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questions

dragonflame

dragonflame

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Okay. Im getting my very first crestie saturday!!!!! Obviously I have no experience with them and I have a couple questions.

1.I dont need to buy or make any hides right? I just have to make some hiding places in the foliage?

2.If I use crested gecko diet I dont have to feed it anything else right (besides the baby food or fruit mash it goes in)?

3. Do I need a heat lamp? My house is at the right but cooler temps and I wanted to know if they need to bask.

4. And this is just out of curiosity, why cant a young crestie be in a large enclosure? Everyone says they shouldnt be but why?
 
1.yes u do need some hide spots for them they will use the plants but put one in there just to make sure he has some other place they usually come up with a favorite hid spot..a good hide spot is a toilet role(with out the papper

2you always need crikets..the diet is good for them and they CAN live off of it but with a baby they might like only crickets or they might just like CGD but see what s/he likes....but dont JUST give it CGD.it like the meat.:)

3 if yoour getting a juvie yoou dont want it to get any hotter than 80f.you shouldent need one but if it get REALLY cold like 60 put a heat pad under on low...
4 you dont want a big cage because they will be overwhellmed with the space so just (if your getting a juvie/hatcling) put him in like a 5 gallon or a kritter keeper and u do know they need daily misting....well i hope this helps you if u have any further questions just ask:)and i will do my best to answere .

ps post a pic when u get it (if u can)

jeff
 
Thanks for the answers, I will be posting pics, dont worry about that! I am so excited about getting it! How old do they need to be before they can be in an 18x18x24"?
 
i would say 6 months to an adult around probly 18-25 grams.once and adult he can stay in that for his life and i am guessing it is the exoterra tank?nice tank i have one my self that i hold a 1.1 in.
 
Yeah, Im really happy with it. Its the one really nice thing I have for my herps. I just got it a couple days ago. Its so empty! I cant wait to put something in it. I might get an adult but I just dont know what age cresties they have at the place I'm going to. I thought it would be perfect for cresties! I love exo-terra, they have some pretty neat stuff!
 
are you getting it at a show or a pet shop....i hope it is a herp shop and not a petsmart petco...yes they have nice cresteds but they often have sick animals and they dont keep them right....i would say if your going to get a pet get a sub or a 4 month old and raise it...thats what i did with mine(RIP pongo)
 
Well, I cant lie, I got it at a petsmart... We dont have any reptile specialty stores around where I live :bawling: ... We dont have much here, I cant wait to move somewhere there are more things. The only shows are at least 5 hours away, no one will take me. I looked around at a petsmart near where I live and the only thing I didnt like about it was the leos (too many in one cage) and the different species living together(only one instance with a cham and a lizard), but even they didnt seem very stressed. I didnt see many animals that werent taken care of. All of them seemed healthy except one of the leos (It was a tad skinny, but not anything like what I've seen before). It wasnt even that bad. I was expecting worse, I even thought I would walk out with a rescue, I definately would have, but I didnt see anything really bad in there... I guess its far worse up north, it makes sense, no one notices the valley. They didnt even carry some popular herps because they knew it was too hard to take care of them. I apologize to people who think its bad that I go. I have been going to that petsmart since forever (just looking, almost never buying) and I never saw anything bad. If I go and see herps that are very ill, I will do what is possible. Its just hard for me. If I want a reptile I have to go because its dangerously hot to ship down here (in spring summer and some of autumn its in the hundreds) and its the only big pet store that carries what I want.... They had the terarrium for a pretty good price! I hope I didnt offend anyone though. Some people are very sensitive about it...
 
Oh, well anyway I was talking about the terarrium. I am going to a petstore up there for the crestie. Sorry to double post.
 
i am not saying they are skinney..but alot of them have parasites bc they will put a crested in a cage that used to house leos and they didnt clean it very good and their is some internal parasites that some leos carry that cresteds will get....my friend got a crested their and it died like 2 weeks later and he took it to the vet to have an optopsi(i dont know how to spell it they cut him open)and tey found a parasite that was transfered from leos and we went back and asked them about them and they said all the leos and cresteds and berdies died...so thats why i dont really trust petsmart animals....i would say to save your money and try and ship one their maybe later on in the year when it is cooler...tats what i would do.......here is my crestie cage that i house a 1.2 in.maybe u can do it when u get some more and if u look in the left corner area u can see my cresties breeding.:)
 

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Thanks for the advise on petsmart... I am going to be cautious wherever I go now... I am really interested in having a trio, thats why I got my big ol' terrarium! And I really dont know what I'm gonna get! It may be a juvie or it could be an adult! I love cresties. I want to get some soon, I've just been looking forward to having one for soooo long!

Oh, its autopsy!! Hehe!
 
your welcome and i hope u have fun with it and dont forget their are many other Rhacodactylus species my favorite is Auriculatus...they are so Awsome i would much rather have 4 gargoyles that 20 cresteds.i just love them so much easier to take care of i think than cresteds i am going to try and convince my dad to get me another one or a chahoua at the show on sat...
 
Really? Thats cool. I just fell in love with Ciliatus first! And its just too hard to find anything down here, and I'm always broke! Dont make me fall in love with anything else! It was hard enough getting my parents to let me have more than one leo, let alone another species of things that crawl and arent cute and fluffy to them!!!!! :)
 
yah i know what you mean....but i have been raised around reptiles and i got my first lizard when i was 7 and i still have her she is a berdie and we think she is gravid now.she is 8 years old...but now i only have 1.2 cresteds 0.1 gargoyle and 0.2 dumpys i have had lots of reptiles and it is always hard convincing parents to get you something new....but if your good it pays off ...and i have been a little angel the past 2 weeks so i can get something at the reptile show on sat:)
 
Well, I've grown up around birds, mammals, and fish! I cant remember a time we didnt have animals! Right now we have 2 horses, 4 cats, (soon to be 2 or 3) leos, (soon to be one crestie) a canary, a poodle, a yorkie, and... nothin else! Hey, I've been an angel my whole life and I got my first herp 1 and a half years ago, my beloved leo Smeagol! I am expanding my number of herps rapidly in the next month! The only reason my parents are letting me get more is because I have a job now and it works out aesthetically with my room!!! Lol!
 
1.I dont need to buy or make any hides right? I just have to make some hiding places in the foliage? You need a lot of foliage. It should be enough for them to hide in it and therefore a hide isn't necessary but doesn't hurt.

2.If I use crested gecko diet I dont have to feed it anything else right (besides the baby food or fruit mash it goes in)? Crested gecko diet is supposed to be mixed with water and fed that way. That's how Allen Repashy has fed his geckos for years. Personally, I see they love the hunt of the crickets and so I like to offer them crickets. I alternate crickets and baby food (non citrus fruit) mixed with crested geckos powder as their food and am on my third generation.

3. Do I need a heat lamp? My house is at the right but cooler temps and I wanted to know if they need to bask.....They don't bask. Temps should be btwn 70 and 80, never over 83. If you need a low watt lamp or a heating pad set on a thermostat to reach 70 then get either one. A lamp in that case would be better b/c they're arboreal.

4. And this is just out of curiosity, why cant a young crestie be in a large enclosure? Everyone says they shouldnt be but why? Different cresteds are comfortable in different situations. One girl's gecko on here didn't eat until she gave it a bigger cage. The common reason of keeping them in smaller cages according to size is so they have no problem finding food.

Good luck :)
 
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lol

yes petsmart and petco dont know alot about reptiles. but some of the stores do have a person or two that take care of them, like me! lol i work at petmsart as the reptile person there. and yes before i got there they where having beardies and leos and what not die every week or so lol. i turned that hell hole around. :) im glad. well very nice crestie. when i breed my cresteds, my basic setup for 2 adults is a 10 gallon tank with temps around 75 to 80 degrees. and mine are picky mine ONLY eat crikets. damn things add up after awhile. but a hid is good to have incase they dont want to hid in the leaves or something. also are you going for a natural looking tank or just a basic set up? if its basic just use paper towels for a substate and if not use a type of moss that doesnt have alot of big wood chips or wood particals in it. sometimes they will miss the cricket and eat that instead and you dont want them eating some peice of wood that cant be digested. and just make sure to mist them like twice a day. makes there activity and color come alive. well hope ive helped you out. :)
 
I am very thankful for people like you Kyle, its great that you went to a place that wasnt trusted or liked for its reptiles and turned it around! I have Eowyn in a naturalistic setup. I am keeping her in a good sized critter carrier that she seems very happy in. She is sooo small! I have a bunch of silk leaves and a paper towel roll in there with a bottle cap full of water. The temps in my room are around 75 so she should be just fine. I have her on bed a beast so she wont swallow anything and she seems to be fine actually on banana baby food and cgd! I cant find pinheads in my area so I might end up not feeding her those till she is big enough for the bigger ones!
How often should I feed her?
 
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