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Cresties - what are your temps/humidity
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Jackie
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Joined: 22 Jul 2004
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Location: North East England

PostPosted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 2:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Firstly hello and welcome to the forum. Smile

Temperature and humidity - I agree with Crouchy. The temperature seems fine to me for this time of the year.

What substrate are you using?

Don't be too hung up on the humidity being at a constant. I have been keeping and breeding Cresteds for many years now and I no longer spray any of my Rhacs on a nightly basis. I do provide a large shallow water bowl in each viv and that works well. The only time mine get sprayed now is when they are coming up to a slough. I've been doing this for about 6 months and have seen no difference in the behaviour or health to any of my Rhacs. Previously they were getting sprayed every evening. I do give the substrate a light misting every now and again to stop it going 'dusty'. (Have a read of de Vosjoli et al - Rhacodactylus The Complete Guide to the Selection and Care Page 42).

Regarding feeding - how much food are you offering? It could simply be that there is too much food that you don't notice any has been eaten. Like you mentioned look for lick marks. This is my feeding regime for my Cresteds (and most of my other Rhacs);

Firstly, it depends how old they are. I feed my adults, crickets once/twice a week. The crickets are dusted with calcium carbonate and Nutrobal (multi-vitamin). They also get waxmoths every now and again. I feed hatchling Cresteds crickets two or three times a week so they get their food dusted that many times. I find that babies/youngsters prefer livefoods until they reach around 4 months old, then they seem to get a taste for fruit.

I feed mine fruit pulp (or babyfood) once/twice a week. This is dusted with calcium carbonate. One of the fruit feeds is also dusted with spirulina powder. I give mine roughly a teaspoon each of the fruit in a bowl. When I have hatchlings/youngsters I give them theirs in the lid of a milk carton (they will eat about a third of a teaspoon). Fruits such as apple, banana, peach, pear, apricot are favourites with my adults. They also love fresh figs. Most fruits are ok for Cresteds except citrus fruit. I also have a pouch of Ella's Kitchen 100% fruit babyfood on standby.

So basically I feed my adult Cresteds every other day (if they are on a twice weekly cricket feed they only get fruit once and vice versa) and then they have a fast period. For example: day 1 - fruit, day 2 - nothing, day 3 - fruit, day 4 - nothing, day 5 - crickets, day 6 - nothing, day 7 - nothing, day 8 - nothing, then it will be a crickets week. Babies/youngsters are fed the same way except they don't have a fasting period (in other words I feed them every other day).

I think a fasting period for adults is neccessary. In the wild they wouldn't be fed constantly, only when they find over-rippened fruits or a roach (or whatever) crosses their path. We as hobbyists tend to spoil our geckos. I'm sure others will disagree with me, but his works well for me.

This is the diet I follow for my Rhacs. I have chosen not to use CGD etc. simply because I prefer to feed them fruit and livefoods. This way works well for me and I'm sure someone will post their feeding regime for CGD for you.

I understand that as a new keeper you want everything to be right - I freaked out when my first leopard gecko went into slough the first time Embarassed - I don't want to patronise but it's great that you are asking questions. Very Happy
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Dracowoman2
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Joined: 29 Oct 2007
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Location: Gwent

PostPosted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 1:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

My cresties are terrified if crickets Laughing mini Mealworms that have been fed the CGD is another matter, they are like little piggies.

For water I use coca-cola bottle lids with a small hole drilled into them and hung on suction cup plactic hooks on the glass on the side of the terrarium, doesn't look the most pretty, but it give them a nice little arboreal spring and they seem to love them, you could also do the same thing with CGD or babyfood etc, as when all mine were tiny about 4 to 6 weeks old they wouldn't go near the floor I think they wer worried there might be more crickets down there Laughing

Like Jackie said, different people do things differently, and there isn't a wrong way really unless your temps are completely wrong and your givving them the wrong food, it's just a case of what works for you and your cresties. And it's completely natural to panic and worry, I think we all do it, even when we know we shouldn't, it just shows that you are a caring owner Very Happy
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Carol
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Joined: 24 Oct 2007
Posts: 102
Location: Wiltshire

PostPosted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 10:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi there.

First of please don't worry about asking questions - I have asked countless questions since first getting our cresties in November and everyone is so lovely and happy to give advice. And it shows you really care.

I worried all the time when they first arrived, about EVERYTHING as my many posts will attest!!!

Food -
I didn't think they were eating either and tried to handfeed - they just ran away! The crickets were freaking me out so we just switched to liquidised banana mixed with cgd and for the last few months that is all they have had - and all three are still alive and well!!! Once we knew they were happy on the CGD we occasionally give them a few crickets dusted with nutrobal for a treat.

We feed the cgd mix in milk bottle tops, we have 2 cresties in a 24x18x24 exo-terra and they have 2 tops - we blu-tack one up high on a branch and the other is lower down on some cork. Despite it being the biggest exo viv they find the food fine and are growing and shedding ok. We had to move our other baby crestie to his/her own small exo viv as he was being bullied by one of the others - he just gets 1 bottle-top. Sometimes we see dents in the cgd but sometimes if the mix is sloppier we don't.

Humidity
We have eco-earth as a substrate, spray just once a day at night when the humidity goes up to near 100% but gradually falls to about 50-70 by the morning. We treat the water with exo-terra aquatize just a couple of drops per litre, lasts forever - some bottled mineral waters have higher level of certain minerals than tap water - so I would treat all water to be on the safe side.

Temperature
Most of the time the temperatures are in the low 20s - although on a really cold night it did go down to about 15 which I've read isn't a problem if daytime temperatures rise and they can warm up then. However if it is going to really cold we keep the central heating on overnight - we don't have any extra heating.

This is just what we do - but its based on all the brilliant advice given to me by everyone here and on all the many caresheets we've read.

I know its difficult but you will stop panicking!!!

Good luck!
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mark68
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Joined: 02 Mar 2007
Posts: 160

PostPosted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 1:00 pm    Post subject: rhacodactylus geckos Reply with quote

I have the book that Jackie mentions above and generally I would say it is excellent. But it is suprizingly vague about recommended temps. I get the impression that quite a few keepers keep cresties and other rhacs at the ambient room temps rather than provide spot heating. But isn't it better to give the animals the option to bask, say in the gentle heat of a small heatmat ? I know they need to be cooler for part of the year, but they must normally get some warming in the day from solar radiation in the wild surely, for a large part of the year ?

I know also that they are intolerant of high ambient temps, anybody know what temps start to stress them out ?
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negri
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 2:49 pm    Post subject: Re: rhacodactylus geckos Reply with quote

mark68 wrote:
I have the book that Jackie mentions above and generally I would say it is excellent. But it is suprizingly vague about recommended temps. I get the impression that quite a few keepers keep cresties and other rhacs at the ambient room temps rather than provide spot heating. But isn't it better to give the animals the option to bask, say in the gentle heat of a small heatmat ? I know they need to be cooler for part of the year, but they must normally get some warming in the day from solar radiation in the wild surely, for a large part of the year ?

I know also that they are intolerant of high ambient temps, anybody know what temps start to stress them out ?



im sure i read anywhere above 88 for any length of time isnt too good for them
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mike h
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 3:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've been experimenting with spotlight without much success, tends to put teh basking area up to about 87f with a 40watt bulb. As the room temps rise in spring summer then obviously teh basking temp will end up too high. I don't want to spend £45 on a dimmer so I am going to put 13 watt blue lamps in my refelctors so can view the cresties at night. 13 watt squiggly bulbs won't really effect the temps.
For heating I am just going to have a heatmat high up on a normal stat(got loads of those)
In teh past with beardies, yemens, blue tongues, uros, tortoises etc it ahs been easy because they all like a good hotspot but cresties are a bit more difficult, too much can be harmfull so I am joining the rest and going for minimal heating.

mike
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mark68
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 5:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks to Mike and Negri for that.. Anybody use heatmats now for the primary heat for these geckos ? Are they breeding well ?
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