What is a good rule of thumb to follow when it comes to giving my juvenile leopard gecko calcium? If I keep a little dish of calcium with no d3 inside the enclosure and I gut pod the bugs do I need to dust the bugs? Her urate is yellowish and it gets more yellow the longer it sits.
#calcium and vitamin D3
boreal flint
floral stratus
check out the link at the bottom of this command !supplement!
hasty lichenBOT
Supplements are a necessary part of a leopard gecko's (or most any captive herp's) diet. In the wild, they would be eating a wide variety of prey, and that prey would be eating a wide variety of foods itself. In captivity, there's no way to replicate this perfectly, which is why offering supplements and as varied of a diet as possible is crucial in preventing deficiencies and illness.
The exact schedule you use for supplements will depend on your individual animal, its age, and your feeding schedule. However, a good place to start is by picking up some calcium, calcium + D3, and multivitamins. If you use UVB, you will likely not need a D3 supplement since UVB allows reptiles to produce their own D3. This takes the guessing game out of how much D3 to provide (they can overdose on it) since they will regulate their exposure and D3 levels themselves. D3 is needed to use calcium in the body, so animals will become calcium deficient without D3. Additionally, make sure any calcium supplements you use are phosphorus free since they generally get enough phosphorus in their diet, and too much will cause a calcium deficiency.
Fluker's Calcium + D3 https://bit.ly/39lMQ9d
ZooMed's ReptiCalcium with D3 https://bit.ly/3f7lHdS
Fluker's Calcium (no D3) https://bit.ly/3ntLUpD
ZooMed's ReptiCalcium (no D3) https://bit.ly/2wrkeN0
RepCal Calcium (no D3) https://bit.ly/35DMY4u
Repashy Calcium Plus Multivitamin https://bit.ly/39kqVPu
RepCal Herpivite Multivitamin https://amzn.to/3lBo4rK
ZooMed Reptivite Multivitamin https://amzn.to/38NMQRL
Fluker's Repta Vitamin Multivitamin https://amzn.to/3lC8TON
If you'd like to learn more about how to assess supplement brands, here's a good article from Reptifiles: https://reptifiles.com/reptile-vitamins-reptile-calcium/
If you'd like to learn more about how reptiles use D3, here's an article from Arcadia: https://www.arcadiareptile.com/d3-cycle/
Example supplementation schedules:
http://bit.ly/3cpFcyO
floral stratus
it’s a premade schedule for you
boreal flint
Awwww thank you so much!! My leopard gecko has not been acting right since she has had pinworms and her age is a guessing game we think she is 6 months. It’s just very irritating because everything is a guessing game lol
How do I know how much calcium and d3 she is getting. She uses a UVB
So if I use UVB then I don’t need to use vitamin d3 correct?
floral stratus
yeah!
multivitamin you’d do around every 4th feeding (that’s what i do)
i supplement with d3 once a month anyway but it’s optional
and regular calcium you do every feeding
boreal flint
Oh awesome ok sweet!! Thank you so much. How much UVB are you using with yours?
boreal flint
I have an albino and right now I have 10% so I will go for a 5%?
floral stratus
10% is definitely too high yeah. you can do a 5% on the mesh with lots of clutter
boreal flint
Ok I will def get rid of the 10% thank you. I found one on Amazon it’s eco terra reptile-glo 2.0 compact fluorescent bulb 13 watt. Would that be ok?
floral stratus
do you have a picture? 2% would need to be mounted inside the tank
boreal flint
Yes
hasty lichenBOT
boreal flint
So something like this for example?
floral stratus
yeah! you’d just need a fixture
they come in a kit iirc
there should be a link on the list
boreal flint
Ok awesome I will look into that. So what is the different between that and what I use now?
floral stratus
this explains it better than i can #helpful-resources message
boreal flint
Ok awesome I will def read that article thank you for that
boreal flint
Would this be ok for my wild morph leopard gecko Tristen?
Can I use this for my albino leo Elliot?
floral stratus
no, you don’t want bulbs that emit both heat and UVB. check out !shoppinglist
hasty lichenBOT
floral stratus
we got links for everything
boreal flint
I don’t have the money to buy a tube bulb I have domes that I’m using for now. I want to find halogen bulbs with just UVB but it doesn’t seem like they are just made with UVB only
floral stratus
you shouldn’t use those
they cannot be used with thermostats and emit dangerous/unstable levels of UVB
that’s why you need one UVB bulb and one for heat
boreal flint
I do have a heat emitter I just need a UVB but my albino hates light and I know she needs it. So I’m having a hard time finding one that’s more natural to sunlight then a fluorescent bulb
Ok I will not use them
floral stratus
the best heat source you can use is an incandescent bulb. the shopping list has products linked you can look at