[rommels-mum]

Hiya,
i was asked to take rommel last week from a friend as he was being bullied by the bigger crestie in the tank. when bought there was not a great deal of diff in size it was bearly noticeable, my mate was told that they would not really grow much bigger, i knew myself this was rubbish as these lil guys were about 2 inch in size when purchased. anyways one grew hug and the toher stayed tiny needless to say i was told now that the big un is bullying the little one and that the little one had either dropped his tail or had had it removed by his viv mate and i was asked to take rommel straight away.
he is now in an exotera 12x12x 18, ive had him for 5 days now.
he was very skittish the only thing i put in his viv was some artificial green that i stuck to the viv walls, substrate and his food bowl, his humidity is sitting round 75 his temp is a round 75 as he is sitting on top of my big normal gecko tanks and the heat that comes up from there is around 86.
anyways every night i have put in organic baby fruit puree (just a tspoon as he is so tiny) every second night i have swapped this with a complete crestie food by komodo
i cant be certain he is eating as he just hides at the top of the shrubbery.
he is looking rather slimmer than i would like to, to be honest and i am wondering if he had stopped eating cos of the bullying and this would be a good reason why there is such a diff in size between him and his ex roomie.
how can i encourage him to eat, my mate had him about 3 months and was told he was a couple months old when he got him.
he measures just under 2 inches without his tail... poor lil guy
what i will say is he has changed color since he has came to me, he was alway very dark b4 a dark brown with pale markings on his back. he is now a light brown with mustard yellow diamonds on his back and big orange eyes.
how can i encourage this lil guy to eat/eat more

ps i am spraying his viv once daily to ensure his humidity stays up and he has no heat of his own as the heat is stable from the large viv underneath at 75
Thanks

[Olivine]

If you've only had him for a few days, then he could well still be settling in so might not be eating too much at the moment. I've found that Rhacs, especially cresties, settle in much more rapidly if the sides of the viv are pretty much entirely screened with foliage. Also, try to provide some cork bark / mopani wood etc for climbing, as he'll use that to hide behind too.

A temperature of about 75F sounds just right for cresties. However, with regard to humidity, 75% constantly is a bit too high; try to aim for this as the peak humidity level immediately after you've sprayed the viv, then let it dry out over the course of the following day, until it reaches 55-60% immediately before spraying once again.

With regard to food, though I've never used Komodo diet, I have heard anecdotal reports from quite a few people that their cresties seem reluctant to eat it. Until very recently, I used the Repashy 2-part diet, which all my Rhacs (and mourning geckos too) ate with no problems. However, following a recent change in the recipe of this diet, all of my geckos are now refusing to touch it. I've therefore switched them onto the Clark's complete diet, with some success so far (although, obviously, I need to monitor their condition following the change in diet, all of them are eating far more enthusiastically than before). If you do decide to try the Clark's diet, you can get a 'free' sample (I think they charge a couple of quid just to cover the cost of postage to the UK) simply by emailing them.

Are you offering livefood to the littlun? Offering gutloaded, dusted crickets once or twice per week in addition to the CGD may increase the littlun's growth rate, though it can sometimes take a while to wean a crestie onto bugs if they're not used to them. However, my lot have always gone absolutely mad at the sight of a locust of a cockroach.

If you need any care sheets, there's one on my website (link in my siggy). I've found the care advice on the Rhac Shack and Treasure Crest websites to be excellent.

[rommels-mum]

thanks, i popped in quickly when i noticed a reply.
rommel was out and about for a couple minutes today came over to the front of the viv and stood up on the glass like he was watching the tv for a bot 15 minutes then scampered back into the foliage, its the first movement ive actually sen from him so hope its a good sign. my mate told me rommel did have a couple of bugs twice weekly so am gonna try him on small locust tomorrw and see how it goes, thanks for the advice its much appreciated and i am gonna check out those links thanks again, will post pix them next time he gives me the opetunity

[tryme]

with cresties you often find once they have started eating live feeders they often dont go back to the puree stuff very well.

[riz]

Tell me about it, I got my crestie today and hes only ever eaten live feeders but i only have CGD atm. hes licked it abit but then kind of stuck his nose in the air. I am really nervous don't want to find him ill in the morning because he didn't eat (can you tell i'm new at this) eek