Hey guys, Heather here from Tye Dyed Iguana and today we're gonna talk about
how to take care of a Gold Dust Day Gecko. Alrighty, so here is the Gold Dust Day
Gecko, with species name of Phelsuma laticauda. So one cool thing about these
guys is they actually come from Madagascar. Now as far as their size goes,
they only get about 4.5 to 6 inches long so they stay really
small, unlike your Giant Day Geckos that you might see a lot of times here at our
store. We don't have any in stock right now, but we do have this little guy which
is our Gold Dust. And these guys will get about 6 to 8 years old for their
average lifespan. So as far as their tank size goes, these guys need a nice tall
tank because they are an arboreal species. We recommend at least a 12 x 12
x 18, an upright tank as a minimum for one of the Gold Dust Day Geckos, so. That
would be good for one adult and make sure they have plenty of space to climb,
once you add branches and stuff in there. So as far as decorations, the decorations
are important because it allows them to climb around. You should provide
horizontal and vertical branches for them to climb on, that creates a really
nice climbing space for them. So some other good decorations to use
are cork rounds and some foliage, just to give them places to hide in the tank.
These guys, they don't, they get scared sometimes so it's good to have a place
where they can go to hide. As for what else you should have in the tank you
should have a nice small water bowl for them. Don't put a huge water bowl in
there, because if you have a baby gecko they can drown in there, so. Just make
sure you have one that's pretty small, they don't need a big one at all.
As far as their substrate goes, because of humidity requirements they do need a pretty
absorbent substrate. We recommend either peat moss or coconut fiber for these
guys, for ours we use a mix of Jungle Mix, which has peat moss and sphagnum moss in
it, and our Repti Bark. That's what we use in our tank. So Gold Dust Geckos are
omnivores, they will eat both insects and this food that we also use called Repashy.
This is the Repashy down there. This is, we usually give them Repashy Super
Foods Crested Gecko Diet. This is a powder that you mix with water that
contains vitamins, minerals, protein, and bee pollen, and other nutritious foods
for these guys. It kind of replicates like rotten fruit that they would eat in
the wild. Now as far as the insects we feed them, we feed these guys small
crickets. We feed him about 6 crickets maybe every other day or so,
don't have to feed it to them every day. Now for these guys with their Repashy
though, we do make sure they have access to it every day, but we only leave the
same food in there for about 2 to 3 days. Every 2 to 3 days you
need to replace it, otherwise it will get really dry, really gross, so definitely
give them fresh Repashy every 2 to 3 days. Now when you feed them live
crickets, just make sure you dust them with with calcium, and maybe try once a
week to dust the crickets with vitamins, that way that they get vitamin powder,
that way they get their vitamins each week without overdoing it. So as far as
what other foods you can give them for insects, you can give them like
silkworms, wax worms, just make sure that they're really tiny. You can also give them
mealworms, just I wouldn't feed them too many mealworms just because of how small
they are and how, how hard the exoskeleton of mealworms are, so.
Basically just stick to crickets and maybe some wax worms, small wax worms.
Yeah, you're licking your chops, you hear me
talking about food. So Gold Dust Day Geckos they can be kept alone or in groups. If
you do keep them in groups, just make sure they're similar size so they don't
try to hurt each other. Two females, they will usually get along pretty well if
you just keep females together. I don't think two males will get along very well
at all. And if you keep a male and a female together, they will probably end
up having eggs. Now for their humidity, just make sure that you spray their cage
once or twice a day with water. Their humidity levels should be between 55 to
65 percent, so they do like to be kept more humid, so. But just make sure that
you don't overdo it and spray too much water in there, because there is such a
thing as over spraying a cage, where the substrate gets all muddy.
All right, now unlike most geckos these guys are diurnal so they do need two
different lights. In our cage you can see here we have the heat bulb right there,
so you do need to make sure that they have a hot spot. And their hot spot is
90 degrees, so they are kept a little bit at a higher temperature, and then you've
also got the UV bulb, which is ours right here. So you definitely need that UVB
bulb, since these guys do come out during the daytime. And then the cool
side of their cage should be kept between 70 to 75 degrees, it's a little
bit trickier because of how tall the tank is, you'll usually have one upper
corner as the heat, as the hot spot and then further up here and closer to the
front you would have that nice 70 to 75 temperature that they need for the cool
side. So yeah these are pretty cool species to keep, they don't get too big,
stay really small and they're really beautiful. Especially with that gold
dusting on them, yep. Of course this one's got really nice red
spots, so. Yup, he's really cute. Aren't you? Yeah.