Crested Gecko, or Leopard Gecko?

[Jupiter]

Hey there, me and Sir Blinky have been doing swell, other than some hot temps, he is growing like a weed!

I love the Blinkster, he has been my first ever scaley, and I've enjoyed every minute with him. I think I want to get another reptile, but I'm not sure what.

I'm a super beginner here, on a short budget, and I've narrowed it down to Leopard, or Crested geckos. I just have a few questions first... a few question that will probably turn into a ton of them.. I Like having the maximum amount of info before getting a new animal, so please, bare with me lol.

First and foremost: annual cost of owning each. Not counting the start up prices, and the price of the animal, how much is the food to keep each alive, and thriving?

Before I go any further, if there is a great (trustable) website with all the info on either crested or leopards, feel free to link me to it.

Secondly, feeding. I understand that leopards have to eat live insects, and while I'm fine with feeding live, the whole process seems a bit complicating ... 'Gut-Loading', 'Dusting' X amount of food per X amount of length....
Crested on the other hand (it seems) can be kept on a powder/supplement diet, and do just fine? And be kept at room temp?

Please correct me on anything I have wrong here, and any advice on which I should choose is much appreciated. Also, feel free to ask any questions about whatever and I will happily answer right away.

I'm not sure which I'd rather have at all, so if you would(it feels like I'm asking a lot here), just hit me with all your knowledge on either leopards, or crested, or just throw out some websites, if you have them.

Like always: thanks a million in advance.


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[HVani]

I guess it depends on what you are looking for in a lizard.

I've had both and in the end I really prefer the leopard geckos. They are much more personable and open to being handled. They also come in more color morphs.

Crested geckos I find easier to take care of. No heat, no or few bugs, and with an arboreal cage they take up less room. Don't get me wrong, leos are very easy to take care of. Cresties just require even less care.

For my leos I keep dubia roaches for feeders. These things are super simple to keep. Even easier than my snakes. I keep mine in a shallow smooth sided bin. My leos have a radiant heat panel so I keep the dubias on top of their enclosure to keep them warm. For food they eat just about anything. I bought some repashy for them but they also get a variety of kitchen scraps. Roaches are great, they don't smell, don't climb, don't jump, don't bite and don't make noise.

For set up my 2 girls are in a 24x24x12 half of a T8. They have climbing rocks and all sorts of hides. They seem to really enjoy their enclosure. They are so stinking cute too. Every night, as soon as the sun goes down, they are right at the front of the cage wanting dinner.

For upkeep costs I guess leos would cost more since they need heat and supplements. Bugs too if you are buying them every week. But over all the costs are still very low.

Lastly one word of caution. Some leopard gecko forums out there seem to want to make things way more complicated than they need to be. Some of the communities are totally unbending in their view of how leopard geckos should be cared for. Leopard geckos do not need UVB, they don't need vets checks with blood work. They are easy fun little lizards that have been the hobby for a long time. So take some advice with a grain of salt.

 

[Tavia]

Okay, take this under advisement that I have zero experience with Leopards.

Crested geckos all the way if it were me! Or Gargoyle geckos, they have identical care but look a little different. Crested and Gargoyle geckos are going to be the least expensive, for all the reasons Hvani said, way less need for bugs and no lighting or usually no additional heat needed.

I personally don't really like the way leopards look but do have to say that they seem to pack a good bit of personality, so could definitely be a good pet.
Crested and Gargs are probably a little less handlable than the leopards. With them, there is a lot of difference in personality between individuals. Some grow up and hate to be handled and others are great with it. Cresties and Gargs tend to be quite jumpy as babies and they also almost all go through a completely crazy phase as "teenagers" between around 15 to 25 grams, about when they are reaching sexual maturity. Most calm down from that phase but a few don't.

This is a great site, it has a fairly active and nice forum on it. The site owner, Matt Parks, is great to deal with and I buy about half my supplies from him.
http://www.pangeareptile.com/store/

Cresteds can eat exclusively on the complete diets but most keepers agree that you should probably also feed some bugs. However, if you are only feeding bugs less than once a week, you don't have to be so careful about gutloading and dusting them, though gutloading is probably always a good idea. It sounds intimidating but it just means offering the bugs food before feeding them to the gecko and the complete gecko diets also work for feeding the bugs. I also agree that dubia are much nicer to work with than crickets, though unfortunately they are more expensive and most times hard enough to find, that it still makes more sense for most people feeding them to actually set up and maintain their own colonies, rather than buy them as needed. That probably makes them somewhat impractical for feeding only one crestie a few times a month. But you could probably get away with only a trio of breeders as your "colony" for only one. You would not need a very big enclosure for them either.

As to annual cost after setup for the Cresties, 8 oz of Watermelon flavored Pangea complete diet is $18, plus $5 bucks shipping and if you freeze the portion you are not actively feeding from, it lasts a year in the freezer. One 8 oz should last one crestie the whole year. There are a number of diets and flavors and they come in different prices. Say plus a couple crickets every month, you are looking at around $30-$35 a year for a crestie, I'd guess.

My geckos love the Watermelon flavor and like the Apricot, some a lot more than others. They used to like the Repashy but did not like the latest revision to it at all. So I'd either recommend the Pangea complete or Clark's diet also seems good, I haven't tried it with my geckos but babysat someone else's last week who feeds it and it seemed good. If you want to spice up their eating, you can also offer honey and pureed non acidic fruits every once in a blue moon.

 

[ZoologyGirl]

I like Rhacs so a crested would be my choice. I have a gargoyle and I like them more than cresteds, but such is personal preference. (And really, really I want a chahoua). I don't have any experience with leopards, but the things I like about cresteds/gargoyles is that I can keep them at room temp, and they are super easy to feed (crested gecko diet, mix with water). On top of that, I have a planted terrarium I keep mine in which looks really neat as a display, and the microfauna do their job at cleaning up waste so I don't have to do much in the way of cleaning.

Like I said, I know nothing about leos, but I do love the Rhacs so that would be my choice.

 

[Jupiter]

Wow, thanks! You've all three givin me things to think about, and I love it! I'm still at a bit of an impasse... I love all the morphs that Leo's have, and their acceptance to being handled.. but I don't live anywhere remotely close to any sort of pet store/bait shops (which often sell crickets/meal worms), so I would have to either order them off the internet, or set up a dubia roach farm. Speaking of those farms, I've been doing a lot of research about them, they seem easy enough to care for.. But I have a couple of questions:
Can a Leo live its whole life on nothing but dubias?
How many would I start with, and how long would it take to be able to feed a Leo from a farm, without impacting their population?

Also, for both Leo's and Crested, is it ok to cohab them? I've read elsewhere that it's fine for 2 females, but not 2 males or a male and female (unless you want eggs). Can anyone speak from experience here?


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[Tavia]

Crested females can often be housed together without any problems. Having at least 2 feeding stations in the cage, hopefully out of line of sight from each other, can really help in reducing problems. There are sometimes individual females that are bullies or will start hogging the food and not let the other gecko(s) near it though. It can escalate into injury or even death on rare instances. So you want to keep on eye out for any aggressive behavior and be ready and able to permanently separate them if you see any aggressive behavior. That's why I wouldn't recommend getting two with the assumption they will live together if you are not able to house them apart if needed.

There have been instances of male hatch mates growing up together and living peaceably together as adults but that is super rare and usually males will fight, so I wouldn't even try it with two males. One male and one or more females can do well together if given enough room but yes, they are very ready breeders, it's actually harder to get them to stop than to start, you don't want to house mixed gender groups together unless you are willing to end up with lots of hatchlings and or are able to find all the eggs laid and are willing to freeze them so they don't incubate.

Gargoyle geckos have the reputation of being more aggressive with each other but slightly more tolerant of humans than Crested geckos and it is usually recommended not to house any of them together at all.

I'm not sure on Leos but believe females are generally okay to house together?

 

[Ravenessa]

With Leos you can house 2-3 females together in 20 long... and one male but... yeah.. more babies..

I am big on the leo, I have had crested and leo, love the leo.. love crested too but Leo is more personality and cuddly and size.. I like the bigger weight on them. Have two cuddle bugs one male one female and they live separately.

 

[HVani]

I have 2 female leopard geckos that live together and they do fine. There will be the odd ball that don't get along. Just make sure you have enough hides and 2 feeding dishes.

My geckos eat only dubias and I haven't had any problems. They occasionally get some meal worms but I hate having to keep them in my fridge. I think dubias are gecko crack, they go crazy for them. Variety is always better but I think feeding just dubias would be fine as long as they are gut loaded. I can't say how many to start with. I bought 200 for $20 at a local show and I still have plenty to feed and plenty to breed. I can't stress enough how easy these guys are to take care of. I read everything on keeping them and expected it to be a little harder. Nope, super easy.

One more thing about keeping these two species. Being geckos, they can both lose their tail. The difference is a crested gecko's tail will not grow back while a leos will. My crested gecko never lost his tail but I was super paranoid about it. My leos haven't lost their tail either but accidents can happen.