Housing

An adult leopard gecko can be housed comfortably in a 10-gallon aquarium (although a 20 gallon long would be nicer.) A 20-gallon long or 30-gallon can hold 3-4 leopard geckos. NEVER have more than one male gecko per cage. Males will fight, sometimes to the death, if they come into contact. You can keep a single male with several females, as long as they're kept in an appropriate sized cage.
  • Sexing your gecko: Male geckos are larger, heavier in the neck region, have a line of small pores shaped like a V on their belly between their hind legs which are just in front of the anal opening (or vent), and they exhibit two swellings called hemipenes at their tail base, just past the vent. Females lack the large size, for the most part, and the pre-anal pores are not as obvious (they are white and much harder to see), and there are no hemipene bulges. Sex can't be easily seen until your gecko reaches 5-6" in total length, or about 4-5 months old.

We recommend using paper toweling or newspaper for the cage bottom. The cost is low and it is easy to change. Use sand with caution; I personally don't recommend it, but since some poeple like to set up terrariums, make sure you use Play Sand (which can be purchased somewhere like Home Depot) since geckos up to 5" in length may eat the sand and become impacted.

Approximately once a month, we recommend sanitizing the gecko's cage with Nolvasan (follow instructions for proper mixing) or one part bleach, nine parts water.

We recommend providing a screen top for your cage. Though leopard geckos can't climb vertically, if you have young children or cats, both could be hazardous to the health of your leopard geckos. If you choose to feed crickets, it will also help you prevent crickets from escaping the aquarium.

We use a 6" wide plastic container (such as Tupperware) for a moist hide box for single geckos, a plastic "shoebox" for multiple geckos. Fill the container with moist peat moss and cut a 1 1/2" diameter hole in the lid or side to serve as an entrance.

Check to make sure the hide box medium is moist daily. This aids in proper skin shedding. Leopard geckos usually eat their shed skin and leave very few remnants of the shed within the enclosure. It is important to check your gecko's toes to ensure that all old skin was removed during the shed. Skin that is stuck to the toes can eventually restrict blood supply to these areas, resulting in tissue death and the loss of the toes. If you notice that the gecko is having shedding problems, you can put them in a deli cup (with air holes) and a moist paper towel for approximately 30 minutes, then help them shed the area by gently picking the skin off with tweezers.

Keep the gecko cage off the floor and create a temperature of 85-88 F on the warm side of the enclosure during the day. Under the tank heaters (UTH) or heat tapes (with a thermostat or dimmer) are the best forms of heat for leopard geckos. Hot rocks are not a good source of heat, as they may burn your gecko!! Night time temps may go lower.

Never put the cage in direct sunlight, since it will overheat quickly and kill your gecko.

Geckos like to hide. Providing them with a hiding place (other than just the moist hide) is important. You can either buy a variety of cool looking hides, or create one yourself with a toilet paper roll, box bottom cut to fit, or a margerine tub with a hole cut into the side. Ideally, you should have hides on both the warm side and cool side of the enclosure.

Feeding

Always provide water in a shallow lid or bowl that won't spill.

Use a gallon jar lid or 1" deep planting saucer to serve as a food bowl. I use planting saucers with glaze on them to help keep the mealworms in. Any worms that do escape should be discarded, as they may have eaten gecko feces.

We feed mealworms to all of our leopard geckos. We recommend offering mealworms at all times for your leopard gecko to eat. You may also feed waxworms for an occasional treat; they should not be a staple of your leopard gecko's diet, as they are high in fat and low in nutrients. Crickets also supply great nutrition for leopard geckos.

  • Any food item needs to be gut-loaded prior to being fed to your leopard gecko. We use Layena, a laying crumble for chickens that you can buy at a feed store, in conjunction with carrots or potatoes (to provide moisture for the worms or crickets.) You can also use commercially marketed gut-loader, such as Fluker's High Calcium Cricket Feed, available at most pet shops.

Keep a jar lid full of vitamin-mineral powder available in the cage at all times. Some different types are Rep-Cal's Calcium and Herptivite or Osteoform calcium. It is important for leopard geckos to have both Vitamin D3 (occasionally) and Vitamin A. If you are feeding crickets, we recommend that you dust your crickets with the calcium powder once a week just prior to feeding.

Breeding

For more information on breeding leopard geckos, click here.

Recommended Reading

For a more affordable, up to date book for beginners, we recommend The Leopard Gecko in Captivity written by Robbie Hamper. It has lots of pictures of some of the newer morphs, and has great, easy to understand information for beginners.

Another excellent, affordable book is The Leopard Gecko Manual by Philippe De Vosjoli, Roger Klingenberg, Ron Tremper, and Brian Viets. Lots of good information, and has been updated from the previous version.

For the advanced hobbiest or breeder, the we recommend The Herpetoculture of Leopard Geckos written by Philippe de Vosjoli and Ron Tremper. It has vast amounts of information, particularly on breeding.