Newbie Seeks Clarifications

[Triggerfish]

Dear All,

Have a pair of Fat-Tailed Geckos housed in a 28 Gallon Tank, details of setup are as follow:-

(1) Substrate: Exo Terra Plantation Soil / moss are sparsely distributed
(2) Lights : Exo-Terra Sun Glo switched on for 08 hours a day; Night Glo for another 04 hours and dark for good
(3) Food : 3-5 Cricket / day and dish of mealworms changed/top-up daily; along with change of water (in the water dish)
(4) Temperature : average of 29 - 31 (daytime)
(5) Humidity : 50 - 60%

Are the above sufficient?
Further Clarifications:-

(1) Any living things will poo after eating, hence, how do I clean or observe their 'toilet habits'?
(2) Since using Plantation Soil as substrate, how often do i need to replace or how to get about maintaining? Read up quite a bit but most gathered info are on Leopard Gecko, which I thought is a rather similar in terms of husbandry.
(3) Am staying in Asia and daily temperature usually remains constant at 29 - 31 Celsius and night usually constant at 26-29, is a heat mat / stone an essential item?

thank you

 

[acpart]

Congratulations on your new fat tails and welcome to the forums. Your set-up sounds good to me in general. Unless you have plants growing, I don't think you need lights (I only have lights because of the plants) since the geckos are nocturnal. If your ambient temps are that high, you're probably OK without the heat mat (it's 17 degrees farenheit in my city today). My fat tail tank has a similar substrate and some plants along with some native bugs that eat some of the poop. Occasionally when the poop mounts up I take it out, but in general I don't clean my planted tanks. The poop frequently composts and fertilizes the plants. If your fat tails are adults, they don't need to eat every day; I feed my adults every 3 days in the winter and every other day in the summer. Most fat tails won't eat mealworms, so if yours aren't being eaten, you may as well take them out.

Aliza

 

[Triggerfish]

ok thank you so much Aliza, i do not know the age of the Geckos as they were bought from another hobbist, both are about 6 inches long, any idea in their ages roughly? thanks

 

[Triggerfish]

By the way had a shock yesterday as saw only one gecko instead of two! Remove most accessories from the terrarium and stirred around the moss but to no avail, gave up thinking that it must have escaped (despite knowing that was near impossible xas tank jis 2 ft in height)
However son saw it crawling out of the moss soon after! Didn't know that they are able to burrow, anyone has similar encounters?

 

[HepCatMoe]

ya they definitely burrow.

if you give them the right kind of substrate they will dig huge elaborate burrows. its kind of neat, but ill warn you now, once they start burrowing you will almost never see them. truly, they are some of the shy-est laziest geckos ever. and if they dig a warm humid burrow where they feel safe, they will almost never come out.

edit: its pretty much impossible to tell the age of gecko once it is an adult. about six inches sounds like adult. if it keeps growing, then you know it is pretty young. but if they dont grow at all (or very very little, i think reptiles grow a tiny little bit their whole life), there is basically no way to know how old they are. if they are max size they could be anywhere between 1 to 13 years old. they might even be older, but its unlikely.

 

[Triggerfish]

SO they do burrow!

ya they definitely burrow.

if you give them the right kind of substrate they will dig huge elaborate burrows. its kind of neat, but ill warn you now, once they start burrowing you will almost never see them. truly, they are some of the shy-est laziest geckos ever. and if they dig a warm humid burrow where they feel safe, they will almost never come out.

edit: its pretty much impossible to tell the age of gecko once it is an adult. about six inches sounds like adult. if it keeps growing, then you know it is pretty young. but if they dont grow at all (or very very little, i think reptiles grow a tiny little bit their whole life), there is basically no way to know how old they are. if they are max size they could be anywhere between 1 to 13 years old. they might even be older, but its unlikely.

thanks for the reply, been using Exo Terra Moss, will it do? thanks!