Feeding Question

Hi - I am new here and trying to get into a feeding rhythm as is/was Joneill. Our leo tank has a pebble base (these are large pebbles, the size of half my fist). When I feed them worms, the geckos has to be super fast before the worms disappear beneath the rocks. I put Meal worms in a tray with with a lip, so they are not the problem. I am speaking of the more active worms.

I think the rocks are too heavy (and plentiful) to be moved by the geckos on the hunt. Do I need to change the substrate of this tank to be more friendly to feeding, or just assume that the worms will "come up" and get nabbed?

This is really, really early in my experience with the leos and I have yet to clean the tank to find out what really happens to those worms....My objective now is to just make sure my geckos get what they need, food-wise.

Thanks!

Hello and Welcome to the forums

Morioworms aka superworms are very fast critters and 2 of my leo's are too slow to get them and I have to feed them by hand (using feeding tongs) where as my other leo snaps them up before it has a chance to move.

The thing about rocks and pebbles is that they can been jagged and harm your gecko and they also cannot lay down comfortable on them. Kermit has made a very good housing sticky - http://www.leopardgeckoforum.com/t55-proper-housing-for-leopard-gecko and it talks about the pro's and con's of different types of substrate (flooring) and hopefully this will help you choose one that is right for you and your leo's

Your mealworms would turn into beetles and if you are giving them morioworms they will only turn into beetles if they are seperated from other morio's.

Thank You Keragain! I will look into the Sticky you linked, and also will post a picture and full description of the current vivarium for critique. Thanks again all. By the way, I removed the leos from their tanks this morning for feeding. That worked well, but may not be possible at all times. My male had not eaten in several days and I was surprised to see that his tail was visibly thinner! He had four superworms, so hopefully he is sated for now.

HI there Puff and welcome to the forum Your set up sounds quite unique. Id love to se photos of it. What concerns me is a couple thiings... first if you're using an under tank heater like youshould be for your leos to get proper belly heat then the substrait might be too thick for the uth to effectively work and your leos could be too cold which will affect digestion and cause constipation.

Next leaving those lil buggers in your tank under the rocks they will come up and harass your leo... look what they did to Sam's poor chocolate http://www.leopardgeckoforum.com/t951-what-mealworms-did-to-chocolates-tail Also super worms WILL morph if left under teh substrait.... they are pretty much seperated from teh rest of the colony so they will likkely chance. I had a super get away from eros once then like 3 weeks later we found a HUGE black beattle in his humid hide... ewww that was gross.

You have to leave something in there for them to nibble on insted of your leo like a big piece of carrot, but a better scenario would be to remove teh rocks and go with a different substrait.

Your other choice if you decide to not remove the rocks would be to use a seperate feeding tank, which you've tried and said isn't working the best for the long term so I think it looks like changing your substrait is the best way to go in my opinion. Don't worry too much about your boy that isn't eating at the moment... a lot of our leos are just coming out of breeding mode so this could be aprt of the issue with your fella. If he pooing regularly and active he should be fine, however if he is eating fair and not gaining any weight you might want to have a stool sample checked for parasites. Eating regualr or voraciously and not gaining weight or still losing condition is a tell tale sign of parasite infection.

Hope some of this helpes