Calcium

How many times a week should you dust crickets and can mealworms be dusted because I already feed my crickets high calcium diet. Should I still be dusting them? I don't want to put a dish of calcium though because my last gecko overdosed..

I'm not sure about the answer to all your questions but i'm sure someone will be able to answer them.

I dust my morioworms with calcium & D3 powder (the multivitamin powder) twice a week. and I leave a small tub of pure calcium powder in her tank in a small bottle-top so she can get some whenever she pleases.

Sooo I would recommend dusting the livefood twice a week with the calcium/D3 supplement. and leaving a small dish of pure calcium powder in the tank all the time.. but other people may do it differently. I know that some people dust everytime they feed... which is every other day for adult leopard geckos.

The important part of dusting powder is the vitamin D3 in it.. it allows the leopard gecko to absorb the calcium we give them and use it within their bodies so that's the most important supplement.

I hope i helped abit lol

Sarah, you are correct as far as I know. I also do the same thing. From my understanding it is the D3 that they get too much of so you only use that to dust their food and then the calcium that you leave in the tank is without the D3. This is also how I do it.

wooo! I was worried that I would answer.. and then everyone would answer differently. I'm glad i'm doing it right lol

gothicgurrrl wrote:I'm not sure about the answer to all your questions but i'm sure someone will be able to answer them.

I dust my morioworms with calcium & D3 powder (the multivitamin powder) twice a week. and I leave a small tub of pure calcium powder in her tank in a small bottle-top so she can get some whenever she pleases.

Sooo I would recommend dusting the livefood twice a week with the calcium/D3 supplement. and leaving a small dish of pure calcium powder in the tank all the time.. but other people may do it differently. I know that some people dust everytime they feed... which is every other day for adult leopard geckos.

The important part of dusting powder is the vitamin D3 in it.. it allows the leopard gecko to absorb the calcium we give them and use it within their bodies so that's the most important supplement.

I hope i helped abit lol

Thank's that helps a bunch my Calcium I dusted a cricket with today has D3 so that's a good thing, I guess what I can do is dust two worms on Monday, and two worms Wednesday? Also are my crickets aloud to be gut loaded or will it be to much calcium intake?

smsararas2 wrote:Sarah, you are correct as far as I know. I also do the same thing. From my understanding it is the D3 that they get too much of so you only use that to dust their food and then the calcium that you leave in the tank is without the D3. This is also how I do it.

Okay thank's I was so upset when I found out it was my fault about leaving the D3 in their I hadn't known because the Pet-smart lady told me it was the right stuff and I can't believe I believed her.

It would be very rare that a leo dies from calcium overdose and there would be signs of a possible intake problem. So, the thing to watch for with this leo would be lumps in the "armpits". This is one of th first sign of getting too much calcium. Hope this helps to relieve some of your anxieties.

Yeah.. you can dust on both those days. I feed my leo (banana) on monday,wednesday,friday .. and sometimes on saturday. I dust on monday and wednesday with the D3 powder/calcium powder.

and yes, you still have to gut load your crickets. all the insects that you give to your pet have to be gut loaded, otherwise they won't have enough nutritional value. What do you feed your insects with for gut loading?

smsararas2 wrote:It would be very rare that a leo dies from calcium overdose and there would be signs of a possible intake problem. So, the thing to watch for with this leo would be lumps in the "armpits". This is one of th first sign of getting too much calcium. Hope this helps to relieve some of your anxieties.

Okay, thanks I will keep an eye out for the lumps in the armpits, and make sure she doesn't get to much.

gothicgurrrl wrote:Yeah.. you can dust on both those days. I feed my leo (banana) on monday,wednesday,friday .. and sometimes on saturday. I dust on monday and wednesday with the D3 powder/calcium powder.

and yes, you still have to gut load your crickets. all the insects that you give to your pet have to be gut loaded, otherwise they won't have enough nutritional value. What do you feed your insects with for gut loading?

I will be doing the dusting on Monday, and Wednesday for sure, and I will keep gut loading my crickets.

Thanks for all the help everyone.

No problem We are always here to help

You actually can have major problems with too much calcium and too little D3. The armpit bubbles is just a minor sign of calcium overdose. psudogout is a quality of life issue that also can come from too much calcium and not enough D3. Without D3 the body can't absorb calcium and you develop calcium deposits in the joints and long bones similar to the deposits that form with gout (but those are uric acid not calcium).

Over dosing with D3 can also be fatal but D3 overdose is VERY uncommon even with the levels in commercial supplements. You would likely have to feed your leo a pound of it. The fool proof way to supplement is to use an all in 1 suppliment and dust ALL feeders every other feeding for a leo 6 months or older. Bred females, laying females, young leos, sick leos, or old leos may/should be supplemented every feeding along with properly gut loading all feeders. I prefer to gut load with potato, carrot, lettuce, apple but not spinach. Spinach has a chemical that binds to calcium preventing it from being absorbed.

Reading posts of yours on other forums leads me to think your previous leo had a myriad of issues all that could have led to death. Making sure you have proper husbandry, housing, temperature monitoring, heating, AS WELL AS diet and supplementing will ensure a happy and healthy long lived animal.

Kermit wrote:You actually can have major problems with too much calcium and too little D3. The armpit bubbles is just a minor sign of calcium overdose. psudogout is a quality of life issue that also can come from too much calcium and not enough D3. Without D3 the body can't absorb calcium and you develop calcium deposits in the joints and long bones similar to the deposits that form with gout (but those are uric acid not calcium).

Over dosing with D3 can also be fatal but D3 overdose is VERY uncommon even with the levels in commercial supplements. You would likely have to feed your leo a pound of it. The fool proof way to supplement is to use an all in 1 suppliment and dust ALL feeders every other feeding for a leo 6 months or older. Bred females, laying females, young leos, sick leos, or old leos may/should be supplemented every feeding along with properly gut loading all feeders. I prefer to gut load with potato, carrot, lettuce, apple but not spinach. Spinach has a chemical that binds to calcium preventing it from being absorbed.

Reading posts of yours on other forums leads me to think your previous leo had a myriad of issues all that could have led to death. Making sure you have proper husbandry, housing, temperature monitoring, heating, AS WELL AS diet and supplementing will ensure a happy and healthy long lived animal.

Thanks this information was really helpful and I now know how to make sure my leo is healthy.

Kermit, when you say it's best to use an all-in-one supplement, do you mean one that contains calcium as well as vitamin D3 (something like Rep-Cal Phosphorus free) or one that contains those things in addition to all the other vitamins (I think Miner-All is an example of this)?

Either way, can you recommend a brand/product which would be appropriate? I'm finding this part a bit confusing. I was going to buy Rep-Cal and Herptivite but now I'm not sure that would be right...

Since you're in the states kafkabeatle (oddly enough about 4 hours away from me) I would suggest either repashy calcium plus ibc or t-rex brand leopard gecko dust icb by sandfire foods. An all in 1 suppliment is a suppliment that already contains both your calcium, D3 & multivitamin all in one dust. No need to leave an additional calcium dish in the tank when you use an all in 1 suppliment, just dust as described above.

Thanks! That leopard gecko dust is actually way cheaper than what I was planning on getting, so awesome, lol. Glad I asked before I bought the other stuff for my sake and my future gecko's.

Can I get T-rex Leopard Gecko Dust in the UK?

Vetark Nutrobal is the best multi-vit in the UK Sarah. But T-Rexx stuff is normally available in the UK.

EDIT: I suppose i should mention that this is my opinion from experience, i don't know if it is true.

Thanks for answering that for me jordan. I remember you talking about that stuff . Any of the supplements I mention are available on line and able to ship internationally.

Yeah I know about nutrobol.. It's just abit expensive in my local shops. If I had more money I would get that.. but atm I pay £1.99 for calcium (exoterra) .. and £2.99 for the komodo multi-vitamin dusting powder

Yeah i agree its expensive, i spend a good 40 quid on supplements at the start of a season, but thats just a downside of breeding.

I think we might have gotten two products a bit mixed up. Kermit wrote: "either repashy calcium plus ibc or t-rex brand leopard gecko dust icb by sandfire foods"

What I purchased today is called Leopard Gecko Calcium Plus. At the top is says Repashy Superfoods, and at the bottom it says T-Rex. It does not state that it is an "Insect Cricket Balancer", but instead a "vitamin mineral supplement". I assume this is still the right thing?

I guess the first one is made by T-Rex in association with Repashy and the other is also made by T-Rex in association with Sandfire.

I assume no one else finds that as confusing as I did, but just in case, LOL

The T-rex brand leopard gecko dust icb USE to be distributed by Repashy. If you found one that still says repashy across the top insted of sandfire foods then it is an older bottle (the bottle with the entire leo body on it (last pic)).

The new repashy bottle looks like this:


Or you can still also find it in the foil pouch like this:


This is the T-Rex/sandfire foods complete leopard gecko dust container:


all are pretty much the same thing... all are all in 1 suppliments that I have previously discussed how to use. They are available at several places on line. I prefer the repashy available thru josh's frogs (he still has the foil pouch) or the new label repashy bottle (available on allen repashy's forum) as the ingredients list was a little different (ie the T-Rex/sandfire brand uses a different artificial/synthasized suppliment for the D and K I think it was whereas the repashy uses an actual food source that provieds those vitimin values. I can post pix of the ingredients labels if y'all really want to compare them as well as teh web sites these are available at).

Hope this helped clear up some of the issues. I usually post visual aides when discussing things like this except the last few days I've been limited to posting from my phone and I'm not that brilliant with it yet to be able to post pix with my threads.

Weird. I think I did get an old bottle, then. I couldn't find a picture on the internetz that looks quite like what I got, so I'm in the process of uploading a picture right now.





Sorry these are so ridiculously big--I'm not sure how to resize them.

Will the synthetic D and K be a problem, or is it more like I should switch to a supplement containing the natural sources when this bottle runs out?

No their not a problem or they wouldn't be allowed to use them. It's just a personal issue I have. Why use something man made and synthasized that could possibly produce side effects from the things they cut/develop it with versus one that comes from a whole food source... I'll trust mother nature. It is my opinion that the body absorbs and utelizes natural vitimins more readily than suynthasized ones. I'm a bit of a skeptic when it comes to trusting pharmicutical facilities to be "reliable, consistant, and dependable" if ya know what I mean I'd rather trust the small Herbalist like Allen Repashy who is always tweaking his formulas and is highly involved in the herp industry over a mass produced conglomerate selling suppliments to people like sandfire, rep cal, zoomed, etc. to produce their own suppliment line.

That makes total sense to me, Kermit, and is something I tend to keep an eye on too, with all of the pet food I buy (and quite often for my own food as well). I just wanted to make sure it wouldn't be immediately dangerous. Hopefully the store I got it from will order the new kind. I got the last bottle on the shelf, which I assume had been sitting there for a long time.

You should turn them onto Allen repashy's forum/distribution center. They can buy directly from him in smaller lots. Here's the site address... https://www.store.repashy.com/

PS another great link I just found when I got to his page regarding another topic of yours... desert plants... *LINK REMOVED*