Care Information

For the summer months, temperatures should stay in the 75-80F range. Allow for a cooling down period in the winter where temperatures fall to 68-75F. Crested geckos can tolerate a night in the 60-68F range here and there, but temperatures above 85 become fatal quickly! 

Crested geckos naturally slow down during their winter cooling period. This means they often eat less, are less active, and grow less when kept between 68-75. They eat and grow much more when kept in the 75-80 range. Seasonal temperature shifts promote optimal growth, while also allowing their systems a winter break. 

Heating 

Because their ideal temperatures are within "room temperature" for many homes, crested geckos often don't need special heating equipment. If you do not have a place in you home where you can keep the temperatures above 75F for the summer, heat can be provided by a small ceramic heat emitter, a heat mat attached to the exterior of your tank, or a heat lamp. Each of these devices have advantages and drawback that you will need weigh carefully. They can also create "hot-spots" if they are positioned incorrectly which can lead to burns on your animal or the cracking/melting of your tank. Make sure to always read the directions and install and operate your heat source properly! One recommended safety measure is to always attach your heating device to a thermostat and to check temperatures inside the tank regularly. Your animal should not be able to come into direct contact with the heat source. 

My personal recommendation for heating is to use a small ceramic heat emitter, and keep a digital thermometer inside the habitat.

Cooling - There is only one reliable way to keep your habitat cool enough for a crested gecko: Central or room-specific air conditioning. At the moment, there are no readily available products designed to cool a reptile's tank. There are hacks and temporary solutions, but these are not long term answers to high heat. Such methods include placing ice-packs or frozen bottles of water around the sides, bottom, or top of the enclosure. Placing ice in front of a fan aimed at the tank can also help in an emergency situation. Fans alone rely on evaporation to cool and will not help your reptile who does not sweat.  

Light plays several roles when it comes to the health of a crested gecko. At a basic level, they need light during the day and darkness at night to regulate their circadian rhythm. Lengthening and shortening the amount of time between "sun rise" and "sun set" also helps signal seasonal change. Light can also be used to regulate temperature or to provide UVB rays for the processing of calcium. 

Day and Night Cycle - simple LED lights or florescent lights can be used to create a "daytime" and "nighttime" for your gecko. These can be turned on and off manually, or attached to a timer. Even strong, indirect light from a window can be enough to create an appropriate day and night cycle. Just be careful! If the habitat is in direct sun at any point during the day, temperatures can rise to dangerous levels very quickly. 

During the spring and summer, lengthen the time between sunrise and sunset to mimic natural seasonal light changes. During fall and winter, shorten them. Along with seasonal temperature changes, this will help bring your gecko into and out of its winter cool down. 

Heat Lamps - If your gecko needs heat and you are opting to use a heat lamp, this can regulate your day and night cycle as well. Unfortunately crested geckos need lights turned off at night, and heat lamps only provide heat when they are on. There are red and blue "night" heat bulbs sold in stores which are supposed to provide heat without disturbing your gecko. Many keepers recommend against these lights though, as they were designed with diurnal animals in mind. It is thought that the red and blue lights still impact crested geckos who are active and looking around at night. I do not know how much the red and blue lights might impact an animal over time, but in my experience, geckos provided full dark or very little light at night show fewer signs of stress and tend to be less jumpy. 

UVB light - Crested geckos need vitamin D3 to absorb and process the critical mineral calcium. In nature, reptiles produce D3 themselves by basking in sunlight. In captive environments, they need dietary supplementation and/or UVB lighting to get the D3 they need. 

In captivity, crested geckos are not always provided UVB for two reasons: 1) they are mostly nocturnal and have been observed to hide from light sources during the day and 2) the prepared diets and calcium supplements they eat provide enough D3 for most geckos. In recent years though, there has been a shift among many keepers towards promoting the use of UVB with crested geckos. Some keepers insist that their animals do bask enough to meet their D3 requirements and others have seen calcium deficiency issues when UVB is not provided. These calcium issues have happened even when feeding a nutritionally complete diet with supplementation. 

I personally recommend the use of a small UVB light for your gecko.

If you do decide to provide UVB for your gecko, be sure that the light is positioned to shine through screen or mesh, not glass. Glass will filter out the UVB, preventing it from actually benefiting your animal. It is also recommended that you stick to low-level output bulbs or those marketed for "shade dwellers." UVB bulbs loose output over time, so be sure to read the directions on your model and replace when recommended, usually about every 6 months. 

Crested geckos in captivity do best when given a cycle of high humidity (90-100%) and drying out periods (50%ish). To achieve this, you will need to mist your gecko’s environment with a spray bottle or automatic misting unit. A recommended misting routine would be to heavily spray down the habitat in the evening bringing humidity up to 90-100%, then letting the habitat dry out to at least 50% over the course of 24-48 hours. 

How often you should mist depends on what type of enclosure you have, your substraigt, and even what part of the world you live in. If your enclosure is less ventilated, you use substraight that holds more moisture, or you live in a naturally humid area (think Southeastern US), your enclosure may take longer to dry out. In such cases, you will need to mist more lightly, less often, or increase ventilation in your gecko’s habitat to provide a proper drying out period. Even misting as little as once every other day, or every three days can provide a healthy humidity cycle for your gecko under the right circumstances.  

It may take a little time and observation to find what misting cycle works best in your home environment and with your particular habitat. Just remember that the key to proper humidity with captive crested geckos is a cycle of high moisture and drying out periods, not a constant high humidity level. Too much humidity and moisture will lead to stuck shed, tail rot, repertory infections, skin lesions, and death especially in young geckos. It is far more common for a gecko kept too wet to have shedding issues and die than one kept too dry.

Commercial Diets – Commercial diets are sold as a dehydrated powder that you mix with water to make a baby food-like mush. Commercial diets are specifically formulated to meet the nutritional needs of crested geckos and should form the foundation of your gecko’s diet. Keep a small dish of prepared diet in the enclosure at all times and replace it with fresh diet every other night. Replacing the diet every night or every third night may also work for your gecko depending on what brand you use, how thick or thin your gecko prefers it mixed, and how much he or she eats.

The brand of crested gecko diet that you feed is important! Only certain brands are nutritionally complete enough to prevent serious health conditions such as Metabolic Bone Disease (MBD). Pangea complete (any flavor), Repashy, Black Panther Zoological, Clarks and the New ZooMed brands are some of the best diets available. All Living Things, Flukers brands and jelly pots are not nutritionally complete and will cause harm to your gecko over time. Human baby food is not an acceptable substitute for a prepared CGD and should not be used as such regardless of what vitamins you add to it.

To prepare CGD, mix the dry powder with water until the consistency of a paste, thick smoothie, apple sauce, or ketchup. Parts food to water will vary with brand, so be sure to follow the manufacturer's instructions. You can also adjust the thickness to suit your gecko’s preferences. Just be sure to never feed your gecko the powder dry. Despite what several YouTube videos will attest, this is DANGEROUS. The powder is made with ingredients that are specifically designed to absorb liquids at a ratio of up to 3 parts water to 1 part powder. If you do not mix it with water before the gecko eats it, the powder will pull its 3 parts moisture from your gecko. This can lead to lethal dehydration and blockage of the intestines. I repeat, DO NOT FEED YOUR GECKO DRY, UNPREPARED MIX. 

Pangea Fruit and Bugs flavor, Repashy Grub Pie and BPZ are recommended if you intend to feed live insects less frequently. They contain higher protein contents, and though this will not supplement insects completely, it will help your gecko get the protein it needs.

Bugs – Bugs are an important part of a crested gecko's diet. Animals that are fed insects grow much faster, and show overall better health than geckos that are fed prepared diets only. With that being said, there is still much debate over what percentage of a gecko’s diet should consist of live insects. In general, you will find it recommended that crested geckos be fed live, gut-loaded, and calcium dusted insects anywhere from 2x a week to 2x a month. The amount of insects you decide to feed should factor in your gecko’s weight, what CGDs you are feeding, and whether your animal will eat both CGD and bugs or hold out for just the bugs. If your animal is not eating CGD between live insect feedings, you will need to reduce the amount/frequency of bugs being offered. A diet of only insects will result in malnutrition and consequent conditions such as MBD. I have personally found that offering insects 1x a week ensures a balanced eating habit in my geckos and over-all healthier animals. 

Live insects should always be "gut loaded" and calcium dusted. "Gut loading" means feeding the bugs nutritious vegetables that will make their way into your gecko via the bug's guts. Giving your feeders access to a variety of veggies such as carrots and leafy greens for 3-24 hours before feeding is the simplest way to gut load. Calcium "dusting" means to sprinkle calcium and vitamin supplements on the feeders just before offering them to your gecko.

Crickets and small feeder roaches, such as dubia, are typically the best and easiest to obtain feeders. A rule-of-thumb for the size of insects to feed is that the bugs should be approximately the length of the space between your geckos eyes or smaller.

Insects can be fed to your gecko with tongs, your fingers, in a separate feeding container or just by releasing the insects into the enclosure at night to let your gecko hunt. Many geckos will only accept live food that is offered free-range. 

Meal worms and super worms are sometimes not recommended because they possess much thicker exoskeletons. Some keepers believe these exoskeletons are harder for crested geckos to digest and may increase the risk of impaction. Meal worms and super worms that morph into beetles may bite your gecko.

You should not feed your gecko any insects until you can confirm your animal is consistently eating a commercial diet first. 

Calcium/Vitamin dusting – If you are not providing UVB lighting, calcium supplements should have significant levels of D3. Though many of the commercial diets are promoted as being "complete" animals that are not being offered UVB can and often will still show signs of calcium processing issues without enough D3 supplementation. These issues include the early onset of MBD (wavey tails) despite full calcium sacks, and very poorly calcified eggs from females. Some products that offer a combination of calcium and minerals with higher D3 content include Rep-Cal and Repashy Calcium Plus HyD. 

If you are providing UVB, calcium supplements should have low or no D3 to prevent overdosing. 

For more information on what products to use both with or without D3, check out this article from reptifiles. 

Crested geckos can live quite happily in tall glass reptile terrariums, upended aquariums with conversion doors, or modified storage bins. As long as the habitat is large enough, properly ventilated, and meets the animal's temperature, humidity and light requirements, your gecko won't really know the difference.

Habitat Sizes

The following are guidelines as to the minimum acceptable space requirements for a single animal.

Single Adult gecko: 20 gallon aquarium, 20 gallon/75L-ish storage bin, 18x18x24 exoterra-style terrarium or larger. 

Baby geckos 5g to 20g: 10 gallon tank, 10 gallon/37L-ish bin or 12x12x18 exoterra-style terrarium

Baby geckos hatchling to 5g: critter keeper or small bin (shoe box to 30 liters approximately) 

Height to climb and room to jump are important when it comes to crested geckos. They are an arboreal species and should be given tall, climbing enclosures. 

Housing multiple geckos together (cohabitating) – Though cohabitation can be done safely, it is best attempted only after you have had experience with several healthy, individually housed adults. You need to be very familiar with healthy behaviors and personality differences with individual geckos because signs of fighting and/or bullying will not necessarily be easy to spot. Two or more males should not be housed together. Males are territorial and healthy males will start fighting. Eating issues due to one animal bullying the other or serious injuries (especially around the head) are common when male geckos are housed together. I strongly recommend you do not house a male and female(s) together year round. They will breed and the female will lay eggs constantly without the artificial replication of seasons. This involves shortening the photo periods and lowering temperatures to trigger a "winter" cool down. Without that critical break from breeding, you will see deteriorating health in one or both animals. Adult females can be successfully housed together if you are very observant and have a backup habitat ready. Not all females will get along, and if yours do not, you will need to separate to avoid injuries. Additionally, some females will get along for several years before suddenly turning on each other. You will need to be prepared for this. Cohabitating also requires a larger habitat and extra feeding/watering stations. I recommend no less than 20 gallons worth of space and one feeding station per female as a general rule of thumb. 2 females = 40 gallon tank. 3 females = 60/75 gallon tank. 

Signs of a cohab not working include hearing squeaking and chirps at night, finding grey "scuff" marks on the head and tail, and differences in weight and growth between animals. Female geckos rarely vocalize. When they do, it is exclusively to reject the romantic advances of a male, or fighting. Whether you are just cohabing females or attempting to breed a pair, noise from a female gecko is not a good sign. It means you are going to probably see bite marks next. Crested gecko bite marks start off looking like grey scuff marks or lines and usually appear on the head or tail. If the animal continues to be bitten in the same spot, the marks will turn into oozy sores or open tears. Animals that are fighting will often have a "bully" that gets a greater share of the food. This means one animal will be more robust or grow faster than the other(s). The smaller animal(s) will often exhibit more jumpy and spastic behavior as well. Seeing any combination of these indicators means your animals are not getting along and that you should separate. 

Habitat Decorations

Dense foliage with climbing branches, vines, and ledges.

Crested geckos come from a tropical, arboreal, forest environment. To simulate this in captivity, you should provide your gecko with multiple horizontal perches and foliage throughout all levels of the habitat. Your animal should not spend the majority of its time on the glass or plastic sides of the enclosure. A lack of horizontal perches and plants to hide in can cause a condition known as “floppy tail syndrome.” Whether you choose to go all-natural with a live planted, bio-active set up or use artificial plants and branches, remember: your animal’s habitat should mimic a jungle forest. Lots of plants, lots branches/perches, lots of things to climb and space to jump.

Recommended substrates for crested geckos range from simple paper towels, to elaborate soil and drainage layers. Other commonly used substrates include organic soil, coconut husk soils, and sphagnum moss. Bark chip substrates, sand, and printed newspaper are NOT healthy for your crested gecko. They are too dry, cause irritation, and - in the case of newspaper - are possibly toxic. 

*A caution about the use of soils: Crested geckos in captivity have been bred for aesthetic traits, not survival skills. Some crested geckos have been known to eat and choke on soil substrates. Typically this occurs when very bug-driven juveniles attack and miss a real or perceived prey item.  Many geckos do just fine on soil. Choosing and adapting your gecko’s environment to meet its particular needs is a major part of owning cresteds. 

*FTS is most common in adult geckos with robust tails. If these animals do not have enough climbing and hiding options in their environment to help support the tail, they will spend the majority of their time on the plastic or glass. Constantly supporting their tail in a straight up or down position can cause the muscles at the base of the tail to weaken and wear out. The tail will then flop around or fold over the gecko’s back when at rest. Some keepers believe certain lines have a genetic predisposition to developing FTS. Sometimes FTS develops for no apparent reason whatsoever. FTS does not impact a gecko’s overall health or ability to breed, though it may impact its quality of life slightly. 

Cleaning

Once a week to once a month.

Your gecko's habitat will need to be cleaned somewhere between once a week and once a month depending on the type of substraight you use and how messy your gecko is. Paper towel-lined habitats will need to be spot cleaned and have paper towels replaced about once a week with a "deep clean" about once a month. Enclosures that have soil substraights and/or bioactive enclosures with insect clean up crews will need to be cleaned less frequently. They can be spot cleaned as needed with a deep clean once every few months. 

During a deep clean, you can use animal safe soaps such as Dawn, or non-chemical cleaners such as vinegar to thoroughly scrub the enclosure and decorations. Just be sure to rinse everything well before reintroducing your gecko!

If your gecko is newly acquired, try to minimize handling for about 2 weeks to let your animal settle in and begin eating regularly. Animals adjust to new environments at different paces. Some will be comfortable right away, some may take months to start really exploring their tank and acting comfortable. Once your gecko has settled in, begin handling by “hand walking” the gecko. Allow it to move from one hand to the other in a cycle. When both back feet move forward, your gecko is about to leap. They do not always give warning. Try not to grab your gecko by the tail as they can be dropped as a defensive tactic and tails do not grow back! 

Handling is best when it is brief, infrequent, and well-timed. Try to limit handling to 10-30 minutes in the evening, right around "lights out." This is when your gecko is naturally becoming active and when handling will be the least stressful. 

* Crested geckos are reptiles. As cute as they appear, they really are not the sort of pet that you can cuddle often or for long periods without causing them stress and interrupted sleep. Additionally, they are very much okay with going weeks or months without handling as long as the food and water dishes are kept full. Crested geckos do not form the emotional bonds that mammals do. They literally do not have the brain parts for it, and live healthier lives WITHOUT our hands-on affection.