I wanted to write up this post to share how I have my geckos’ enclosures decorated. This topic has been on my mind for a while. As I’ve gotten enclosures set up for each of my geckos I’ve ran into the issue of money. If you go to a pet store and check out the reptile section you’ll see shelves and shelves of rocks and fake plants and humidity hides. But man they are super expensive! And as you know, I’m a young adult, newly married, and going to college, so that means I don’t have money to spare. Well with six enclosures to fill I had to come up with a solution, and quick. That's what has brought me here. I wanted to share how to make safe, nice, and cheap items for your gecko’s enclosure. I have experimented and have found some good cheap alternatives to tank decor. First up is the use of fake plants. While it’s important to make sure the plants are safe for your geckos (ie no small fake berries or other items that could break off) that doesn’t mean they have to be expensive. In fact almost every plant I have for my geckos are from the dollar store. I’ve gotten mostly leafy vines as they are easy to bend and wrap around other objects. Next trick I use is brooms. Yes you read that right, brooms. When I adopted my breeding group they came in an enclosure that wasn’t set up properly. It had fine sand as a substrate and tree branches that were starting to mold because of the humidity. Well the day after I brought them home, I completely emptied the 40 gallon tank, wiped it out, and filled it back up. I’m pretty proud of the difference. However since I had to take the molding logs out, I’ve felt guilty because my geckos lost a large amount of climbing space. I pondered for a long time for an alternative as the fake logs from the pet store just weren’t in my budget. One day when I was browsing the dollar store (one of my favorite things to do) I ran across some brooms in their cleaning section. The handle of these brooms got me thinking that I could unscrew the actual broom and stick the handle diagonally across the breading group’s enclosure. I figured why the heck not, it’s just a dollar (probably why my dollar store trips usually add up to way too much) and took them home. Unfortunately the brooms were just slightly too long to fit. I was totally bummed, but I didn’t let that stop me. I took out the pliers and bent the broom until it broke. Then I sanded and wrapped the broken end in electrical tape. This was a perfect solution! They work really well and the geckos love climbing on them. I have also heard from many other gecko lovers that PVC pipe works really well as well. I think I’m going to try that out for my smaller enclosures. Another recommendation I’ve read lots about is using egg cartons and toilet/paper towel rolls. These are working out great! I’ve gotten some egg cartons from the daycare I work at and have saved up enough paper towel rolls that each enclosure has one. This fills them up really well and gives plenty of hiding space for all my geckos. My last hack for the gecko enclosures was the humidity hide/lay box. This is a very important feature in your gecko’s enclosure, especially if they are breeding. Well I really couldn’t afford a humidity hide for each enclosure, so I improvised. I pulled out the super old and cheap plastic tupperware set Tyler and I bought over a year ago when we first moved in together. It’s really flimsy plastic and didn’t hold up well, but for some reason we kept it. What's perfect about this tupperware is that it came in a couple different shapes and sizes. I used the rectangular ones to create my humidity hides. The breeding group got two big ones and the rest got smaller ones. First I washed them, then took an exacto knife and cut along the grooves in the lid to create an opening. When that was smooth around the edges, I filled the box with some moss that had originally came in the breeding groups’ enclosure. Then ta da! Plenty of cheap humidity hides. All these are just suggestions on how to create a safe and full enclosure for your crested gecko, while the expensive store bought items can be nice and look cool, you can easily save money and make the enclosure look just as nice. If you have any other ideas on how to diy items for my geckos I’d love to hear!
1 Comment
Brenden Datema
2/11/2021 10:17:41 pm
This was great! I like to use paper rolls and egg cartons sometimes!
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AuthorHi! My name is Kylie. I'm 21 years old and am married to my best friend! I love my wonderfully normal life and hope you do too. Archives
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