Christmas gift for my Niece

[Steve_C]

Just picked up this little guy today as a Christmas gift for my Niece. It's about a 2 month old Dalmatian Crested Gecko. He's just cute as a button. I've never owned a reptile before but I could see myself owning one of these little guys if I had the chance. This one will be keeping me company in the office/shop for the next few weeks till Christmas gets here.

 

[kno4te]

Very nice. Want to get one for my boys as well.

 

[FMA4ME]

Yay! Beware of AC vents and cleanup crew!

 

[Rob909]

Hold it often! Get it used to being held in case she decides she wants to hold it. My sisters crested geckos bit me the only time I decided to stick my hand in the tank!

 

[Steve_C]

That's actually something that really surprised me, I think I may have got lucky with this little guy being really friendly/mellow. The guy that I know at the shop where I got him took him out and had him on his arm for a good 5 minutes without even really having to hold onto him. The little gecko was sitting on his arm all happy and just moved a bit here and there on his forearm. That really shocked me because all the reading I have been doing the past 2 weeks talked about the young ones being really jumpy and hard to control. Hoping I got lucky and got a sociable one maybe.

 

[Deadliestviper7]

I recommend these for beginners (and pros).
Easy to keep.
Fun to have and you can keep multiples or add different reptile species (within reason).

 

[Steve_C]

Any of you guys here keep Crested Geckos that you have raised from very small babies? I ask because I have a question and could use some help from someone that has had babies like this little guy.

Nothing is wrong with him, he's doing great, but I'm having trouble keeping the humidity up in the tank. From what I have read I want a minimum of 40% with 60%+ being better. I have also read that with these tiny babies you want to just use a paper towel on the bottom of the tank rather than substrate because you don't want the baby gecko to eat substrate and being impacted. But without substrate I can mist multiple times a day and it gets up to 55% and the humidity drops with in 30 mins to 20% because there's no substrate to hold the humidity in.

I did just find an article that said Zoo Ned Eco Earth is okay with baby geckos. Anyone know if that is true?

 

[Rob909]

I used eco earth for all my reptiles. I have my Pac-Man frog in it right now. They’re pretty easy to get impacted as well. He’s fine on it. My sister had cresteds that she also kept over eco earth. If you’re having trouble maintaining humidity, close off any screen on the tank with cellophane. I don’t know what the tank looks like but the more screen it has, the harder it is to maintain humidity.

 

[Steve_C]

Its a 29g with a full screen lid. I blocked off half the top with a piece of glass earlier today but I'll do like you said and cover the majority of it tomorrow and see how that does. Good to hear the Eco earth has given you no problems, I'm tied up tomorrow all day but I will go grab a bag of that stuff Monday morning to put in for him then and that should help too. Thanks Rob.

 

[Rob909]

Any time Steve! I buy the bricks and keep them on hand. Just soak them in water and they break up. It takes like half an hour and it’s not as easy as a bag but they’re already dry so you don’t have to worry about them drying out after storing it for a long time.