The Fish Room
Leopard Gecko Care
CHOOSING YOUR LEOPARD GECKO
To choose a healthy leopard gecko, look at the following features:
Leopard gecko’s mouth should not be hanging or look bulgy. Its spine and tail should be also straight without any bulges. Otherwise, this can be a sign of a Metabolic Bone Disease and poor care.
No toes should be missing in a leopard gecko. This can mean that a leopard gecko lives in overcrowded conditions with minimal food. Or it could be the result of a problematic shedding – and breeder or seller didn’t take care of this.
Leopard gecko should not be too skinny – you should not be able to see any bones sticking out.
The tail should be round and plump. A shrunk tail might indicate very poor feeding or parasitic infection. Leopard geckos store fat and other nutrients in their tail.
Look at leopard gecko’s belly and vent – belly should be clean, plump and vent should not be dirty or covered in fecal smearing.
If you can see leopard gecko’s cage and its feces – check it for consistency. Healthy leopard gecko’s feces should not be runny, slimy or of pale in color. They should be dark, soft and in small pellets. Normal stools can also white some white residue (urates) or small shaped waste from eating insects.
There is a big chance that a leopard gecko will be sleeping when you come in to buy it – they are active during twilight and night hours. But if your leopard gecko is not sleeping, it should be alert and active.
A healthy leopard gecko should have its front legs on your hand, with the front part of the body lifted.
COMMON HEALTH PROBLEMS
Chromic Malnutrition
Hypovitaminosis A
Nutritional Secondary Hyperparathyroidism
Phalangeal dysecdysis (retained shed on toes and tail)
Intestinal impactions
Abscesses
Diarrhea
Ocular problems
Stomatitis
Egg retention
HOUSING
You will need, at a minimum, a 20-gallon long vivarium for one adult Leopard Gecko.
A wooden or glass vivarium is ideal.
Unlike some lizards that need different sized tanks as they grow. Many owners choose to start their baby and juvenile Geckos in the same 20-gallon tank adult’s use.
If you are housing one male and two females for breeding, then go for a 40-gallon. When housing more than one lizard make sure they have their own hideout area or hide box in the tank.
Each enclosure needs to have three hideouts that are large enough to fit an adult gecko and enclosed enough to be dark and snug inside. Each hideout has a different purpose and should be either moist, warm, or cool.
Within some hideouts, place coconut fiber or sphagnum moss to create a micro-humidity chamber to help with shedding. Bathing leopard geckos is not necessary if they have soaking bowls and micro-humidity chambers.
Place the hideouts at varying levels of the cage; somewhere they can climb to and some on the ground floor.
You can also choose to add branches and rocks in their enclosure and non-toxic pants will make the tank look fantastic.
LIGHTING
Their tank needs a basking bulb for the daytime and a ceramic bulb for nighttime.
They need a heat gradient in the tank with one side that reaches 90°F and the cool side can be around 75°F. Ensure their basking bulb is not too bright as they prefer cool-white lights.
Leopard Geckos are nocturnal so their lighting must be turned off in the evening for 12 hours of the night.
Night-time temperatures can drop to around 70°F but shouldn’t go much lower. An under-tank heating pad is a good solution to regulating temperature if their basking lamp is insufficient.
Because their natural habitat is a desert, humidity should stay in the range of 30-40%.
This can be achieved by having one soaking bowl in the enclosure. Make sure the soaking bowl is large enough for your lizard to fit in, but not too deep so that the water level comes above their ears.
You should install digital thermometers and humidity gauges to check the temperatures of the warm side and cool side of the tank.
FEEDING
This lizard is very easy-to-care for because their diet is solely made up of insects.
They like to eat mealworms, crickets, super worms, wax worms, phoenix worms, small hornworms, and Dubai roaches.
Hatchling and young geckos will require insects that are smaller than the width of their head and should be fed every other day.
As seen in the feeding guide below, adults can be fed two to three times a week. Use a rule of one insect per inch of gecko body length.
They need a supplement of calcium powder with vitamin D3 each time they eat. You can either dust the insects or gut-load them 48 hours prior to feeding. Just make sure the supplement container says, “phosphorus free”.
One of the reasons the leopard gecko is a great family pet is because children can feed them. All they need to do is dust the insects with calcium powder and drop them in the enclosure.
You can then watch the leopard gecko’s skillful hunting technique as he flicks his tail right before he strikes.
They will get most of their water requirement from their food, but you could provide them with fresh water in a shallow water dish. Not too deep as it may be a hazard for them.
Remember that their native habitat is very dry.