caging

Looking for ideas for caging for a group of leos. I plan to acquire a male and a group of females (3-4). I want something that I can view and easily acess.

I have read that I will need to keep the male seperate from the ladies until breeding time. I have a 75 gallon fish aquarium - could this be used? What do I need to get it "gecko-ready"? It is pretty large - could I put a seperator in there to keep the male away from the females? Is it OK if they see each other? smell each other?

I have been reading a lot of posts - this is a great forum. Thanks in advance for any feedback!

Dave

Hey! Welcome to the forum!
Actually you can keep all of them together all of the time!
75 gallons is perfect, is it 75 long? Because they need floor space but it should be fine! They need as much space as they can get. If they are agressive and hurt eachother you can seperate them just not with glass. But with all that space I doubt they will need to be seperated. 3 or 4 is a great number. Good luck and if you have any other questions feel free to ask!

Hey there!
A 75 gallon would give you the opportunity to create a beautiful enclosure where you can observe your geckos' more natural behaviors,,, but I would personally recommend going smaller,,, a 40 gallon would be just fine. In fact, I would worry about making sure they were all able to find their food in such a large enclosure. If you decide to go with it, I would suggest placing mealworm dishes in strategic spots around the tank. As far as keeping the male with the females,,, it can be done but it is best to allow the females a period of rest between egg laying, as it is very hard on them. I think a divider would work fine for this,,, you can silicone a piece of glass inside the tank or use a fish tank divider. I have a male that is such a Casanova, he wont eat if there are females near him because he goes into "breeding mode." I would observe your males' behavior around the girls to see how he reacts, and based on that you can decide how to divide them. If you decide to keep them together anyways, just make sure there are plenty of dry/moist hides and plenty of food. Also make sure you will have space and time for all the babies that will result. Have Fun!

I put my first two little baby leos in a 77 gallon and they had no problem finding food / running down crickets. But, a 40 would also work fine for the numbers you've described. I keep my breeding groups together year round. But, you would probably want to set up some quarantine cages first (critter keepers or rubbermaides with air holes melted in would work great). This way you could make sure that they were all healthy and at proper breeding weights and roughly the same size. This way if one is sick they won't all get sick, the females will be able to stand up to the rigors of egg production, and the little guys won't get bullied by the larger ones.

In such a set up where the male has constant access to the females, their breeding attempts are very seasonal. Mine started up sometime in February this year and were pretty much done by August. I've occasionally have a female look a little thinner than I like, when this happens I put her in her own enclosure for a week or two to let her fatten up and then put her back in the group.

I do have a few males housed singly and many will attempt to breed with whom ever they're introduced to regardless of season. I think being continuously housed with females kind of makes the novelty wear off for the other males. Or maybe the males wear themselves out and want a break too I should also note than when my females are done for the season, they seem to be more than capable of rebuffing the males advances.

-Alice

Thanks for the feedback. I will consider using the 75 and will look into a 40 as well - any suggestions for good pricing on 40's? I really want to watch them interact and have them in a display type environment so these are both good suggestions.

Will the male go after all of the ladies and should I expect that they might all have eggs? It sounds like I will need to have an incubator ready for egg season - any suggestions for affordable pre-made incubators?

I would like to buy some interesting morphs and be ready to handle the eggs correctly.

What about tank features - lights, heat source, hides ...?

Here is a link to some pictures on the Kingsnake gallery of how to build a faux rock wall with caves. I'm wild about the idea and want to give it a try someday. I think it makes an amazing beautiful desert gecko set-up.
http://gallery.pethobbyist.com/index...=54267&cat=500