Crested Gecko Caresheet
Crested Geckos (Rhacodactylus ciliatus) are a medium sized nocturnal gecko from New Caledonia. They spend most of their time up in the trees although they do often venture nearer the ground. They reach about 8 - 10 inches in size and their longativity is currently unknown, this is due to them only being rediscovered in 1994 after a presumed extinction. Since their rediscovery they have entered the pet trade and their popularity has grown hugely ever since. Like most geckos they have sticky toes, they also have a prehensile tail with a sticky pad on the end allowing them to climb most surfaces, they can also jump fair distances making them very agile. They become very tame with frequent handling and make great pets.
Housing
Due to their arboreal nature they prefer an enclosure with more height. A good sized enclosure for an adult would be a Exo Terra 45x45x60cm or similar size. Exo Terra glass vivariums in the 45x45x60cm size make perfect enclosures for adults, with this size being perfect for a pair or maximum a trio. If you are housing more than one gecko together, please make sure there is only one male per enclosure to prevent fighting. Just like leopard geckos, it is not guaranteed that multiple animals will always get on, so you should always have the resources to house them seperately. You should make sure their enclosure has pently of hiding space as they will make use of this during the day when they are resting as they are nocturnal. Having plenty of foilage will give them this hiding space and also give them space to explore when they are awake at night. You can also add pieces of bark, bamboo etc to create an environment as natural as you like. You can use real plants if you wish, these geckos are perfect for naturlistic setups as they thrive in these conditions. You should mist your geckos enclosure in the evening, this will normally trigger them to drink the drips from foilage and also helps maintain the humidity levels they need.
Substrate
So what substrate should you use on the bottom of your vivarium? This depends on whether you are creating a simple or naturalistic set-up. The options you have are listed below, along with any advantages and disadvantages of each one.
Eco-Earth - Advantages: easy to spot clean, holds humidity, looks natural. Disadvantages: can cause impaction if ingested.
Moss - Advantages: easy to spot clean, holds humidity, looks natural and can mix with eco earth. Disadvantages: Can be ingested, can mold.
Bark - Advantages: holds humidity, looks natural and can mix with eco earth. Disadvantages: Can be ingested and as its large sharper particles than eco-earth it would be much harder for the gecko to pass, personally its a substrate I would never use but people do use it with no problems.
Paper Towels - Advantages: no risk of impaction, easy to change. Disadvantages: looks unnatural, hard to spot clean.
I will only use paper towels as a substrate for hatchlings or any young geckos until they are 15-20g this is because if they do eat a little substrate such a tiny gecko can get impacted easily and this sadly usually leads to death.
Heating
Crested geckos, like all reptiles are cold blooded, so they need to thermoregulate. What this means is that they move around in their environment to regulate how warm their bodies are. However, crested geckos are slightly different to many reptiles in that they thrive in temperatures around the mid 70 ºF's. This means that in most households they thrive at room temperature. So if you live in a house with central heating you should not need to add any other heat source to the enclosure. They can handle night time temperatures into the 50 ºF's as long as they are able to warm up during the day. If you feel that you do need to add a heat source you must be very careful not to overheat your crested gecko. They are sensitive to high temperatures and anything above 85 ºF can be fatal. If you do want to add extra heat we recommend the use of a low wattage thermostatted bulb, ceramic or heat bulb. The bulb can be outside the tank (sat on top of the exo-terra) or inside but you must use a bulb guard so the gecko can not get in direct contact with the bulb. A heatmat can be used but you have to be careful as these heat the glass tank rather than the air temp and if it gets too warm it can burn the geckos feet and it may cause the gecko to loose its stickyness. This must be monitored using a digital thermometer, ensuring it never reaches temperatures above 85 ºF. The thermostat probe should be placed as close to the bulb as the gecko can get and the temperature set and monitored until it is correct as the temperatures on the thermostat dials are not accurate enough to go by.
Lighting
Crested geckos are nocturnal so they do not need to be provided with UV light, however although not required it is thought to help them with the absorption of calcium and also help aid geckos with MBD (Metabolic Bone Disease).
You can add a low wattage red or moonlight light bulb so you can see your gecko when at night, these bulbs wont affect the gecko they will still thing it is night time. If your vivarium is kept in a darker room you may wish to add a low wattage or energy saving light bulb to give them some light in the day, just so they can tell when its day and when its night. This can be controlled by a timer so it gives them a set light pattern.
Feeding / Supplements
Crested geckos give you a choice when it comes to feeding. You can give them a diet based on livefood, a diet which contains NO livefood or a varied diet providing livefood and CGD. If you wish to take the livefood route, you can use most of the common feeder insects available, including mealworms, crickets, locusts, small roaches and the odd waxworm as a treat. A varied diet is always best, so chaging what food you use every now and again will benefit your gecko. It is important to make sure you gutload any insects before feeding them to your gecko, this ensures they are full of the nutrition your gecko needs. You can buy insect food from most of the livefood suppliers, which do this for youIf you feed crickets make sure you do not leave any left over crickets in the vivarium for too long as they can munch on your gecko while its sleeping, not something you want to happen.
If feeding livefood, you must also supplement your insects with a calcium and multi-vitamin powder, for this you need to dust your feeder insects with a calcium / vitamin powder before feeding them. How often you need to do this depends on the age of your gecko. For babies, dust with calcium 5 days of the week, and with a multi-vitamin 2 days of the week. For adults, you can cut down to calcium 2 times a week and a multi-vitamin just once a week. An easy way to dust your insects is to put some dust in a bag, drop the insects in, shake the bag and then tip the insects into the vivarium.
If you want to give them a diet consisting of no livefood or a combination of livefood and CGD then you have several options which are listed below. These are complete diets and need no extra supplementation.
Complete Crested Gecko Diet (CGDs)
Repashy or Clarkes - Both of these CGDs are very popular among the Crested Gecko community. They come in a powdered form, which you mix with water and give to your geckos as a paste. Both of these diets have been tailored over years to get them as near natural as possible in regards to the correct levels of vitamins and supplements that they require. These diets are not readily available in most reptile shops so need to be ordered off the interenet.
Other CGDs - There are a number of other CGDs available on the market, including Komodo and Zoo-med these are easier to pick up in your local reptile shop but many geckos will not eat them.
When buying a new gecko its crucial to find out which CGD they are currently eating and make sure you get some, if you want to convert them over to another diet this can be done gradually but while they are settling in its best to give them what they are used too.
Cleaning
Crested geckos tend to defecate all over the vivarium, not in one place like some other species do. You should spot clean the vivarium daily as this will help keep your vivarium free of bacteria. A full clean out should be done when needed, how often this is will depend on how you have your vivarium set up. If you have a naturalistic set up, you can go longer between full cleans, as the natural bacteria present will take care of some of your cleaning duties. Otherwise every week or so will be sufficient. During a full clean you should clean any furniture in the vivairum with a reptile disinfectant. If you keep the vivarium clean in this way you should minimise any health problems.
Breeding / Sexing
Crested Geckos are very easy to breed in cativity. The first thing you need to do if you want to breed your geckos is to make sure you have a boy and a girl. Sexing mature crested geckos is really easy, you will see 2 obvious (and normally huge!) bulges at the base of a males tail, along with pores (which as small pin dots in the centre of the scales between the back legs of the undersife of your gecko). A female crested gecko will not have these bulges or pores, although some adult females do show slight pores.
The next important step in breeding your geckos is that both animals are healthy and old enough, breeding ill or young geckos can lead to major problems. Males can be bred from around a year old, and females should be 15 - 18 months old before breeding and weight around 40 grams+. You should make sure your breeding females are being fed high quality, gutloaded and dusted insects and plenty of CGD to ensure they have the reserves needed to produce eggs. It is important that your females get plenty of calcium, as this is used greatly in egg production, you may wish to add a small dish of calcium powder in the tank for her to help herself to. You should check the calcium sacks in the roof of your female geckos mouth once a month or so to check she is not running low on calcium reserves. To do this hold her firmly and gently run your finger from her nose tip along her lips to the edge of her mouth, she should hopefully gape and you can then see the sacks just watch your fingers as they may accidentally bite you (it doesnt really hurt dont worry!)
You should introduce your geckos in late february / early march and they should mate quite quickly, you should keep an eye on the pair, ensuring the male does over breed / pester the female. If he does they will need seperating, or you can add more females to take the stress off just one individual, however they still need to be monitored closely. Once they have successfully mated the female will be ready to lay her first eggs within the next month or two, you need to ensure she has somewhere to lay her eggs.
You can make her a laying box, which must be big enough for her to dig and move around in. This should have a small opening and contain a damp laying subsrate such as vermiculite, eco-earth or moss. Now is the time you also need to make sure you have suitable means of incubating the eggs, you can buy an incubator or make your own, they can often be incubated at room temperature too, especially if its a slightly warmer than average room like a reptile room. If you want to make your own, all you need is a polybox, a cake cooling rack, a heatmat, a thermostat and tubs / substrate to incubate the eggs in. Crested gecko eggs should be incubated somewhere between 72 ºF and 80 ºF, around 76 ºF is best. There is currently no proof to say that crested geckos are temperature sexed like leopard geckos, but incubating the eggs at the cooler end of the temperatures usually gives you larger, stronger hatchlings with better crests.
Once your female lays her eggs you should carefully transfer them to a small tub of damp but not soaking wet, vermiculite / pearlite (our reccomended incubation substrate) / moss. You should place a few small air holes in this tub and place it inside your incubator, its best to check on the eggs once a week carefully lifting the lid off the tub to let fresh air into the tub. Depending on the temperature they can take between 45-120days+ to hatch, a week or so before they are due to hatch you will see stress / stretch marks on the eggs like they are about to pop. Clutchmates usually hatch pretty close together but it has been known for them to hatch upto 2 weeks apart.
Your female should continue to lay a pair of eggs every 4-8 weeks until around September / October. If your male is still with the female/s at this time its best to put him in his own enclosure to give both him and her a rest and chance to regain any lost weight in peace.
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