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crested gecko help

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Post  cartwright.glen Fri Mar 09, 2012 12:25 am

this is the enclosurecrested gecko help 2012-03-09015019be nice

anyhow picked these guys up a couple of days ago they don't seem to be eating
the temp in the cage is 72-80 just depending on were you aim the temp gun
humidity 50-75% depends on when i mist the cage
feeding them repashy superfoods cgd
i got weights on all of them so i can watch to see if they lose weight or gain it
maybe they just don't eat much

if i am doing something wrong tell me ive just read so much info on the web that a lot of it is starting to sound like misinformation crested gecko help 2012-03-08201612 as i am writing this at 2am they are all moving around one seems to be walking laps
thanks for your help

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Post  Snakeman Fri Mar 09, 2012 7:59 am

"............ive just read so much info on the web that a lot of it is starting to sound like misinformation"

Glen II,

As I'm sure you know the internet has some very good information about herps and it

has some very bad information as well.

What's so frustrating to me when I'm researching articles for our newsletter on

herpetoculture, there's information out there that's just flat wrong and whern I think

of the number of herpers reading it, well....................

One of our most experienced members refers to the internet as the "misinformation

highway".

If you want to put a little weight on your cresties, try some waxworms.

Just don't feed them too many of them.

Waxworms are lizard candy and if lizards are fed too many of them, they sometimes

stop eating everything else.

Also try a few gut-loaded crickets and roaches.

80 degrees seems just a tad warm.

(My research indicates 72 - 78 degrees during the day with a drop at night.)

Have you talked with other crestie keepers ?







Last edited by Snakeman on Fri Mar 09, 2012 9:06 am; edited 1 time in total
Snakeman
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Post  cartwright.glen Fri Mar 09, 2012 9:01 am

ya Larry it sure can be confusing and i know alot of the reptile care sheets on the web are what the author has used for his/her success while it may work for their reptile it may need to be adjusted for your reptile ie
method of heating lighting humidity

if someone would like to clear this up for me fell free a humidity gradient is this necessary i dont mean a range of lets say 70-75 percent but a real drop in the numbers like 50 to 80 percent i have read a couple of these articles say the gradient of this measure is beneficial to herps ive also read that it is not necessary

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Post  Snakeman Fri Mar 09, 2012 9:12 am

My 2 cents.

When in doubt, research the environment where a herp comes from for the best

information.

In nature cresties come from a humid environment, but the humidity level fluctuates.
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Post  thebluejackal Sat Mar 10, 2012 5:32 pm

Easiest way to keep them:

Keep them separate until you're 100% sure of their genders. You don't want to wind up having a male/female pair, the female getting bred early, and then becoming eggbound.

I keep all my juvies on paper towel as a substrate with a TON of climbing space and vine-y plastic and cloth plants. I get mine as 4' garlands from the dollar store. I change the paper towel weekly. Everyone also has their own coconut hut with moist sphagnum moss or a moist paper towel as a moist hide and a shedding aid. When I cleaned my 4 little guys out last night, I found that three of the huts had skin rubbed off on the outside of them! Great help for these kids.

I use paper towel because there's a lesser chance of impaction and because it's easier to see whether or not they're pooping. They eat so little (their stomachs are about the size of one of their eyeballs) that you sometimes can't really tell unless you see poop.

Everyone is kept at room temperature -- no extra heat needed if your house temp never falls below about 60-63F at night. These guys can EASILY be stressed by heat if it gets above 80F.

I feed Repashy Crested Gecko Diet in bottlecaps or cut-up contact cases about every other day . . . really three times a week. I use a squeezy condiment bottle and make enough for a week, then squeeze out dime-sized amounts for the little guys. Right now they're getting 2-4 dusted dubia nymphs each once every two weeks. Once my roach colony is a little more established, I'll up that to every week. You can also feed crickets, but I amputate the back legs because these guys really are poor hunters.

I mist twice daily: Once in the morning and once at night. Sometimes if the enclosure still looks wet in the morning, I forego misting until the next night. You're not trying for a constant humidity, but for a humidity cycle of 90%ish right after misting down to 40%ish during the day. If they aren't allowed to dry out, you can have issues with bacteria and other infections.

For your enclosures, I'd say more climbing areas, more horizontal perches, and more viney leaves. You can continue using cocofiber if you like, but I just prefer paper towels. I would separate just to be sure.

Adult females can usually be housed together with no issues, but sometimes bullying can occur. If it happens, separate out the bully.

I have two adult girls being kept in a 47g tall planted vivarium -- the exact opposite of the simplistic setups these babies are in.

Here's some pics of the juvie's enclosures (and of my egg I'm incubating at room temperature in the little blue-lidded gladware container. Whoo, sperm retention!)

All four on my weird little wire rack: (had these left over from when I used to build my booth for art shows).
crested gecko help 431689_373296072695605_100000456468461_1269846_1919632825_n

Poorly-executed close-up of the inside of one of the sterilite containers. I got this thing at BigLots, $5-7 dollars. I like the lid clips and the vertical space. There are bigger ones at Target that I'm thinking about using to house single adults in the future.
crested gecko help 428605_373296092695603_100000456468461_1269847_241964608_n

Inside of the critter keeper, with Nitwit, a 3.3g tiger baby from a nice orange momma and a nice creamy father:
crested gecko help 64127_373296109362268_100000456468461_1269848_988227754_n

A close-up of the pipe insulation I use for horizontal perches with my bigger juvies. 99 cents outfitted two enclosures. Vines are from the Dollar Tree. So is the little glass dish that has a tiiiiiny bit of water in it. I use the same dishes to feed dubia roach nymphs . . . once every couple of weeks right now till my colony gets established.
crested gecko help 420197_373296122695600_100000456468461_1269849_1221798802_n

This is a (crappy) picture of my two adult girls in the planted viv:
crested gecko help 426827_360489907309555_100000456468461_1238856_1583712759_n

You want to keep juvies in smaller enclosures. They can often get stressed in larger ones and have a more difficult time finding food. I keep mine in the critter keepers or similar-sized enclosure until they're reaching around 6g and then move them up to the slightly bigger one. They should be fine in there until they're around 10-15g, maybe a little bigger, and then I'll move them up another size.

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Post  thebluejackal Sat Mar 10, 2012 5:34 pm

Oh, I also leave their Repashy CGD in for 48-72 hours before changing it out. The roaches lick the bowls. XD

. . . And if you just got them a couple days ago, it is COMPLETELY normal for them not to eat for up to 2 weeks.

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Post  cartwright.glen Sat Mar 10, 2012 8:31 pm

thanx for your help

we separated them last night in a minimalist enclosure checked them this evening and the larger ones went potty
assuming that means they have eaten at least something
the two smaller ones showed no signs of a potty break so when we checked their cage i took them out and put some CGD in a syringe and placed drops of it on their lips they licked it up intently


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Post  thebluejackal Sun Mar 11, 2012 10:17 am

They'll normally lick anything up on their nose. Doing it too much, though, may stress them.

Try letting them be for a couple of weeks. As I said, it's really not uncommon for them not to eat for about 2 weeks while they're getting used to a new environment. I have a skittish tiger flame dalmatian girl who took about two weeks to finally start eating. And she doesn't like bugs, so her growth is sloooooow. XD

On the other hand, one of my adult girls eats whatever's put in front of her. She also tried to eat my camera strap.

It depends on their personalities.

Here's a good website with some information:

http://www.jbscresties.com

She has a lot of youtube videos, too. Really informative. Great crestie keeper.

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