At 07:18 PM 12/15/00 -0800, Laura Ricketts wrote:
><<Something coarse like coconut fiber or vermiculite
>will help hold it together as the geckos undermine the
>entire tank with tunnels.>>
>
>This is interesting.... geckos will tunnel in the
>substrate if it's firm enough?
Well, most of my geckos are serious tunnelers---_Coleonyx_,
_Stenodactylus_, _Palmatogecko_, usw. (Only the _Coleonyx_ are on the
sand/peat mix; the others are hardcore sand lizards.) The desert banded
geckos, especially, should hire out as excavation contractors---we've got
one female who, before laying, usually moves all the substrate in a 10g to
one end of the tank, then to the other, then spreads it back out and THEN
digs a laying chamber.
It's fun to pour water into a tunnel and watch the geckos come boiling out
to drink. (Note that this is probably how they'd get water in the wild for
much of the year; I'm not just being sadistic here. :-)
> Wow! I like that
>idea... except for the fact I planned to use an UTH...
>how would this affect it?
I dunno; never tried. I guess the substrate would diffuse the heat more
easily than sand, for good or ill---you might get less of a hot spot right
over the pad, but probably less heat reaching the surface.
I just spot-clean, but these are pretty clean geckos---they pick a
"defecatorium" and use it faithfully, and they're very fastidious about not
tracking poop around. Something bigger or sloppier might need heavier
cleaning and regular tank breakdowns.
NT
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