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Keeping and Breeding Central American Banded Geckos (Coleonyx mitratus)



The Central American Banded geckos is a very fun species to keep. They are not a species for someone looking for a pet to handle, but they are ideal for someone looking for low maintenance pet where you can leave the weekend without worry or need for a pet sitter. They are very colorful lizards, although they do hide a fair amount. However, I enjoy seeing them come out and catch insects from time to time and of course there is some interaction during cleaning.

 They also do not need a lot of space, a 10 or 20 gallon tank will work just fine for a single individual or a pair. I keep the breeding adults in 17x13 inch storage boxes with lots of ventilation holes drilled into them. I would not recommend anything smaller than this because you need room for a water bowl, a moist hide box, and a dry hide box, a cool side, and a warm side. I keep these geckos in a dedicated reptile room so ambient temperatures are in the mid to upper 70s and I provide them with a 3" section of heat tape set in the mid 80s. As I am using paper towels for substrate, there is not much heat loss and the geckos can bask in the 80s over the heat tape when desired. I also provide both a moist and dry hide area. The moist area is especially important for shedding and a place to lay eggs. I keep moist but not wet cocfiber in there. 

Once eggs are discovered, I gently move them with a spoon to a suspended incubation method in the upper 70s to low 80s. Some of the coco fiber always comes with the eggs and I have not had any resulting issues from this. Once hatched, I house them in smaller versions of the adults enclosures.  I would recommend to use a fairly secure box to house the young in as they can sometimes escape a standard shoebox. For feeding them, I use the very smallest red runner roaches. You can sort that small size out with a bucket with holes drilled or by putting some of the egg cases into small containers and waiting for them to hatch out. I greatly prefer to add a small quantity at a time to make sure they do not harm the geckos. I also find the small geckos can catch the red runners much easier if no substrate is used and for this reason I do not use paper towels as I do with the adults. To add variety, I also feed Hydei fruit flies and a few bean beetles. I am sure tiny crickets would work well, but I do not generally have access to that size to use them.

Below is the container I use for suspended incubation. I made one very small hole with a corn cob holder as I don't always open the container regularly.
AliExpress.com Product - Petforu 12 Egg Holes Plastic Breeding Box Reptile Incubator Hatching Container Box with Thermometer - Transparent White


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