wohnzimmer farben orange
today is the day! people ask us all the time: why won't you do an episode about leopard geckos? today is the day! welcome to reptil.tv. today’s' topic are leopard geckos. here we have an animal how god created it - with its typical color. but humans always want to intervene and take the species a bit further through breeding. because of that, i'll show you some color mutations that you can find in herpetology. with leopard geckos, there are different albino lines. to my right i've got a tremper albino. to my left, i have a so called bell albino. bell albinos have a darker color and have a bit more brown. the trempers' have higher percentage of yellow in their skin color. to my left, i've got a so-called tangerine carrot tail.
tangerine due to the orange and yellow color scheme. carrot tail, because his tail looks like a carrot. they used to be called high yellows, that was when they still had a small percentage of black. by now, they don't have any black left, because the breeding has been enhanced and perfected that much. and then you have these tails - therefore it is called tangerine carrot tail. if there aren't any black spots visible, you can also say patternless tangerine carrot tail. to my right, i have a tangelo. the name is a pun. it's supposed to be called a tangerine albino - especially ron tremper uses that name a lot. it's ron trempers' albino tangerine line that is now called tangelo. if you compare these too, you can see the differences quite clearly. this one isn't a patternless, because you still can see the diagonal foliation. the bigger the animal gets, the more this diagonal foliation reduces. but i believe, that even with an adult animal, you will still see this diagonal foliation.
to my right, you can see a sunglow. it also belongs to this super hypo tangerine carrot tail line. in this case also as an albino. albino super hypo tangerine carrot tail. to my left, you can see a blizzard - sometimes they are also called leucistic or patternless. this is still part of the color they have in their adolescence. during their adolescence the animals are a bit darker and some also have - at least to some extent - these spots. the bigger the animals get, the brighter their color becomes and these spots increasingly disappear. the animal to my right is a sunglow albino enigma. the enigma's are a very nice leopard gecko variation. unfortunately, some enigmas' have a neurologic dysfunction - some have problems keeping their balance. therefore it can be a bit problematic to breed them. the animal to my left is a tornado. tornados' stand out with their more intense and beautiful orange tinct. they have a nice orange color that is distributed over their body.
to my right, i have an eclipse. these animals have black eyes - that's why they are really interesting. and they have different markings. to my left i have a raptor, that's the short form for: redeye albino patternless tremper orange. very nice albinos from the tremper line of breed. leopard geckos are glad if they life in a big terrarium, this terrarium has the dimensions 1m x 50 cm x 60 cm. for me, this is a good size for leopard geckos. it is your choice if your terrarium is made out of glass, wood or plastic. i put this gals terrarium here for symbolic purposes. of course you need the adequate fittings. spot radiators are suited for heating the terrarium. for a terrarium of this size, i would use 50 or 75 watt spot radiator. of course you have to experiment what temperature you'll achieve. for uv illumination, i have a d 3 uv lamp. their are many different opinions if leopard geckos need uv light or not. or is it enough if they take the d3 into their body through their food. my opinion is, that if you have enough space in your terrarium to install a uv light, i would always install one with a good uv percentage.
maybe not as a spot radiator, as you would use it with bearded dragons. an energy-efficient lamp, just like this one, is good solution. you should use a heat resistant ceramic bulb fitting and a heat resistant electric cable. the caves where the leopard geckos can hide are also very important. you can use these rather spartanian plastic caves - or you can use a cave that has a stone like appearance. you can also use a piece of cork as a hiding place. the hiding place should be kept moist. out in the wild, their hiding places are also moist. here we have the litter, or rather the substratum. leopard geckos are desert dwellers, typically you would use a red or more chunky brown sand substratum. the animal probably doesn't mind the color of the substratum. we use substratum based on wood for our leopard geckos. for us the use has been well-proven.
it seems as if the animals like it. i know many breeders that use a wooden substratum. of course their will be some discussion about this fact on the internet. that's totally alright. let us discuss which one is better. wood or sand. as said, we've been using the wood for years. but sand is certainly suited just as good. here we have a thermometer for checking the temperature. measure the different temperature zones in you terrarium and make sure that they are within the limits. in regard to climatical conditions, leopard geckos are modest animals. at day you need a temperature between 30-35ñƒ at the hottest place, under the spot. the coldest area in the terrarium, at the side, can be down to 25ñƒ. at night you can turn off everything. leopard geckos live in veldt or desert areas - where the temperature really can drop. that's the reason why you can turn off everything and let the temperature reach room temperature.
a good tip is to cover the rear and side walls with cork. that way you don't need to use that much energy for heating. if you insulate a terrarium with this size properly, 100 watts of energy should be enough. what is also important, is the animals' diet. you have two options. and leopard geckos prefer different types of food. a bit of background information: the americans feed a lot mealworms. therefore you have to find out if you animal eats mealworms. this is the first option. in germany it is common that insects that crawl are feed. insects with legs, like house crickets, crickets and cockroaches. in germany the opinion prevails that feeding worms is not as healthy for the animals and that they contain too much fat. as said before, americans mainly feed mealworms.
my opinion is, that with leopard geckos it is alright to feed mealworms. you have to find out what meal you geckos prefer. if you feed mealworms, these ceramic bowls have proven very useful. fill the bottom with cuttlebone, then you can fill the bowl with meal worms, until it is have-full. this way the animals can feed on them, when they are hungry. don't forget the cuttlebone. you can also use chalk powder, but be careful not to use too much, because otherwise the mealworms will die due to the powder. that's why i prefer the cuttlebone. if you feed crickets or cock roaches, then you should use a mineral supplement. there are different vendors: necton, herbamed or herpetal, you can try all of them. all three sell great supplements. always powder the feed. we already did a special on how to feed your reptiles. that was in episode 19, where we talked more thoroughly about all the facts.
let's talk about what size leopard geckos can reach and how old they can become. this is a full grown female. she's about 20cm long. males can reach up to 25cm. also their is a so-called giant line of animals. they really are enormous animals. i saw some animas that where well over 30cm long. and i would guess that they were twice as heavy as this animal. but they are breed very selectively. the average size is between 20 and 25 cm. leopard geckos can grow quite old. in accordance with books about leopard geckos and statements found on the internet, they can grow to be 20-25 years old. i believe this is a realistic age. some customers have their animals for over 15 years now - and they still are alive. i think this is definitely an age they can reach. leopard geckos moult, just like all reptiles.
normally they moult in one piece. in case you wonder, you'll probably never find the skin, because the animals eat it after moulting. that's why you won't find a skin, even though the animal has moulted. you can quite easily see when the animals moult, because their skin turns milky and hazy - that is a clear sign that they are going to moult. leopard geckos are veldt dwellers. there area of origin is the middle east. pakistan, afghanistan, iran and iraq - all the way to india and i believe they even can be found in parts of the former soviet union. you have to pay attention, because a common problem with leopard geckos are cryptosporidium. they are monads. you can take a scat sample and let it be analyzed. there special analysis that test for cryptosporidium. they are a bit more expensive than standard scat samples. but if you have a leopard gecko they are really important and i can only advise you to take one. many people have lost many animals because of these cryptosporidium. be sure to let the scat be examined on a regular basis. be sure to keep a new animal under quarantine, until you have examined the scat sample - be careful not to introduce cryptosporidium. if they have cryptosporidium, then you can often identified, when the tail looks like a match stick. the body is relatively normal but the tails get thinner.
because of this, the expression 'match stick tail' is used. the tail become thin and wrinkled. an other symptom is a transparent watery belly, if they have cryptosporids. don't rely solely on these symptoms. take a scat sample and let it be analyzed - especially if you have a new animal - but also on a regular basis with your existing population. there are really great books on leopard geckos. i always give the advice not to rely solely on the internet and youtube, even if it is such a great show as ours... we can't cover every topic in 15 minutes. that's impossible! therefore take my advice and buy the corresponding books or borrow them. as i said, there are fantastic books about leopard geckos. read about the topic! on one hand reading is fun. on the other hand you'll hardly find a more comprehensive source of information. that's all for today’s' special on leopard geckos.
stay tuned!check my balls and check my leos! it would be better for you, if you stayed behind the camera! it's an ... an ... ohm ... can we leave it at that - or do we have to do it again? that's actually the way i wanted to say it. leopard geckos! ... what was the topic? how they moult? ... ohm ... alright ... hehe ... what did i say? they come included with cryptosporids.alright, we'll have to do that again, don't we? here we have [long pause] herpetal ... ohm ... complete.
that ending was really meshuga ... ohm ... wait, let me think.did i forget something? camera man: alright, we'll use the shoot, at least we have something that way.stefan: yeah, that's good.