Natural set-up for AFT

KTyne

Kayla
Messages
531
Location
Lancaster Park, AB
I have 2 "pet only" Geckos that I am looking to make their enclosures in to a more natural looking set-up for them. My Leo that is only a pet I am going to wait until she is eating regularly again to even consider moving her off of paper towel.

My pet AFT though I want to put on a more natural substrate asap. I think she would benefit from extra humidity in her enclosure in general.

What would be the best substrate? I was thinking about Coco Fiber with some organic potting soil or something, maybe with a tiny bit of sand and gravel mixed in there. Then on the hot side I would put a piece of slate tile with a more shallow bit of the substrate on that side so that the heat from the UTH will still be high enough on that end. :)

Any tips I should know for this type of set-up?

I would love to see photos of anybody's set-ups that they have in this way.
 

acpart

Geck-cessories
Staff member
Messages
15,119
Location
Somerville, MA
I use coco fiber. I put a hydroton drainage layer in 2/3 of the tank and wrap the mesh around it to hold them there. the remaining 1/3 of the tank has the UTH and is covered with coco fiber but no drainage layer so the AFT's can benefit from the heat. The very first setup I made, I hadn't figured that out yet, so I put a piece of plexiglass as a divider between the drainage and non-drainage parts. There's a picture below of how it looked when I first set it up. It looks a bit different now, 6 years later, but the setup remains:


Aliza
 

KTyne

Kayla
Messages
531
Location
Lancaster Park, AB
Awsome, thanks! I didn't think about the drainage layer, although that would probably be a good idea, lol.
So far I just put in a 1 inch or so layer of coco fiber mixed with shredded Aspen. Then on the hot end I put slate tiles.
 

Olympus

Biologist & Ecologist
Messages
298
Location
Miami, Fl.
I have a colony of girls right now and this is their tank, approximately 65 gallons, and it's always been naturalistic. I change it around every so often (from tropical to more woodsy, etc.) but it's always been fully planted. I used to use a drainage layer but I've never found this tank to be wet enough to need one after all, since it's not like these geckos have the humidity requirements of dart frogs.

I have 3 smallish UTH in three separate areas, so they have three warm hides to choose one and an assortment of cool ones. However, since these geckos are natural diggers they make their own hides wherever they want, which is cute.


African gecko tank.jpg
New Tank January 1.jpg
 

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