Hello!!! I’m a first time owner of a leopard gecko! Booger is a sweetie but i want to add more to her tank. I’m on a slight budget but would rather her be happy and taken care of than be rich. She is in a 40 gallon tank and will upgrade soon once she reaches her adult size… she currently weighs 48 grams and she was 8grams when i got her in April (it’s now july)
( I used to have a dirt/sand mix for her to dig and burrow in, but no matter how much i fed her or where i fed her, she kept eating dirt so i made the tough decision to switch her to a coconut fiber mat. Her nails have never got caught and she doesn’t eat the mat at all. Please don’t yell at me for this because I wish i could still give her dirt to burrow in)
I’m definitely not going to “yell” at you because you are coming here for advice and that’s what we are here for! I understand your concern about her eating dirt, which seems a little odd to me but if you have seen her do it….The fact that she was eating her substrate could signal something missing in her diet. Leopard geckos don’t normally eat the substrate unless they happen to grab a mouthful while catching a cricket or dubia roach.
My main objection to the mat is keeping it clean. It’s difficult to deep clean mats such as these. Also she is still young. As she grows so will her nails so it’s still possible that she will snag one eventually. For these reasons I use paper towels, easy to keep the tank clean and no snagged nails. I know it’s not pretty to look at but I go for practicality.
Also if you add height of more than 8 inches and your gecko falls she could injure herself. It’s better imho to concentrate on more floor space and more hides. But remember that the more cage furniture you add, the more you have to clean.
Even though you didn’t ask, make sure you are dusting her food with a good vitamin and calcium with D3 mix to avoid MBD. A friend of mine who has been breeding geckos for years (I have 2 of his girls) told me to mix 3 parts vitamins to 1 part calcium with D3. I always thought it was the other way around. I keep mine in a shaker bottle. Someone recently gave me a baby gecko that had MBD in a back leg but since I have been giving her food dusted with this mixture she has no sign of MBD in the other 3 legs and the 1 leg that has it has not gotten any worse. I also keep a bottle cap of calcium available in her enclosure. She is eating like a pig and growing like a weed.
If you saw my tank you would probably yell at me! It’s minimalistic. Plenty of floor space, lots of hides, cork bark on a couple of the hides for a bit of climbing, paper towels, water dish, food dishes for meal worms and dubia roaches dusted with the vitamin/calcium mix and a small dish of extra calcium and that’s it.
I’m saying all of this because you said you want to take great care of your girl. Your tank is beautiful but when I look at it I’m thinking how difficult it would be to keep it clean and safe for your gecko. Please take this as constructive criticism/advice. I’m in no way trying to be rude. We all here want the best for your gecko. My way of keeping may not be appealing to others or work for others but it works to keep my geckos healthy.
We all love pictures of animals as well so feel free to post as many as you like and good luck with Booger!
Thankyou!!! Booger is fed plenty of variety each meal ! She gets 5-6 medium sized dubia roaches, 3 small silkworms, and two mealworms (vet approved diet) all are gut loaded for 24hrs before they are fed to her. she has vitamin d3 on her food a vitamins without d3 in a bottle cap in her cage.
Enclosure looks beautiful and it seems Booger is being very well taken care of! If you don’t mind me asking about the substrate was she eating it accidentally? While she was being fed? Some owners let their geckos hunt in their enclosures and that explains why they eat substrate. Me personally I feed mine in a separate container (Usually a 10 gallon) so they can safely hunt and so they don’t associate their enclosure with eating. Is this is case for you?
She would eat it randomly, not specifically while being fed. I always fed her outside her enclosure because she gets distracted. She was eating the reptisoil i had in there. She was super little still
Understood, then yeah a non-soil bedding would be ideal, preferably paper towels and for aesthetic purposes I would suggest slate tiles, grip mats, or non-adhesive shelf liners as long as they are non-toxic, heat-stable, and cleaned regularly.
I understand your concern about her eating dirt, which seems a little odd to me but if you have seen her do it….The fact that she was eating her substrate could signal something missing in her diet. Leopard geckos don’t normally eat the substrate unless they happen to grab a mouthful while catching a cricket or dubia roach.