Baby Albino Leo First Time Owner

[distant fractal]

how often are you offering her food?

[south meadow]

Is there anything else I should be looking out for? I feel bad I haven’t been tracking her feeding closely but I know she at least did not eat today or yesterday. Not long enough for me to be worried and she doesn’t seem to be losing weight or anything idk she’s just been less active lately

[south meadow]

I’m still doing daily for now bc she kept taking it but maybe it’s time to start to offer only every other day

The last few times she has eaten it’s only been 1 or 2 bugs anyway. Maybe she’s just growing out of daily feedings?

[distant fractal]

she is def old enough to not be eating daily

[south meadow]

Okay, should I switch to offering every other day then or should it be longer in between?

[distant fractal]

every other day

[south meadow]

And her flattening herself against the floor more than usual- is that a strange behavior I should be concerned about or is she just comfy and growing older and I’m overthinking it?

[distant fractal]

she just sounds comfy lol

[south meadow]

Ok thank goodness 😭 ty for the reassurance Peachy ;-;

[distant fractal]

it can be hard when behavior changes. i get it

just try to not assume the worst ❤️

[south meadow]

Yeh it’s just hard to soothe my anxious brain I’ve been getting better at not being so stressed about her every move as I’ve learned her behaviors but as soon as she acts differently than usual I start panicking

[prisma ermine]

dayum your doing great she has grown

alot

[south meadow]

Ty!!! I know it’s insane my baby has gotten SO BIG 😭 she was barely the size of my palm when I got her 🥹

[south meadow]

Not a huge concern but just wanted to ask and confirm if what I thought was correct- yesterday my parents were over visiting so I took Gumi out so they could see her. She was fine for a while (albeit slightly stressed because she dislikes being taken out/handled in general so I don’t do it too often) but my dad was pacing around and trying to fix my lightbulbs. I told him to stop (he did not bc yk… parents 😭) bc I was worried the lights flickering and the movement would scare Gumi. The lights did not seem to bother her so much but my dad kept walking around in her line of vision and Gumi did this thing where she opened wide and then snapped shut her jaw several times, similar to how she’s reacted when I’ve had to pick her up sometimes.

I’m pretty sure this was a warning sign that she was pissed and wanted to go home so I put her back in her tank. Am I correct to assume my dad walking around a lot in her line of vision is what set her off? She had climbed up onto my arm at the time where she tends to be more comfortable and was not being directly “handled” which is usually the only times I will get outwardly aggressive responses from her.

She doesn’t have a problem with me walking past her tank frequently, but ik she’s a bit wary of anyone that isn’t me and definitely gets on edge when she’s outside of her tank.

[unique flower]

it won’t hurt her in the long run but yes gaping is usually a sign of distress, no saying for sure what it was that set her off

[gusty oyster]

1000 responses is crazy

[south meadow]

hhnvhnfj I dump all my questions into one thread instead of creating separate ones so that I can easily refer back to the info I was given

going for the server record of longest question thread 💪 (actually I would be very surprised if any other thread came close to the length of this one LMAO)

[distant fractal]

I appreciate this 😭 💖

[south meadow]

It’s The Gumi Thread™️

[gusty oyster]

Ohhhhhh that’s locki smart

[south meadow]

What should humidity generally be at? It’s been super high in the 90-80’s% since I switched to bioactive so I’ve been trying to wait for it to dry out more before I start regularly misting but what’s the general % it should be at?

Currently it’s gotten down to the upper 60’s% tho

[uncut drift]

The care guide says 30-55%, though spikes are okay since they go through rainy seasons

[south meadow]

Must be typhoon season in there then, damn

[quaint quest]

I somtimes try to do this but unfortunately Somtimes after a while the chats sorta get less and less responses and die off in my experience at least

[south meadow]

True, but even then I still throw questions in here regardless bc it pushes the thread to the top which can often revive it

[south meadow]

What’s the general lifespan of UVB bulbs? Yesterday my basker quit on me unexpectedly (they’re supposed to last 6 months and I’ve had it 5 so I thought I had another month to get more, I think it didn’t last as long bc it was a 75W) and I realized I don’t have an estimated lifespan for the UVB so I want to make sure I can stock up before it’s too late this time

[stone flower]

depends on the brand. for t5s, its recommended to change zoomeds once every 6 months and arcadias once a year iirc, if you dont have a solarmeter to tell you when the uvb output begins to degrade

they will still put out light, but the level of uvb will go down

[south meadow]

Need to order more mealworms bc Gumi hasn’t eaten all week (I’m pretty certain she’s in shed or getting ready to??? She normally doesn’t eat for several days beforehand but will then be ravenous afterwards) and I had issues with the superworms and mealworms last time I ordered from Dubia so I’m considering buying from a different brand

I think I ordered from rainbow mealworms once before but idk. I think I’m just nervous now bc of the issues last time but I will say I really liked dubias customer support at least

[distant fractal]

i've used rainbow and they're decent! was was the issue you had though?

OH

[south meadow]

Do you guys think I should give dubias another chance or order from somewhere else?

[distant fractal]

the weird fungus

[south meadow]

yeah lmao

Also the superworms arrived almost all dead :(

[distant fractal]

i personally think i'd do dubia just because that is who i used until i moved. but it doesn't hurt to try rainbow if you want to

yeh that issue there is a postal issue

doa a lot of the time with good companies is sadly a fault of the driver ime 😭

it's why i try to do hold at postal offices for bugs if i can

[south meadow]

I contacted customer support about the superworms but I haven’t mentioned the mealworms to them yet

[south meadow]

My apt building has an air conditioned package room so I never worry too much about that but I do think the superworms died in transit sadly

I think I’ll just stick w dubias now to be safe but do u think I should contact support about the mealworms? I don’t expect them to do anything about it at this point but I just feel like it was such a weird thing maybe it’s worth bringing to their attention

I tried searching for info about white mealworms when they first started cropping up and just got stuff about freshly shed ones the fact you guys had also never seen anything like it just made it all the more bizarre

[distant fractal]

if anything bring it up and be like ?? have you experienced this?

because yeh i've had mold

but never the worms turning white like that

[south meadow]

Yeah I’m more so looking for answers than anything else LOL

I feel like it was probably a husbandry issue on my end but idk wtf I did wrong exactly 💀

[south meadow]

Gonna lose it with this girl. She hasn’t eaten all week and I’m gonna be away for the rest of the weekend so I tried shoving a roach in her face one last time before I left to no avail. Left the roach on its back in her bowl so hopefully she’ll find it later. I thought she was in shed but idk (she’s acting like it but doesn’t look like it) Any tips on encouraging feeding?

ik I can squish the bugs so they smell more but she just doesn’t seem interested in food at all. Waiting on more mealworms to come in bc she’s usually more receptive to those but I only have roaches rn unfortunately 😭

[gusty oyster]

I was gonna say try different feeders other wise idk sry

[distant fractal]

honestly if she's still active and such i wouldn't be tooo concerned. sometimes they just strike for no reason. shortcake did it for awhile when she was young.

[south meadow]

I have she’s very picky in general unfortunately.

[distant fractal]

it also turning into winter can slow their metabolism and such

[south meadow]

Ok. She’s been normal behavior-wise, and when I handled her the other day to weigh her she was actually a lot calmer than normal. I just get stressed when she isn’t eating regularly

[distant fractal]

i feel that! i was that way too and still am with timbit LOL

[gusty oyster]

Oh yeah I need to weigh my Leo

[south meadow]

That’s a good point. Should I slow down how often I offer food? rn I’ve been doing every other day (though this week it’s been daily the past couple days bc I was worried)

[distant fractal]

she might not be eating cus you're offering more than her body wants with going back to daily LOL

[south meadow]

true 💀 alright I’ll leave her alone for a bit and maybe try again on Monday or Tuesday(?)

[distant fractal]

monday sounds fine :3

[south meadow]

Ty for the advice as always peachy! I’ll try not to stress about it too much unless she starts losing a lot of weight

[distant fractal]

[south meadow]

So Gumi has started eating again every few days, but refuses to eat anything that isn’t a mealworm/mealworm pupae. My normal 3 staple feeders are mealworms (all stages but she rarely will eat the beetles), dubia roaches, discoid roaches, and then I like to give her a superworm or two every month or so as a treat.

I don’t think she’s eaten anything that isn’t a mealworm/pupae in almost a month and I’m getting mildly concerned bc ik feeders are supposed to be rotated but she just keeps ignoring all the roaches I think she’d probably go for a superworm if I offered her one tho, but those aren’t a staple food

[south meadow]

Gumi is being unreliable about feeding again (typical 🙄) but I feel like she’s been licking the slates a lot more lately. They’re usually covered with calcium/supplement powder bc those are also her typical feeding spots and the wriggly bugs will scatter it everywhere. Could this be indicative of some kind of vitamin/supplement deficiency? Or is it just regular gecko behavior that I’m reading too much into lol

[distant fractal]

It’s most likely is just the common gecko licking its surrounding and it happens to have vitamins so brain goes “oh?” :0

when was the last time she ate?

[south meadow]

Unfortunately I think I forgot to write it down 😭 either Thursday or Friday tho I believe

[south meadow]

So, she hasn’t eaten in like a week (and last time she did eat it was only a few mealworms) and this is how most feeding attempts go 😭 I’ve tried using different bugs but she doesn’t even seem interested in superworms anymore. Again maybe this is just normal seasonal behavior and she has not been losing significant weight but wanted to see if anyone had any insight based on her behavior in the vid

It’s very common for her to lick the bugs when presented with them so ik she knows where they are, she just doesn’t make any attempts to eat them

I feel like maybe I’m overwhelming her w the frequency??? Even tho I’ve only been offering approx every 2 days, and lately I’ve been trying to only offer when she’s poking her head out or otherwise getting into one of her usual feeding spots

Would it be at all beneficial to just fully leave her be for like a week or maybe just 4 days or something not offering food at all so hopefully then she gets hungry enough she’ll be more receptive to feeding? Or is that p much pointless idk

[distant fractal]

It totally could be the frequency. You can try spacing it out a little more and seeing.

Sometimes even their bodies switch their schedules before we do.

[south meadow]

My friends are sleeping over at my place this weekend so I’ll maybe wait till Monday or Tuesday before I offer again

[south meadow]

Tried feeding Gumi for the first time since my last messages. No luck, I left a mealworm and a superworm (with ||its tail and head crushed|| so it isn’t really moving anymore) out by her incase she does get hungry :/

I think tomorrow I’m gonna take her out for a full body check & weighing just to make sure nothing is too concerning

She’s been weirdly VERY active in the tank at night recently. I’ve seen her leaving hides and walking around the front, less covered areas of the tank after her lights go out, which I interpreted as maybe more hunting behavior bc she was getting hungry??

Which is possible bc there are a handful of escaped feeders that live in there (roaches and mealworms) + the CUC, but I haven’t actually seen her eat any of them

But I left her alone completely (aside from entering the tank to refill her water bowl) for the past several days and when I finally presented her food just now she seemed entirely uninterested in it. Again I’m making sure she sees or feels it so I know that she knows it’s at least there, but even when clearly looking at them and watching their movements, she really doesn’t seem interested in eating them at all

[south meadow]

Ok she’s worrying me again, I just heard her make an actual noise for the first time ever

She still hasn’t eaten and is generally uninterested in food. Yesterday I did a body check and tried to weigh her but my scale was kinda all over the place and I couldn’t get her to stop moving so I could get an accurate reading but she seemed to be relatively the same weight

But just now she just made this like barking ish noise??? The noise itself wasn’t too concerning but I’ve never heard her make any noise at all and this was seemingly unprompted as far as I could tell

Also it’s hard for me to tell but I think her tail might be slightly thinner?? 1st pic is like a month ago, 2nd is from today

[rich ruin]

Maybe can try to attract her with the insect juice

How I did for my little one with no hunting instinct is to pluck the head of my cricket off and squeeze out the juice and tempt him with it

[south meadow]

I tried that with roaches and even a superworm (which she will normally go for even if she’s not super hungry bc it’s more of a treat feeder she only gets occasionally) to no avail

I’m not like incredibly worried as of yet just because she does seem to still be doing fine and acting normal aside from not eating for almost 2 weeks now but MAN I wish I could just get her to eat once to soothe my own anxiety

[south meadow]

Soooo I just had a superworm escape into the tank. I’m no stranger to having escapees and for the most part I don’t stress about it too much, but I’ve never had a superworm get away until now

Do I need to look out for anything? Roaches and mealworms I don’t worry so much about because if anything they’re at least potentially providing hunting opportunities for her and I figure most roaches I could remove or would die off before they get to full adulthood

But like I said idk if supers are more dangerous bc I know they can be more aggressive and will eat smaller bugs

Should I start tearing apart the tank searching for the superworm or am I overreacting?

[unique flower]

i dont think its that big a deal, especially if your gecko is healthy, but even more so if the enclosure is bioactive

or otherwise naturalistic tbh, superworms tend to just hide until they metamorphose

[distant fractal]

i just let mine turn into beetles and then remove them yeh

easier to do so that way

[south meadow]

Ok perfect! Just wanted to make sure since I usually will behed a superworm before I leave it out in the food bowl

[south meadow]

Just checking in again as Gumi STILL has not eaten in what I believe is coming up on a month now (REALLY kicking myself in the ass for not writing down when her last feeding was as I didn’t realize it’d be the last one for THIS LONG ) and although I think her body condition looks relatively okay and she doesn’t seem to have lost much weight (really hard to tell bc the last time I tried to weigh her the scale was acting up and she wouldn’t sit even remotely still ) I’m wondering if I should take her to the vet anyway just bc it’s been so long???

[distant fractal]

we are in winter now.

[south meadow]

Scrolling back to pics from late August (the photo w the censored bit) it does seem like her tail has gotten noticeably less plump

[distant fractal]

visually she looks the same

you also just recently moved her to a temp setup correct?

[south meadow]

Ok. Sorry I just try to keep telling myself that it’s winter so her metabolism is slowed down anyway but I think my mom keeps freaking me out because she’s insisting that she looks skinnier

[distant fractal]

you're okay jellie! ❤️ sorry i didn't mean to like sound rough LOL

but no she does not look skinnier.

[south meadow]

Yes on Wednesday night. She will be back in her regular tank Sunday night

[distant fractal]

moving to a new setup though can exhasberate the not eating.

[south meadow]

Ur good! This girl is just stressing me out 😭

[distant fractal]

they need atleast 2 weeks between each new setup so

[south meadow]

Lowkey was hoping that the switch might shock her into eating again somehow sgahshsjabsjwn

[south meadow]

My mom wanted me to bring her back here over Christmas too since I’ll be away from my place for a handful of days again 😕 do you think I should fight to veto the idea? If she still isn’t eating idk how much of a difference it will make but if she starts eating again in December somehow I might fight against it more :///

[south meadow]

If a leo is running off of stored fat will they still poop? Google AI said no but I couldn’t find a source for that claim

Asking bc Gumi has pooped pretty regularly throughout this month (sometimes it’s just urate but I know for sure she had a full very recently) and I’m wondering if that’s a sign she’s still secretly eating even when she won’t take what I’m directly offering her

[south meadow]

IM SO HAPPY

SHE FINALLY ATE AGAIN

It was a fairly big meal too, 2 mealworms, 1 superworm, and 1 large dubia roach

I’m like fuckin elated rn bc it’s been nearly 2 months since her last confirmed feeding AAAAAAA

[south meadow]

All dusted w pure calcium no D3 btw. Since her feeding has been so infrequent for future attempts should I dust with multivitamin or calcium w D3 instead? A bit worried abt her getting her proper vitamins but since this was kind of a spur of the moment feeding and I didn’t wanna miss the chance I just started straight up dunking the bugs in her tank’s calcium dish so I could get them to her faster 😭

[unique flower]

i'd use the multivitamin once every 1-2 weeks at least

usually a mv contains calcium and vitamin D anyhow

[south meadow]

Anyone have any experience with the ExoTerra thermostat?

Been having issues where it’s not turning on and I can’t figure out why

I know it’s not the bulb bc I checked it already and it’s working fine but for some reason my heat lamp is just not turning on like it’s supposed to 😭

Normally everything is automated on a timer but ever since I had to take everything out to move to her temp setup for the holidays I’ve been having issues getting the lamp to turn on

Was in temp tank while I was out of town for the holidays and took Gumi with me but we’re back home now and I can’t get the light to work

[south meadow]

nvm finally got it to work after an hour of fiddling around

Turns out the bulb was too tight and I had to loosen it ~~even tho last time it was too loose and I had to TIGHTEN it. Make it make sense ~~

[south meadow]

Wasn’t sure if I should put this in #enclosure-building or #plant-chat soooo I’m just gonna ask here instead :P

My live plants have not been doing too well lately :/// I feel like they’re underwatered looking but I have been giving them water like every other day which should arguably be too much for them so idk what the issue is

Also any tips for improving my bioactive tank in general? rn my tank is kinda warm bc my apartment heat (which I have minimal control of) has been way too high so I’ve also been misting more

(Random corner pic is her poop corner btw lol. Put a dead succulent that didn’t survive in the tank over there to encourage the CUC to remove waste over there)

[unique flower]

Sometimes with succulents this might mean the plant has root rot, it might be worth pulling it up to examine the roots

[south meadow]

Does this look like rot to you?

The other one on top of the corner hide looked okay from what I could tell but I can’t tell with the one that was flowering before

[south meadow]

Ok took this one out fully this is what the roots look like

Doesn’t look like rot to me but I’m also not a super experienced plant person

Regardless for now I have it in a separate pot instead of in the tank for now

Gonna try and see if putting it in an area with bigger room to grow helps??? Roots look a little squished so I was thinking maybe it just didn’t have enough space. It’s between a slab and the tank wall so maybe it was just placement?

[unique flower]

it doesnt look like rot to me either but im also not a plant person really, it moreso looks rootbound and that it doesnt have enough access to the soil around it

[south meadow]

Currently just repotted it to my QT pot where I initially had my plants before I went bioactive. That soil is the 70/30 mix but does have some perlite and extra sphagnum moss mixed in as I was preparing it for a Venus flytrap

[unique flower]

if it were me i'd see if i could soak the roots and replant it, possibly after gently coaxing the roots out of a circle

[south meadow]

Yee- gonna reach out to my friend who’s a big succulent/plant person and see what she advises. The other two succulents I had died bc the bugs got at the roots since I didn’t have enough leaf litter at the time so was wondering if it was a tank issue but doesn’t appear to be as far as I can tell

[south meadow]

Oooo ok soaking is maybe a good idea to get it to loosen up

[south meadow]

So, unrelated to the plant issues, Gumi just did something weird when I was messing around in her enclosure earlier and then again just now

Earlier when I opened the tank to check on the succulents, Gumi had her head poked out looking at me and she did this thing a few times where she shook her head weirdly?

It was strange, like very rapid/sorta twitchy almost similar to when a dog shakes water off its face or a cow twitches to get rid of a fly or something

No shaking in the body, just the head

At first I thought maybe she was pissed off or something, she always gets annoyed when I have to move or change things in her enclosure, but it almost looked involuntary more than anything

She did that a few times in a row and I was gonna video tape it to ask here about it but she stopped doing it by the time I got my phone out to take a video

Then just now I was on FaceTime and me and my dad saw her do it once more again. She just did it once this time though

It almost looks seizure-esque but from what I’ve seen in videos of leos that seems to be a full body shake. This was just the head both times

I’m a little concerned because she still hasn’t eaten again since last time (December 6th), she’ll almost seem interested in food lately but then always ends up walking away.

She also looks a little ashy though like she may be starting to get ready to shed. Could this be her trying to shake like loosen the skin more? Whenever I’ve seen her shedding/getting ready to though she’s usually rubbing up against stuff in the enclosure to help, I’ve never seen her do the shake thing and in both instances she wasn’t really by anything to rub up against

Tried looking up videos of seizures and other neurological issue symptoms but nothing looks similar to what she did which is both reassuring and also not 😭

[unique flower]

i really can't say without seeing but if you're worried you can probably email the videos to your veterinarian

[south meadow]

Asking this again here bc I’m still not sure what this even is

[unique flower]

my guess is it's like a coco fiber mat with seeds in it

i wouldnt use it AS a substrate but you could probably put it at the very bottom of the tank before adding soil?

[south meadow]

Back again looking for new ideas on how to get my leo to eat roaches

She’s started eating semi consistently again lately but is refusing to eat anything that isn’t a mealworm not a huge deal but I do want to make sure she has 3 different staples + I want her to eat them before they grow too big because I’ve had these guys a while now since she was on hunger strike for a few months 😭

I’ve tried masking it with mealworm bug juice, cutting up/maiming them, putting both a roach and a mealworm in the tongs at the same time so she bites down on both (I used to have to do that to get her to start eating them at first when she was a baby lol), but nothing seems to work

Also worried that the roaches have already gotten too big 😭 the bigger ones are like 1” long(?) but pretty wide. I’ve had her almost a year now so she’s essentially an adult but idk if it’s just a nonstarter due to their size or what

[south meadow]

Anyone have any recommendations for good glass cleaners that are safe to use around leos? Aside from tank cleaning, I also have a closet with sliding mirror doors only a couple feet from the tank. Wet paper towels have only been able to do so much and I’m kind of sick of all the streaks on the mirrors

[uncut drift]

Nqa but for that mirror at least, maybe a diluted white vinegar solution?

[long walrus]

diluted white vinegar soln and filtered water with a microfiber cloth is my go to

[south meadow]

For the dilution 1:1 should be fine or should I water it down more?