The Ultimate LEOPARD GECKO Care Guide! 2025

Leopard geckos are one of the most popular reptiles in the reptile keeping hobby, and they even make a good option for beginners. They're obviously very cute, manageable to keep when you know what you're doing, and just downright fascinating. But are you giving your leopard gecko the care that it deserves? Today I'm breaking down everything you need to know to keep your leopard gecko healthy, happy, and thriving. My name's Stephanie, this is Scooter, and you're watching New Light Pets. First off, let's talk the basics. Leopard geckos, or scientifically known as Eugla ferris macularis, are native to dry rocky regions in Southeast Asia. They are often found under stones or in crevices or under rocks, and their unique spotted pattern helps them stay camouflaged among the landscape. These ground-dwelling lizards are also crepuscular, meaning that they are most active in the evening and in the early morning. Leopard geckos typically max out at about seven to ten inches in length, with females tending to be more on the smaller side. If you are considering getting a leopard gecko, get ready for a long commitment, because these guys can live up to 25 years in captivity when they are kept healthy, and there are even reports of them living longer. As a person that works in a reptile rescue, I would definitely recommend considering adopting. These guys are massively overbred, and there are so many of them that wind up in shelters because many people don't realize what long commitment they are, and so there are many, many of these guys always in need of homes. A few things that make these guys unique in comparison to other gecko species are things like the fact that they can't really climb up vertical walls like, say, a crested gecko can, and this is because they lack the fibers in their toe pads that are sticky and allow for crested geckos to adhere on things like glass and vertical surfaces. So these guys you will typically not see climbing too much, although they will certainly try, they are just not going to be very graceful at it. Another unique thing about these guys is that they actually have eyelids, as you can see here on Scooter, unlike other gecko species that lack eyelids. The last unique trait about these guys that makes them different from other geckos is that if they do happen to drop their tail, it will regenerate. Now to talk about enclosure. Before bringing one of these guys home, you should have their enclosure fully set up, ready to go, with temperatures in place, because it is vital that you have this all mapped out and ready to go to ensure their health. There is a lot of misguided information out there that will say that leopard geckos typically need a 10 to 20 gallon enclosure because they get overwhelmed with too much space. However, this is an absolute myth, and these guys obviously will do better with more space. They will use every square inch that you give them, and the bigger is always better. The minimum requirement for a leopard gecko would be a 36 by 18 by 18 enclosure. However, I would really lean more towards a 4 by 2 by 2, but that is just my personal opinion. I do find that these guys are active enough that they can definitely utilize that extra space. Glass enclosures are perfectly fine, however, I definitely recommend a PVC as they're just better insulated and can regulate those temperatures better than a glass enclosure. Generally speaking, it is best to house leopard geckos alone, although you will find them in the wild living in loose colonies. However, it does pose a bit of a risk in captivity if you are not an advanced keeper and you've never experienced this before. It does pose a risk for injury. Leopard geckos can hurt each other, so unless you are an experienced keeper and you know exactly what you're doing and you have plenty of experience with leopard geckos, it is just a better idea to house them alone as they can hurt one another and become slightly aggressive. Also, if you don't want baby leopard geckos, it's probably a good idea to keep your animal housed individually. Okay, moving on to heating and lighting. It is essential that you provide a day and night cycle for these guys. It is vital to their health, so there should be 12 hours of light and 12 hours of darkness to replicate your normal day and night cycle. A great way to do this is to provide your leopard gecko with a linear UVB light. You may hear a difference of opinion on this as well as many people will say leopard geckos don't require UVB because they're nocturnal. However, there are plenty of studies suggesting otherwise and showing great benefits with number one, the prevention of MBD, which is a horrible thing and you don't want to see happen to your leopard gecko. And you will occasionally see your leopard gecko come out during the day to bask under their heat source and UVB and soak up that vitamin D. When selecting your UVB light for your leopard gecko, please make sure to go for a linear bulb rather than a coil bulb as the coil bulbs are just not quite as effective and it only covers a small percentage of the enclosure. Also, be sure to go with a quality reputable brand, something like Arcadia's Shade Dweller is a great option for leopard geckos. Always go on to the brand's website to make sure you are selecting the right wattage bulb and that you are installing it within proper distance of the animal's basking spot. As I mentioned, Arcadia is probably the best brand you can go with for UVB and they do have all those guidelines on their website to help you make sure that you are selecting the perfect UVB for your animal. One important thing to note is that UVB will still emit light even when it's no longer producing UVB. So it's important to swap out your bulbs about every 6 to 12 months. Now for our heat source. So reptiles are what is called ectothermic, meaning that they rely on their environment to warm and cool their bodies. So you will have to establish a temperature gradient in their enclosure and the easiest way to do this is simply by putting their heat source on one far end of the enclosure. When selecting your heat source, always go for overhead heating as it is just more natural and simulates the sun in that sense. You want to stay away from things like a heat mat, heat rock, or colored bulbs. The best option is going to be a heat bulb that produces IRA and halogen bulbs are definitely the best option for that. To sum it up in a non-scientific way is simply that it's going to replicate those sun rays the best and penetrate past your animal's dermal layer, therefore warming them the most effectively so that they can digest their food and stimulate appetite and thrive in their enclosures. Yes, belly heat is still important, but you can do that the same way that it naturally happens in nature by the sun warming something like say a rock. So you can use something like a piece of slate or stone and put that under your heat source and then that will warm and be ready for your reptile to get that belly heat when they choose to do so. The exact temperatures that you will need to aim for for your leopard gecko's enclosure is going to be a basking spot of about 94 to 97 degrees, a warm side of 90 to 92 degrees, a cool side of 70 to 77 degrees, and then a nighttime drop which can get as low as 60 degrees. So most people's households will stay within that range, so you simply will not need any heat source whatsoever at night. Now if your house does go below 60 degrees then you're probably going to need something like a ceramic heat emitter that does not emit any light but still warms that ambient temperature in their enclosure. Now for exact wattage of bulbs, I can't tell you that for sure. It's really going to depend on so many factors from the temperature of your house, the season of the year, the type of enclosure, etc. So you likely will have to kind of test around, play around with some bulbs, and I would recommend also putting it on a dimmer so that you are controlling those temperatures without having to fully shut off your light source. Now for humidity. Leopard geckos are desert creatures, they are arid species, so therefore they won't really need much for humidity. The ideal range for them is going to be about 30 to 40 percent humidity which is pretty much the general area of most people's homes, so you will not have to spray down their enclosure. However if there is the occasional spike, maybe you live somewhere more humid, that is okay. Just make sure they are in a very well ventilated enclosure as too much humidity can definitely make them sick. However with all that being said, leopard geckos still do need a humid hide in their enclosure with a humidity of about 70 to 80 percent. This is to ensure that they are able to shed properly. A lot of times if they don't have this humid hide, leopard geckos will retain a lot of shed, usually on their toe tips, and then can even end up losing their toes because of this. You can even easily DIY your own humid hide by simply using a Tupperware container that you cut a hole out of and putting either moist substrate or moist sphagnum moss, or you can buy a actual design humid hide from something like a reptile shop or Amazon. Either way this is just a vital thing to include in your leopard gecko's enclosure. All right moving on to substrate. Now this can be a bit of a tricky topic as there are many people that still believe that loose substrate is dangerous for a leopard gecko. There are misconceptions that it can create impaction if your leopard gecko consumes any of it, but this is actually a disproven myth. The reason that a reptile may become impacted is due actually to improper husbandry. So if your temperatures, your diet, your humidity, etc. are off, then yes that increases the risk of impaction in your animal. But if you have all those things in place as you should, then it's highly recommended to provide loose substrate to your animal as this allows them to act out their own natural behaviors and it's just overall healthier for them. Something like reptile carpet or tile is just more unsanitary. Reptile carpet can catch nails and teeth and rip them out. It also harbors bacteria and it's just gross. Your best options for loose substrate would be something like Bio Dude's Terra Sahara. This is also a great option if you want to go the bioactive route and plant live plants in your enclosure. Also Zoo Med's ReptiSand is a perfectly fine option. Or you can do what a lot of keepers like to do and save money by making your own DIY substrate. This would be 40% organic topsoil, 40% natural play sand, and 20% excavator clay. This is the option that I go with. It is just cost effective, it works great, I can still grow plants in there, and overall in my personal opinion it is just the best option. As for how much substrate you want to give your leopard gecko, you should be providing at least three inches of substrate. This will allow them to act out their natural burrowing behaviors and be sure if you are not going the bioactive route to be swapping out that substrate every three to six months. And of course spot cleaning constantly whenever you notice that your leopard gecko has gone to the bathroom, you want to clean that up right away. Now for decor and enrichment, we do want to add things to that enclosure to basically clutter it up to make your leopard gecko feel more safe and secure. It has places to hide, it has things to interact with, and it's overall just more enriching. You should have a minimum of three hides, one on the cool side, one on the warm side, and then your humid hide. More options is always a plus. Also you'll want to add some plants. If you would like to go with fake plants, then I would recommend choosing plastic over fabric plants as the fabric plants are just harder to clean and they can start to harbor bacteria after a while. Before putting any fake plants in the enclosure, just make sure you are disinfecting beforehand. You can simply use warm water and vinegar. And if you want to provide live plants, then just make sure that you are choosing plants that are not going to be toxic to your leopard gecko. So always research before purchasing a plant to put in their enclosure and also keep in mind that you're going to want to use plants that can thrive in an arid environment. So something like an aloe plant or certain types of succulents or cacti could make a possible good option for this. Some other great things to add into the enclosure would be things like rocks or sticks and branches that are placed at a low height. As we mentioned before, these guys aren't great climbers, so they're not going to be very graceful at it and could very easily fall, but they still will love to try. So adding those types of things is a great option. You can buy rocks and sticks from a reptile shop ready to go or you can do what I like to do and be money saving and get sticks from outside. Just make sure you're avoiding cedar and pine and that you are disinfecting beforehand. You can either bake these things in the oven at 200 degrees for about 30 minutes or if it's too large for your oven, you can wash it in the shower with super hot water and white vinegar. Of course, you will definitely want to provide your leopard gecko with a water dish as well. Just make sure you are choosing something that is shallow as you don't want a possible risk of your leopard gecko drowning. A water dish should be replaced every single day with fresh water. Now to discuss diet. Leopard geckos are called insectivores, meaning that they only eat bugs. When it comes to how much to feed your leopard gecko, one key rule you can go for is two appropriately sized insects per one inch of the length of your leopard gecko or you can just go with however many they might consume in a 15 minute span. Juveniles should eat daily while young adults should eat about every three days and then adults whose tails are fatter than their neck can eat every five days. When selecting what to feed your leopard gecko, please keep in mind that variety is key. You want your animal to have a well-rounded diet and get all the nutrients that they need to get and the best way to do that is by providing different types of insects. Some good options that you can switch around with would be things like dubia roaches, discoid roaches, silkworms, hornworms, mealworms, black soldier fly larvae, and crickets. Many leopard geckos go crazy for waxworms, however these should be the occasional treat along with butterworms and superworms. You should definitely be gut loading your insects before feeding so giving them something like Missouri's Better Bug gut loading diet and fresh vegetables, leafy greens, should be consumed within 24 to 48 hours before you provide that to your leopard gecko. You should also always dust your feeder insects with a calcium supplement before feeding to your leopard gecko. If you are not providing UVB in your enclosure, then you definitely need calcium with D3 added to it. You will also want to provide a multivitamin so you can dust your insect feeders with a multivitamin supplement once every week for young leopard geckos and then for adults about once every two weeks. Last but not least we need to talk about what exactly do you do when you bring your leopard gecko home. Well as I mentioned before we obviously are going to have our enclosure completely set up ready to go before we bring the animal home and once we have that animal we're going to want to let it get settled into its enclosure for two weeks and this is a hard thing to do because you're obviously going to be excited about this new animal but to ensure that they settle in and get on a healthy track ready to thrive in your care you will want to leave them alone for two weeks. Then once they are eating consistently after that two week period you can start to introduce yourself a little bit by simply putting your hand in the enclosure so they can get used to your scent and you and then you can gradually move on to small handling sessions something like about five minutes every other day is a good place to start. It's important to make sure that their entire body is fully supported and never ever grab a leopard gecko by its tail. I would also suggest making sure that you're handling your leopard gecko maybe sitting on the floor or a couch or just lower to the ground just in case they decide that they are going to jump and that way we are preventing any injury. Alright guys well that's all that I've got for you today about leopard geckos. I hope that you found this information useful. If you're new here and you enjoyed today's video make sure you hit that subscribe button. I put out weekly pet care videos and if you guys have any other questions leave them in the comments below. Until next week you guys take care.