, but there are some things that I'm not sure of.

Are there any woods that are harmful/poisonous to a leo? I know that most woods are in fact poisonous, and can kill a lot of animals. I think using Poplar is a fair choice, because it's not known for being poisonous, at least I think.

Another problem with wood in her tank is moisture.I try to keep her tank moist, and she has a humid hide. 90% of problems with wood are water related! I'm worried that a mold/fungus would develop if I place a wooden bowl/dish in her tank, so i need to seal it. I don't know what kind of sealing finishes are okay to have in a leo tank. I need a finish that's safe for my leo to eat from, and for the food that's on it, and one that seals good from moisture.

I was also thinking of using maple, because maple's end grain is tight and resists moisture really well.

This may seem off topic, but if anyone has had any experience with wood and leos, please help me out! Thanks!

 

[Poppy243]

I know that woods that are aromatic are not good for reptiles. Such as pine, for example. The compounds that cause the smell that we like are toxic over time to the cold blooded critters. Other than that wood itself shouldn't be an issue to a leo. There should be some information online about it. What's harmful to leos shouldn't be too much different than what's harmful to other reptiles, so I'd just apply any information you find to leos whether it mentions them or not.
You don't really need to keep the whole tank moist, which it sounds like you are doing, just the humid hide, which you need the most at shedding times. It doesn't hurt too much, usually, but it's just not necessary. Their natural habitat is a pretty dry area. I believe when they shed in the wild they dig down to a more humid spot underground to pull the skin off. If you are worried about a sealant being toxic to your gecko, but you don't want issues with the wood like you mentioned, just keep the humid hide moist as you have been doing, but not the whole tank. I doubt the humidity leaked from the humid hide would do much to the wood unless the opening of the humid hide was like RIGHT THERE next to the bowl lol. Any issues with shedding are so easy to handle. If your gecko got sick from the sealant, you couldn't take care of that at home.

 

[MrGloves]

Well, right now I'm actually living in a dorm away from home and my leo is at my parent's house and they feed her, so I was just playing safe on the how moist the tank is thing. So when I get home next week I'll turn the dish, and then use it and keep an eye on it to see what my leo does to it. I'll probably try some sort of wax finish that would seal it, but it would be buffed so there is no wax on the outside of the wood.
Good point with the moisture, and I'll look up some more info about wood and reptiles, thanks!

 

[Poppy243]

I'm living in a dorm away from my house too, even though my house is just down the road from my college hahaha. I had scholarship that covered my housing, very fortunate I keep my geckos (technically illegally) in boyfriend's room. There's no room in my room, plus housing tends to be more picky with sorority housing... Plus, boyfriend gets to play with them! He's not really allowed up in my room most of the time. My friends get to play with them too! But we got caught with one and had to move her out of sight.

 

[MrGloves]

Haha, nice! I was thinking of buying a smaller tank that could fit into my dorm's closet so I could take her here with me, and we're only allowed to have small fish as pets in the dorm. Pretty lame, right? I was going to do it anyway hehe . I would think a nice leopard gecko a way better option for a dorm room than a fish! A lot of the small fish tanks look cheap and could easily break and spill all over the floor, and it gets really humid here and makes a lot of mold, so I don't think a fish tank would help out very much lol.

 

[Poppy243]

Plus fish are BORING pets! I don't get it, we have humidity here too so mold is a threat but yet they still suggest fish... Geckos are far superior as they not only have all the cleanliness and hypoallergenicness of fish but you can actually hold them! We have one hidden in a closet and one hidden in a carrying cage under the desk behind some boxes. Ironically, I just did the opposite of what you are doing and bought a larger cage so I could house them together xD +++++ has a pretty nice ~10gal tank made by them, called like a Pet Oasis Terrarium. It has swinging front doors that lock, the top opens, and the sides are mesh. It's a great desk size. I've had that for a while and quite enjoyed it. However I just got my new terrarium in today, so I'm going to sell that one in a couple of months, and I'm going to be building a fake rock canyon over Christmas break to put inside it. I'm super excited! Its beautiful!