The General Care of the Giant Day Gecko
(Phelsuma Madagascrienis Grandis )

Natural History- As with most day geckos, grandis day geckos come from Madagascar.

Acquisition- When getting a grandis day gecko, be very careful. Most in the pet shops are housed with others, and in a small enclosure. This leads to fighting, stress, tail-loss, and in some cases, death. Healthy day geckos will have bright skin, and bright red-orange spots on the head and lower back. If the gecko has no red spots or more than usual, don't worry, some have been specially bred to have such colors. As with all geckos, try to see the animal eat and/or drink.

General Description- Grandis day gecko's are what most people think of when they think of geckos. Bright neon green with red-orange spots on their head and lower back. Grandis day gecko's also have lammele on their toes, which means that they can climb up glass, which happens to be the place where they spend most, if not all, or their day; consider this when choosing an enclosure. Grandis day gecko's can reach length's of 13 inches, which is pretty big for a gecko (hence the name Giant). As with the name, grandis day gecko's are durinial, or that they are active at day.

Housing- Since grandis day geckos are the largest of the day geckos reaching 11-13 in. they need fairly large enclosures. An adult male could live happily in a 20 gallon aquarium, for a pair, house them in a 35-40 gallon. Any bigger could stress the animal. Grandis Day Geckos also require high humidity to thrive, the humidity should be at about 65%+. The best way to check this is to get a humidity dial and place it in the cage, if it is in a large enclosure, two would be better. A hide box is also neccasary. These can be bought, made out of an old box, or can be acheived by having a corner of the cage closed off by plants or other cage furnishings; this will give the gecko a sense of security. A shallow bowl with water should be offered at all times. A bubbler added to the water is extremely helpful, it makes it so the gecko can see the water, it helps raise the humidity, it looks nicer, and it makes a soothing sound. Since they are active at day time, (hence the name Day) they need florecent lighting, without it, they will get very ill, not eat or drink and sometimes die. Substrate is a very important factor. If the wrong subtrate is used, the gecko could get impacted with it. Probably the best is Reptile Bark or sand. The retile bark has to be too big to ingest, and the sand to small to cause ingestinal problems. Newspaper can be used but, it does not work well for keeping the humidity up, plus, it looks awful.

Feeding- Grandis Day Geckos will do great feeding on a staple of crickets and friut. Other items like meal-worms, wax-worms, wingless moth larvea, etc can also be used as a food source. It is best to feed the gecko in another container to prevent impactions. One thing my friend does to feed his gecko is to get a deep tub which the gecko can walk around in easily. Then he puts the live prey in the tub, this prevents the prey from getting away and hiding in the substrate (I hate that!), then when the gecko is hungry, he will just go in and eat at it's luisure. Supplements will need to be added to the food. Both crickets and fruit, the most common supplements are calcium and vitamen powder. Dust the crickets with a 50-50 mix of vitamens and calcium, but occasionally leave out the vitamen supplement, since they recieve some of the supplementation from the lighting.

On last thing...- Giant Day Geckos are probably not the best choice for a beginning herper, something my friend learned the hard way. They are a "See, but don't touch" animal, which meens that they don't take well to being handled to much and are better off living in a nicely set-up enclosure. Remember, enjoy these animals, a healthy and large grandis day gecko in a large cage with live plants is extremely beautiful. But if you are up to the work, and worry of owning a gecko that needs semi-expensive lighting, needs to be fed cricket's and fruit every other day, then giant day geckos make a great gecko to keep and enjoy.

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