D-3

[Mr. gecko]

I was wondering if it is all right to keep this in a dish inside my geckos habitat. it is called TREX leopard gecko calcium plus vitamin supplement I think it has D3 in it.

 

[roger]

I was wondering if it is all right to keep this in a dish inside my geckos habitat. it is called TREX leopard gecko calcium plus vitamin supplement I think it has D3 in it.

Too much D3 is harmful.Leos need only calcuium 24/7.The multivitamin should be used weekely and the calcium D3 should be used monthly IMO

 

[Jgreen909]

Everyone has different ideas on the whole cal vs. cal-d3. I have seen everything from keeping D3 in the cage 24/7 to never using it. Maybe this thread will have the info you need. http://geckoforums.net/showthread.php?t=47162

I also found this in the thread below.
http://geckoforums.net/showthread.php?t=55664

+2

Vitamin D3 is a vitamin that helps with the absorption of calcium. If you don't have enough, the calcium just hangs around in your body, and doesn't actually hep to make strong bones. Most animals make their own D3 simply by having exposure to the UV in sunlight...it is a natural process. Since leopard geckos don't see the sun much, they get theirs from their food, so you should dust your feeders with it.

Cant speak for all but my Ca+D3 (Exo-terra) contains 65 mg/kg and comes in a 90g bottle which last me about 2 years (including waste via the shake-n-bake method). This equates to less than 5.85mg of D3 for over the course of close to 2 years - NOT including waste. This is at most 0.009mg per day, assuming 100% utilization. That means less than nine one-thousandths of a thousandth of a gram per day. I dont dust everyday, so my gecko receives even less than that.

My opinion - there is no risk. I have kept reptiles (and used Ca+D3) for many, MANY years. Until I see scientific, peer-reviewed articles that say otherwise, I will stand by my statement.


As helpful as the internet is, it is a source of tremendous disinformation. Just because someone says D3 is bad, it does NOT make it so. Multiple scientific, peer-reviewed articles are essential to prove or disprove a hypothesis.

 

[cryptid_hunter]

I agree with the above, I've used Rep-Cal calcium + D3 (no phosphorous) for quite some time and dust crickets with it 4 or 5 times a week. But for my calcium dishes I just use pure calcium without D3 since they get the D3 from the dusted crickets several times weekly. My "shake and bake" dust that I use every day contains 75% Rep-Cal calcium with D3 and 25% of the Rep-Cal Multivitamin. And my geckos are all in great shape.

 

[Desdemona]

I'm saying this from knoweldge of human vitamins.. but D3 = the most natural form of D that is possible to make. There is just Vitamin D, which is a chemical version. You can overdose on chemical vits a LOT faster than you can overdose on food base vits.

I would think that you'd have to give the gecko a lot of D3 for it to harm them (I am a pretty new Gecko owner, but if D3 was so bad I'm sure you'd find more long time owners who's geckos have major health issues). There may have been a cheap pet food company at some time using just D, and making Gecko's sick.... bringing people to the conclusion that it is bad. The two are not created equal.

 

[fl_orchidslave]

That is the same product as Rephashy Plus, marketed by T Rex in retail outlets. It's a balanced formula of vits + minerals for dusting. No additional supplementation is needed per the manufacturer instructions.