Leopard Gecko Advice Needed ^^

[Ruruskadoo]

I'd toss the repti carpet. I have only ever heard bad things about it. It can catch toes, promotes bacteria growth and just gets plain yucky. Use papertowels or butcher's paper instead. That's assuming, of course, it doesn't get too hot for your leo down there. If it does, your better bet would be to use vinyl tiles. (read the care sheet linked above for more info).

This is the exact opposite of everything I've heard and experienced with repti carpet. We use it for my sister's leo, and it's fantastic. It's made of I guess a plastic material, so it doesn't really hold liquid or bacteria (this also makes it a breeze to wash). We keep 2 and swap them whenever we're washing the other one. If you do proper spot cleaning and regularly wash the carpet as you should, it's absolutely wonderful. As a hatchling my sister had her leo on paper towels, and her toes/teeth got stuck in that just as often as they do in the repti carpet. In either case, she manages to free herself fairly easily. It's also a lot more cost efficient because you wash it instead of throwing it away.

Of course, with any substrate, if you just let it sit there and never clean/change it, it will get nasty and disgusting. But that's why you DO clean it. For something larger than a leo that produces a lot of big wet poops, I might not recommend it, as the fibers might make it much harder to spot clean, but for leos it's pretty ideal. Not to mention it's vastly superior to any loose substrate because it can't be ingested.

[plum]

Thanks Rattie! I'll definitely give them a look through ^^

@julia7723 - Thanks for all the info! As for the problem with the heating pad; The only bad thing I saw about the pad was that it could burn them if it was too hot, but because I have the pad on the underside of the tank and the reptile carpet as substrate, it's actually a bit on the cold side for him. Plus, they benefit from the belly warmth, not the warmth from above as much, don't they? Even if I wanted to, I couldn't leave the heating lamp on at all times because I have everything set up in my room, and I do need to sleep eventually x3 I need it pretty much pitch dark to sleep, so leaving it on all night would make it impossible to sleep lol. The heating pad keeps it at least warm during the night and doesn't emit light, so that's why I kept it.

For the heating pad thing - buy a thermostat. I can give you a link to a decent $30 one on Amazon.

[Parad0xxy]

Updated the first post with more questions and such ^