Viv set up

Not sure if this should be in the husbandry and housing or here as it's a mix of both, but it can be moved if so. Rescued a female leopard gecko on Sunday - owners had 5 geckos, didn't know how to look after them and were no longer interested in them. We've since named her Olive, but I don't know how old she is, she's around 7-8 inches long nose to tip of tail, had a good plump tail and seemed relaxed when being held. Of course the move was probably disruptive and I know there's a settling in period. I took the fine sand out that was in her plastic vivarium and replaced with paper towels. She has a heat mat underneath the viv (about one half to two thirds of the viv), which is usually around 84F during the day, a calcium dish and a water dish. Her diet has been live crickets so I saw no need for a food dish. Since Sunday she's spent the whole time outside in the open, pretty much asleep - didn't go near her warm or cool hides. Yesterday she shed, slept in her moist 'hide' (I say 'hide' it was a completely see through box, all I had at short notice with her shedding!) and this morning I got her out for a shallow bath and used a wet cotton bud to get the little bits off her toes - only two toes mind, she'd done a really good job! She only ate around half her skin, but I put that down to her recent stresses. I know we're supposed to have minimal contact but I don't think I had much choice in this instance.

She spends a lot of time lying down asleep, which again is probably stress, and the shedding. Well that's the intro, the point of my post is, after her bath I put a couple of gut loaded crickets in, but they've gotten underneath the paper towels - what do you do to stop them doing this? Line the edges of the towels with small stones? Or are they just going to get in and out of everywhere and I shouldn't worry about it because as soon as Olive feels like eating, she'll get them regardless? And yes, if the crickets are still in there by Thursday, I'll take them out.

I'm desperate for her to have a happy life from now on, she's such a lovely little thing

Chris

Welcome to the forum As far as the crickets go, you can try weighing down the edges of the peper towels with something, larger stones that she can't accidentally ingest could work. Also it isn't recommended to leave cricketsin the viv for a long period of time. They can nibble and harass your leo. If they aren't eaten in about an hour you should remove them honestly.

Your heat mat is too large... your mat should only cover about 1/3rd of your viv floor surface. being as big as it is you won't be able to make the proper temperature gradient for your leo to thermoregulate to a cooler place. On that note your floor temps over your uth should be between 90-96*F for optimum digestion, metabolism, and core temperature regulation. Your temps are too cool which could be why she's laying out in the open, her metabolism slows down when they're too cold and they won't move much, won't eat much, could become constipated, and have troubles shedding. You should have a probe thermometer directly above the uth on the floor of the viv for the most accurate temp readings. This could also explain her docile temperament right now... she's too cold to really resist any handling.

You should check out the how to make the perfect set up in the leo housing section stickies for more ideas on proper housing to make sure you're doing everything right. Aside of your temps and leaving the crickets in the viv too long it looks like you're off to a good start with a healthy leo

Thank you Kermit. It's an Algarde 14W Heat Mat and was one of two my local Aquarium & Reptile shop sold, the other being far too small. I can move the mat so it's heating less of the viv, which will leave some of it sticking out but that won't be a problem, there's nothing else near it as a fire hazard for example. I thought 86F was a good temp but I guess it needs to be even hotter - oddly when we first set the viv up on Sunday, temp was up to 85F and she had a VERY active night but since changing the substrate to paper towel, I can't get it hotter than 80F. Maybe reduce or increase the layers of paper towels? I didn't want to have just one layer as I was worried about burning her and with it being a brand new heat mat, I needed to learn about its highs and lows.

I don't have a thermostat for it - to be honest I can't see how a thermostat would connect to it and make the heat mat get hotter, it's always on as it is. The digital thermometer probe rests on the top paper towel, but seeing as she lies flat on them to get the heat through the towels off the plastic bottom, should I move the probe to the plastic bottom, or at least the bottom paper towel layer?

It's only today that the crickets have still been present but thank you for letting me know that shouldn't be in there for as long as I'd originally been led to believe.

I'll get some large stones and line the sides, I just don't want to keep opening and closing the viv, putting my hand in and out and disturbing the little girl.

UPDATE: After moving the probe from resting on the top layer of the paper towel, and placing it on top of the bottom layer (there are only two layers), it leapt from 80F to 87F and is currently climbing past 92F. If it gets too much higher I won't be able to have just one layer as it'll burn her, but two layers will be too cool - it appears the heat is being trapped between the two layers of paper towels. Also, should the sides of her tail be pinkish? I hope this isn't evidence of burns.

Because of this problem, I've moved to having a feed container. I put the gecko in the container (no paper towels, or any substrate in fact) and then add crickets. My two cricket eaters get to eat and I know how much they ate.

That's an excellent idea. I think the viv she's currently in would make a good feed container. It's only around a 5 gallon viv, but there are very thin slats around the whole top half of the viv, and the whole lid has thing slats, so while ventilation is excellent, it could be why I can't get the temp up high enough.

As she's a new gecko for me and I've no history for her, I guess she's in "quarantine" for the time being, and I want her to calm down and settle in, make sure she's good and then get a 10 gallon home for her.

The 92F from earlier was just the temp between the layers of paper towels i.e. the heat trapped between them. I now only have one layer of paper towel: one sheet in the warm end, one sheet in the cool end. The towel isn't long enough to cover the width of the viv, so I've adjusted the heat mat placement so the exposed plastic base i.e. the bit without the paper towel, doesn't get heated up and Olive won't burn.

Temp was steady at 82F and because of my concerns about heat loss through the many many slats, I've put a towel covering the whole lid. It's now climbing slowly past 84F and hopefully she'll be active this evening.

The pink is not a sign of burns. Your floor temps are lower than your body temps and holding her certainly isn't going to burn her. Use a little logic here hon. pink is often a sign of newly shed or fixing to shed in herps. It's just the new delicate skin. It should go away in 48 hours. Decreasing the layers of paper towels can help, also changing to a different substrait altogether like high end vinyl peel and stick tiles could help increase your temps because what you're doing is heating all the air inbetween the paper towels and paper isn't a very good conductor of heat. You can order a great uth on line for likely less than what you would pay in a petshop for a substandard heater. If you couldpost a pic of your set up we could help you figure out the right equipment you need.

When I mentioned the possibility of burns, I was asking whether it could've happened prior to me rescuing her, as I have no history of her health, not that my fiendishly red hot hands could've harmed her!

My towel theory seems to be paying off so far, 86.5F and she's in and out of her warm cave - first time she's done that!

I'll put a photo on here shortly - soon as I lift the towel and lid I'm sure the heat will go

Knew I should've posted this in the Housing and Husbandry section, can someone move it across please?

OK here's her home, minus the lid. Temp was at 91F with towel covering lid slats, 87.5F without and probably still falling. You can see part of the heat mat to the right of the viv, she's got her warm cave (which she was in at the time), a couple of large stones keeping the towel flat, a cool hide, calcium dish and water dish - I put a stone in there to stop it tipping and to try and stop crickets drowning. The two small crickets I put in earlier have disappeared.... I'll put a couple more in as she's more active now - just seen one, I'll remove it.

Topic moved to housing Your pic didn't come thru hon. It's unlikely that the pink marks are burns but if you'd like to post a pic of that too we can certainly offer our opinions, but I'm pretty sureit's just the new skin. Eros gets that as well on his tail and belly right after he's shed.

No that's fine, if it's just the new skin then great, and I'll probably be seeing that every 2-5 weeks! I just want to make sure she's good as I don't know how she's been looked after in the past.

After reading the temperature thread on here tonight, I've been experimenting with some tin foil over the lid, which has been far more productive. Temp got as high as 95F but seeing as it can't be monitored overnight, plus it shouldn't be this high overnight anyway, I'll continue experimenting with smaller bits covering less of the lid.

I only have the one temperature probe at the moment but I will start taking readings of the cool end tomorrow. Olive's out of the cave but asleep in the warm end so presumably it's nice and toasty for her.

Hope the setup above is good.

The temp can be the same 24/7 regardless of day night time which is why we want to provide a consistant warm spot that your leo can always depend on plus a temp gradient for them to move to if it suits them. My leo does best with his hot side consistantly at 96*F. The set up above needs at least 2 more hide. Leos don't like feeling exposed. I would add another cool or hot side hide, plus a moist humid hide on the warm side to aide in overall humidity and shedding.

Adding a rock or pebble in works wonders! The leos will LOOOOVE it if it over the heat mat as they heat up nicely! I generally find my leo's sleep on it x

Thank you very much for the replies. I've added a moist hide and she went straight in there! The stones in there at the moment are too small for her to lie on comfortably so I'll swap those out for bigger ones and add a cool hide - she wasn't interested in the toilet roll at all. As you can probably tell, I'm starting to run out of space in the viv.

She also finally went to the toilet overnight so one less thing to worry about, though she still wasn't showing any interest in the cricket running around the viv. I picked it up with tweezers this morning, put it by her nose and she gobbled it up, lazy little thing! I gave her a second the same way and have left her to chill.

I appreciate I'm starting to obsess over the temp numbers but it can't be nice for Olive to have to put up with the temp fluctuations. The temp probe just rests on the paper towel so I don't know how accurate this reading is compared to the temp she feels when she lies flat on it. This morning it just wouldn't go above 88F even with the foil on to reflect the heat back but just now it's started to climb above 92F - heat mat is always on but the inconsistency in the temps can't be good for her. Maybe the room temp and central heating has something to do with it.

In the local reptile shop and at Pets at Home, there didn't appear to be a suitable heat mat that had a thermostat to keep the temp at a high enough level - any advice for this is most welcome as my 14W Algrade UTH is inconsistent in my current 5G plastic viv, so something for this that would also be good for when I get a bigger viv, like the ones below.

I was also looking for a bigger vivarium, but again Pets at Home had either a 7G square (30x30x30cm) or a 14G tall (W34xD34xH48cm) so I'd rather have the 14G at £45 - it's a glass enclosure, ventilated top, raised bottom to put the UTH under.

Better to obsess than not bother it shows just how much you care for Olives well being so good on you.