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Integrating Leos

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pep0412

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I am in need of some advice quickly. About six months ago I purchased my first leopard gecko who we have since had sexed as a male. At the moment he is close to 5 inches long, today I was given another leopard gecko who we believe to be female and is only maybe 3 inches long. How difficult would it be to integrate the two geckos into a 30 gallon tank that I was given today and neither have lived in yet?
 
AH no Integrating of New leopards!!!!

Your going to need to house them separetly first of all. Not only do you not want the female being bred too early(not that this is an issue at this stage). You also want to qaurantine that new leopard gecko. You don't want them together. You don't know what the history of this new leopard and she could carry something that could be passed onto your longtime pet. My suggestion would be to use a small shoe box sterilite or rubbermaid and set her up in that away from the male. The setup can be extremely simple and will function perfectly if done right. All you need is a hide and a mealworm dish. For water I always just spray the side of the hide. With a heat source it causes the water to condense underneath the hide and they lick the needed moisture. It also serves as a humid hide. I use this for hundreds of hatchlings,juvies and subs with NO problems. If you need a pic I can get one for you of one of my typical setups. Hope this helps.
 
I am not sure about everyone else here, but I do not keep my leos together unless I am breeding them...... I will put one male with one female at a time...... Every leo I keep has its own plastic bin in a rack...... Also there is a risk when you house 2 different sized leos together..... The larger one will sometimes bully the smaller one to the point where it will not eat as much as it should or it might not eat at all...... It could be a stressfull situation for the smaller leo...... I suggest giving it its own cage for now..... That and everything Chad wrote while I was typing......LOL
 
Sure

Right now I am actually charging batteries on my Camera. So I am sure someone who uses a similiar method will beat me to the punch after reading this. Main thing I want to emphasize is the Quarantine issue! You don't want that new leopard near your established male. Even after a month or two you don't want her near him because breeding a female before she's at least 40-45 grams can cause irreversible damage and even be life threatening to her. Not only that it Stunts their growth! I preferr to wait until I see that they are no longer growing. Actually even a 40-45 gram leopard female is considered small unless your dealing with maybe snows or pastels. They tend to be smaller animals in general.
 
Here a photo

Just the basics water dish, food bowl with calcium supplement, and Hide box. Well it has two hides ones moist ones dry, leos do fine just having one hide box over the heated area which is kept moist.
Leo_Cage.jpg
 
Xavier, this looks like one of those sterilite drawer systems...is it? If so, how do you heat it?
 
Yep sure is

I use 3'' flexwat heat tape which is secured to the bottom of the plastic frame the containers slide into. I had alot temp variations with it and ended up building a rack system but using the tubs.
Xavier
 
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