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Crested Gecko Origin
The crested gecko originated from a group of islands northeast of Australia, called New Caledonia.
They live in rainforests, and rather humid habitats in trees and bushes around 1-3 meters tall.
There they prefer to stay hidden, and since they are nocturnal and crepuscular animals, they don’t often come out in the daylight hours.
Appearance
These geckos can look very different from each other, and all have specific traits often referred to as “morphs”. However, only a handful of them is actual morphs.
We have written a document about these specific traits, that you can find on our website.
Crested geckos are also referred to as eyelash geckos, named after their beautiful pins over their eyes that almost look like eyelashes. They are born with long tails, although some drop them and live the rest of their lives without.
Size
An adult gecko weighs between 35-60g. They can however get bigger than that without necessarily being overweight. If the gecko has a lot of rolls under its chin and weighs more than the average gecko, it might be an indicator of it being overfed. They get around 25cm with their tail being almost half of the length.
Diet
The diet of a wild crested gecko vs a captive one differs a lot.
In the wild, they live on a variety of insects, overripe or rotten fruits, bee pollen and nectar and many other different things they can find and survive on.
However in captivity, crested geckos are fed a complete diet, usually referred to as “CGD” or “MRP”.
These complete diets are powderes that only need to be mixed with water into a consistency of yoghurt or ketchup.
These diets cover all the nutrients a crested gecko needs, and therefore no other foods or vitamins are necessary.
Our and others prefered CGD brands:
Pangea, Repashy and Gecko Nutrition.
While the diets are fine alone, it is recommended to also feed your gecko insects of variety.
Offering these twice a week stimulates the gecko both mentally and physically.
It’s a great source of protein, and your gecko will grow quicker and healthier if eating insects.
However not all geckos want to, and that is also completely fine.
When feeding insects, it’s a must to dust them in calcium powder. Otherwise, your gecko will not get enough calcium and might get diseases like MBD.
If you are not feeding with insects, extra calcium is not needed.
Geckos often tend to use a few days and up to a month to settle down into their new home. So don’t be scared if they don’t start eating in the beginning.
And smaller geckos only eat a tiny amount, so you might not be able to tell at all.
If you want to make sure they are eating, you can place a food bowl with just a tiny bit of food, so you can easily tell if there are any lick marks.
Some geckos eat more than others, and it also depends a lot on the size of the gecko. They don’t usually eat more than the size of their head, but it might be easier to figure out how much your gecko needs by seeing how much it eats. As long as it doesn’t get overweight, or lose weight, it’s all good.
Remember to provide your gecko with a small water dish the size. Although they drink the water droplets after misting it’s always good to make sure they have access to clean drinking water.
Crested Gecko Housing
Temp and Humidity
These geckos are used to the humid and mid temperatures of New Caledonia.
It’s therefore recommended to keep them at around 22-27 degrees celsius.
They can survive both hotter and colder temperatures, but don’t thrive well in them, and especially not over longer periods of time.
They thrive with a humidity of around 70-80%, but needs a dry period, preferable during the day. If you mist at night, then you can wait again until the next night to mist again.
If the enclosure dries out quickly, you can pour water into the substrate to make sure it’s humid (Although never wet, as that can cause problems).
Lighting
Crested geckos are known to survive both with and without any UVB, and it’s a current heavily debated subject. So let it be up to yourself if you want your gecko to have it or not.
They do however need some form of light, and for that natural daylight is just fine, so they can get an idea of the time of day. They won’t come out much during the daytime anyway.
Setup
When creating the enclosure for your gecko, you want to recreate its natural environment.
That means giving them plenty of height, hiding spaces and places to climb. These geckos are good glass climbers, and also have tiny nails to hold on with.
There are plenty of reptile substrates to choose from, but not all are safe for these geckos. Substrates like sand, carpet, clay or shavings are not good for your crested gecko. Instead, you want to go for either papertowel or soil.
When using papertowel, you will have to clean it out more often, and it turns mouldy quickly.
The size of the enclosure can depend on multiple things. Some people prefer starting with a small one for a baby and then upgrading to a bigger tank. It mostly depends on people's “beliefs” and how much space they have to utilize.
Some keepers, mostly breeders use smaller enclosures for their geckos, to save space, so although these are the roughly recommended sizes you might see geckos live in smaller housings. We prefer to start smaller and upgrade with age, for multiple reasons. Here are some enclosure size ideas in cm for your gecko, depending on its weight.
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0-10g around 30x20x20
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10-20g around 30x30x30
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20-30g around 30x30x40
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30+g around 45x45x65
You don’t need the tank to be a terrarium, since some aquariums work nicely and plastic tubs are also a cheap and great way to house geckos. Just remember ventilation.
When decorating the enclosure, remember to use plenty of sticks, cork rounds, plants (Fake or Real) and whatever you can come up with that makes for good hides or climbing options.
Need inspiration? Check out our Facebook album called “New Caledonia Enclosures”.
Cohabbing
Crested geckos are solitary animals, meaning they prefer their own housing and do not want to share with other geckos. Therefore cohabiting is not a good or ideal way of keeping more geckos.
A few reasons why not:
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They tend to get into fights, biting and hurting each other in the process.
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Often the dominant gecko will be the only one eating since the submissive one doesn’t dare touch the food.
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If it’s a male and female, he will breed her non-stop, which can lead to her death.
Quarantine
When getting in new animals, no matter how known the breeder is, you’ll always need to quarantine it.
This goes for all reptiles and the rules are somewhat universal. But most importantly, keep them away from your other animals, and wash hands between touching your new pet and your old one.
You want to have them quarantined for a minimum of 60 days, but it’s commonly done for 90.
Sex determination
When owning a gecko, you would probably want to know the gender, no matter if you are going to be breeding or not.
When sexing small geckos 4-14g, you will be looking for something called pores. Males have pores, whereas females have none. Googling a photo of this might help you better understand.
But just because your gecko has no pores, doesn’t mean it won’t get any. So you can’t really be sure until it has hit a weight of 30g and still hasn’t shown any signs of being a male.
However, at around 15-25g males begin to grow “cresticles”, as some like to call them. It’s a bulge underneath the gecko where the tail starts.
Google might be your friend here again.
Some females can grow a rather large bulge as well, but not nearly as big as the males.
Also, if you find any eggs in the enclosure that is a pretty good female indicator, but we will get into the eggs later.
Eggs
Some females lay eggs, also called duds when not fertile. They are usually less round and more yellow than a fertile egg, and when lighting them with a flashlight it’s yellow inside all the way around.
However, it is possible for females to lay partho eggs, where she fertilisés her own eggs. These eggs look like normal, white and round eggs.
Lighting them will show a small red ring inside, which you want to turn up when putting them into a hatching medium.
Breeding
It’s recommended to study before breeding any animal, so this is for educational purposes only. We don’t recommend breeding your geckos before you’ve had at least 6 months of experience with owning this species.
- Find two geckos with desirable qualities. Do this by searching the market for what is “popular”. This tends to be geckos with a lot of pattern and colour, but not necessarily just that.
- Make sure you’ve had your animal quarantined for at least 3 months before breeding them.
- Females need to weigh at least 45g and males around the same. The bigger the female is, the more suited she is for breeding since it does take a big toll on her to lay her eggs.
- They only need to mate once, so putting them in a small container and waiting until they are done is enough. You can also put the male into the female's enclosure and let him stay for 1-2 weeks.
- Make sure the female has a place to lay her eggs, preferably a lay box that is easily made and filled with either dirt or moss. Not all females use their lay box, so you might find the eggs laying somewhere else.
- Around 25-45 days after breeding, the eggs should have been laid. If not, you might need to breed them again, although it’s recommended to wait a few months.
- When eggs come, put them in a humid hatching medium. Vermiculite, dirt, or repashy super hatch are good examples. Make sure the medium isn’t wet, and that the container is air sealed. Some poke 1 or 2 small holes in the lid.
- The hatch date depends on the temperature. Colder environments take longer, and hotter takes less time. Try keeping it around 20-24 degrees celsius, and you will find babies after 60-90 days. It might however take up to 120, so be patient.
- When the babies hatch, put them in a small housing, and care for them like the rest of your geckos. You can use papertowel in the beginning, to better see poops and make sure your gecko is eating.
Handling
There is a recommended 2 week acclimation period, before starting to handle your gecko. Make sure it is eating, pooping and thriving before starting to take it out of its enclosure.
Start slowly, with a few minutes and build up from there. Some geckos might already be used to being handled and some might not and therefore get skittish, jump or seem frightened.
You want to stay calm! Try starting with handling them somewhere safe, like above a bed or close to the floor, so if they do jump the landing isn’t too harsh.
You can do the “Hand Walking”, which is basically where you hold one hand out in front of the other, allowing the gecko to walk or jump into it. And keep moving your hands, so there is always a hand for it to walk into.
Geckos don’t get tame. But they can get used to being handled nonetheless. Some however might stay skittish and will prefer to be left alone.
Tail loss
Crested geckos can drop their tails. They seem to do so for the funniest reasons, but mainly when frightened since it’s a defence mechanism.
The tail won’t grow out again, but it will heal into a little nub, often referred to as “frogbutt”.
When they do drop the tail, it’s no big deal and you won’t need to do anything different other than a check up on it a few days later.
Some prefer to give them new sterile housing, but it’s really not necessary, and might just stress the gecko more out.
In the beginning, you will notice it having issues with climbing and jumping since it’s missing its “5 leg”. But after figuring out how everything needs to be done, it will be fine again.