The Reptile and Amphibian Thread vol.2: how to deal with the cricket stink

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Pet Island > The Reptile and Amphibian Thread vol.2: how to deal with the cricket stink

Cultured Snail: Sep 19, 2006; tasteful

If you want a short version:

Crested gecko: Arboreal, like to climb and hide in foliage. Enclosures with lots of foliage and climbing branches are a plus. Paper towel substrate can be great for a beginner; planted tanks can look nicer if you end up stepping up your game.

Temps: 70-82 F, deal fine with overnight drops of ~65. Lower temps can really slow feeding responses.
Humidity: Cycle of 90% at night after misting, down to 50-60% daytime. Offer a water dish as well.
Cage size: Adult - 20 gallons tall or larger. Smaller enclosures work for smaller geckos. Recommend housing alone. Even females can fight. I had 2 females in a 55 gallon with tons of hiding spots and they went to town on each other overnight.
Food: Repashy Superfood fresh every other night, with crickets/roaches/etc. 1x weekly or every other week. Be wary of "pellet" type foods or "orange cube" type foods. Avoid baby food. Blended fruit treats with organic papaya, mango, berries once or twice a month are generally enjoyed.
UVB: Not necessary in my experience, with above diet

# ¿ Jan 25, 2012 16:03

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 23, 2013 07:51

Cultured Snail: Sep 19, 2006; tasteful

nesbit37 posted:

Before you put animals together remember you are doing it because you want to, not because it is better for them. Make sure you do it right. they need a large amount of space and ample hiding spots.

The key for housing multiple cresteds is size of the animal and size of the tank. You can (not necessarily should) house multiple male or females together. The most important factor in preventing fighting is to monitor weight. The geckos should not be more than 1 or 2 grams apart in weight. If there is a disparity greater than this there will be bullying and you will have an unhappy and unhealthy gecko(s).

I second this. Even having same-sized geckos (I was very particular about making sure they were the same weight within 1 gram before combining them) does not guarantee they will get along. Woke up to 2 lady geckos with bite marks all over their heads and tails

For beginners I really recommend especially going slow and just getting one gecko, and if you get a second, a quarantine period is very much recommended, so having 2 tanks on hand is a good idea anyway.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2012 16:25

Cultured Snail: Sep 19, 2006; tasteful

Fluffy Bunnies posted:

You know, I'm sitting here googling and maybe I'm just not googling good poo poo. Foxy mentioned some plants for vivs, but I was looking to expand on that as far as plant needs and whatnot (light, water, etc) and species. I took the duo of crested that Greycious was offering up in the old thread and the little guys are doing great. Since they're little I have plenty of time to grow and work with a tank for each of them just.. I can't seem to find a good place to really start off so I can figure out exactly what supplies I'm gonna need. Anybody got a preferred link?

When I do planted tanks for cresteds I like an inch or so of hydroponic balls on the bottom for drainage, topped with nylon screen, topped with organic soil mixed with a little sphagnum peat (broken down by hand to remove the chunks they might ingest but not be able to pass) and earthworm castings. I'll add in some isopods and redworms to help break down the soil and poop, and some people introduce springtails as well.

Also here is a handful of E. agricolae hatchlings because they are adorablllle.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2012 01:16

Cultured Snail: Sep 19, 2006; tasteful

nesbit37 posted:

Do you get your clay hydroponic balls online or locally? If online, do you have a good source? I need to get about 20-25gallons worth and am trying to find somewhere with a decent price for that quantity. I know they are out there but I haven't had time to shop around.

Ugh I know they're heavy as hell to have to pay shipping

Unfortunately I get mine locally, we have a little shop that has a ton of "holy crap I can use this for lizard care" stuff. 25 gallons! What masterpiece are you building?

# ¿ Jan 27, 2012 14:12

Cultured Snail: Sep 19, 2006; tasteful

Yep my crested dorks all slow down in winter; even in the room I keep the babies in, with the temps up a bit, the fewer hours in sunlight/daylight that winter brings also seems to keep them from eating like they do in the summer. I drop my feedings during winter back to every 3 nights instead of every 2 because food goes to waste.

# ¿ Feb 3, 2012 20:38

Cultured Snail: Sep 19, 2006; tasteful

Celery Face posted:

Someone mentioned earlier that baby food is bad to feed to crested geckos. My sis has been feeding Ruby baby food and crickets for years but in the past year, she has only shed her skin once.

What is a really good diet for a crested gecko? Obviously crickets but what else?

Yeah please get some Repashy Superfood. Sometimes Petco will carry it under the name Crested Gecko Diet (it's a tan powder you mix with water - avoid those gross corn pellets or orange gel cubes), but if you can find a good online retailer you will end up saving money in the long run. It also may take some time to get a gecko that's been on baby food switched over to a better diet, so be prepared for that. I hope the gecko is in good shape... hopefully the crickets have been well-gutloaded and dusted with supplements. I've unfortunately seen my share of wrecked baby-food-raised crested geckos.

By the way crested geckos will shed and eat their skin rapidly, talking about hours - so if you're not sitting with your eyes peeled on it you may miss it.

# ¿ Mar 11, 2012 14:44

Cultured Snail: Sep 19, 2006; tasteful

Fraction posted:

Do you have any personal info on cresteds? Are they friendly, or is their attitude toward handling more tolerance than enjoyment? I've never had reptiles, only mammals.

I have some (a lot) of crested geckos. Most tolerate handling pretty well, the older geckos generally being more sedate than the babies, which jump a lot (but I kind of recommend buying a young one and handling it if that's your goal - when I purchase adults that aren't really handled much they can be skittish). I've never encountered one that appeared that it was seeking out being handled. They don't butt up against you or nuzzle into your hand like a mammal might. There are people that have argued with me and said their pet gecko totally ~loves~ being handled but my opinion is that cresties, for the most part, just tolerate it. Expecting more of them may cause you some disappointment down the road so I prefer to tell people not to get their hopes up for a huge meaningful bond or anything.

# ¿ Mar 13, 2012 23:10

Cultured Snail: Sep 19, 2006; tasteful

Big Centipede posted:

Bananas, apples, oranges, dry dog food, potatoes,and carrots. I also toss food dishes full of old Crested Gecko diet in my colony. They come out looking like they went through a dishwasher (then they get washed for real).

All of this. I'll also throw in oats and other sugar-free cereals/grains, melon rinds, papaya, noodles...

In other news I picked up a new-to-me species at NARBC Tinley. I'm in love.

6.9 grams of pure unbridled grump.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2012 22:51

Cultured Snail: Sep 19, 2006; tasteful

Captain Foxy posted:

A THOUSAND MORE PICTURES

What's adult SVL on these guys? Some say 4", some say 5" for adult males, but I've mostly seen posts indicating the latter. Any major distinctions between them and the Eurydactylodes vieillardi? I'm beginning to see more specimens of the E. viellardi when I browse for Eurys, and I love the paler coloration.

SVL is only about 2 inches - total body length is ~4.5 inches. Males tend to stay smaller. Eury v's aren't much different, some say they prefer it slightly warmer than the Eury a's.

Hypnotoad, it shouldn't be too difficult to track down a female. They really are not difficult to produce, just not a ton of people working with them yet, so just keep an eye out. I love the finger-hugging little bastards so much.

# ¿ Mar 22, 2012 13:35

Cultured Snail: Sep 19, 2006; tasteful

hypnotoad posted:

Speaking of feeder insect diet, has anyone tried the Repashy Bug Burger? I think I'm going to try it out next time I make a big reptile order, I met someone at a show who told me it was great, but I'd love some other opinions.

It works fine but gets expensive if you're rearing an entire B. dubia colony like I am. Stuff is gone in minutes. Would work fine for smaller numbers of bugs though.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2012 16:51

Cultured Snail: Sep 19, 2006; tasteful

nesbit37 posted:

I have anecdotal evidence that people like it for feeding breeding colonies of microfauna, specifically the larger isopods most of you know as potato or pill bugs. For larger insects (in physical size or quantity) it could definitely get pricey.

For sure - I've got 2 different isopod colonies and it worked fine for them - I guess I am just lazy/cheap and prefer to toss in scraps from breakfast, haha.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2012 17:14

Cultured Snail: Sep 19, 2006; tasteful

Yeah, those are some really nice shots, thanks for sharing. I like the difference between the non-regen tail garg and the regenerated tail. Lots of waving going on in that female chewie's tail though, hope she is OK!

# ¿ Mar 31, 2012 14:43

Cultured Snail: Sep 19, 2006; tasteful

Cthulhuite posted:

I have a bit of a heat problem in my apartment, and I just wanted to see if there's anything more I can do.

My crested gecko tank is starting to get up around 28-29 degrees during the day, and I know that this is the upper limit for him. I've been leaving a cube of ice in his water bowl every morning to bring the temperature down, and giving the entire tank a liberal spraying every few hours when i'm home with cool-ish water. There's not many other places I can put his tank as they're all about as warm as the next area.

Is he going to be okay, or should I be doing something more? He's not lethargic, in fact he seems a bit more active than usual, I just worry a lot.

Yeah, an ice cube in a dish won't do much. Try freezing a water bottle and wrapping it in paper towel and putting it in the enclosure, or on top of the enclosure. You can wet and freeze a towel and put it over half the enclosure/screen too. Some folks have set up a fan to blow in over some cold water as well, I haven't tried that. Keep in mind they're not out during the day, so they're not going to be drinking out of a water dish to keep cool. They need whole-area cooling. "More active" is essentially what happens when they are getting into "too hot" territory.

These guys are really hardy but all it takes is a short time with higher temps to really wipe them out. This summer's been so bad... have had a lot of friends that have lost Rhacs to the heat already.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2012 22:12

Cultured Snail: Sep 19, 2006; tasteful

Not Your Senorita posted:

They do like to climb. I have some vertically oriented screen

One thing I will mention - for crested geckos and other wall-crawlers, it is gross as hell to have a desk with a screen cage over your computer monitor/workspace and in the evening suddenly hear a "squort!" and find gecko crap raining down.

What I am saying is, plan accordingly. If you're doing a screen-sided enclosure, be prepared for poop-rain and be ready to have to scrub screen with fair regularity. And don't leave the enclosure on Aunt Gertie's best lace doilies or on a shelf that sits over your bed's headboard.

# ¿ Jul 13, 2012 18:45

Cultured Snail: Sep 19, 2006; tasteful

Atmus posted:

Faunaclassifieds is kind of weird though, because two aparently similar geckos will have a really wide price difference between them. I guess I really need to look at a whole bunch more to differentiate between seemingly tiny differences.

You get a better idea of what different crested geckos will go for on Pangea or gecko-centric forums because fewer people there will tolerate $500 pricetags for plain geckos with fancy-rear end "morph" names. Fauna and most other general reptile classifieds are very snake-heavy so people there tend to throw out numbers to see if something catches a high-rolling ball python morph dealer's eye, or you'll get a lot of snake people who might be just dabbling in cresteds so they don't know what to charge (seeing this more and more at larger reptile shows; snake breeders with 5-10 cresteds thrown onto their table too). Fauna is an okay resource to use to research sellers though a lot of review threads get bogged down in drama so it can be a pain to slog through.

# ¿ Jul 22, 2012 14:15

Cultured Snail: Sep 19, 2006; tasteful

hypnotoad posted:

Also this new classification stuff is pretty interesting, but I'm kinda sad now that I technically only have one rhac now! And speaking of New Caledonian geckos, does anyone else keep Eurydactylodes Agricolae? I have a little male who I adore but females are apparently impossible to find and it bums me out. I've seen like 3 pairs of E. Vieillardi and in the classifieds this year, but not one single lady aggie.

Keep an eye out in the autumn and spring; I see most of the female agricolae at shows around those times. A lot of them seem to sell before they get listed online. I know there was one that was on Fauna for quite some time before it was purchased, just recently, too!

# ¿ Aug 1, 2012 19:39

Cultured Snail: Sep 19, 2006; tasteful

Big Centipede posted:

I read through some of those and would personally put money on the lizards being unhealthy to begin with. A healthy beardie can digest hard roach exoskeletons and even the bones of small vertebrates, I can't imagine that it can handle a thin shelled maggot.

Eh I've seen the same thing a few times with my helmeted geckos. They wolf down crickets & roaches and turn them into magical poop-shaped poops, but sometimes the occasional phoenix worm passes through whole.

# ¿ Apr 28, 2013 01:53

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 23, 2013 07:51

Cultured Snail: Sep 19, 2006; tasteful

Not Your Senorita - there's also a long and kind of volatile thread on pangea's forums right now about issues with crested geckos not really taking to the newer versions of the CGD. The creator stepped in and uh, kind of responded. I'm personally having issues getting them to accept it, myself, and have since the 3.0 version came out last year, though my geckos are feeding fine on everything else I offer, so it's a little disheartening to be wasting so much money on the diet when it's done me good for years before it was reformulated.

Keep in mind a female cg can keep laying infertile eggs so I do recommend offering a laybox for females 20 grams and over, and always having it available. Some of my virgins don't lay their inferts in the laybox - a few of them have dropped inferts in their water dishes

but most of them seem more comfortable using the soil substrate to lay.

# ¿ May 17, 2013 15:32

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Pet Island > The Reptile and Amphibian Thread vol.2: how to deal with the cricket stink