Oh yeah, I knew about it. But even when she's fired down, she's naturally a little more yellow than she is right now. Plus when she fires up, she has stripes that show up. They still show up when I hold and all... But her color doesn't change, and that's what concerns me.

So it turns out that the reptile store is closed on Tuesdays. Of course it's my luck that it's closed on the one day of the week that I'm on that side of town... It is very small though and judging by the looks of it, while they have a lot of reptiles, they don't appear to have a lot of reptile stuff. So I went to another store called "Tropical Kingdom" which has a lot of things that you can't find in the chain pet stores like petsmart and Petco.
However, the reptile supplies were rather limited and some of the prices were outrageous! 30+ dollars for a corkbark tile that could be used as a background? I found the same thing, same size online for much less! Also the one artificial vine that was big enough to fit in there and also have big leaves to serve as good hiding was 55 dollars! Come on, it can't be that expensive to make a plastic plant! All the cheaper ones were small and flimsy, and even they felt overpriced.

So I got a thermometer/hygrometer so I can tell how humid it is and not mist too much, a day/night LED light (that I'll have to wait until we get the aquarium out of the room since that's the only accessible outlet), and a rather small piece of corkbark (the longer pieces were too narrow and the wider pieces were too short). So we're gonna try and find some way to attach it near the top (I suggested attaching some kind of magnet but somehow my mom does not understand the concept of using magnets for this kind of thing, and keeps talking about attaching it to the screen), and the guy suggested attaching a grape vine as well, which Lo and behold, we have a grape bush in our back yard. So we'll try something like that (or maybe find an artificial one so we wouldn't have to replace a actual grape vine over and over again.

Also I found out that there's such thing as "air plants". I guess they don't need water or nutrients from soil or anything? And people attach them to pieces of wood and such. So I might end up doing something like that... If I decide to get a corkbark tile use as a background and replace the foam one that's currently in the big vivarium (it came with the vivarium).

My parents were talking about freezing and peeling the bark off a Mosquete branch and putting it in there... Not sure if that's a good idea or not. But if IS safe, that would be another thing I can attach air plants to.

As soon as I get everything I'll post pictures, but getting it situated is going to take longer than I thought. My ability to get these things is dependent on where my parents are willing to drive me (and also budget and all that).

I'm not a fan of Tropical Kingdom. They have a sort of corral with a bunch of parrots in it that you can play with, which is cool. But their prices are high and it always smells like pee in there. Or at least that's how it used to be - it's been several years since I went there.

I don't know about reptiles, but mesquite makes great perches for birds. You have to remove the thorns, but except for that it's safe.

Didn't smell like pee when I went in there. Perhaps they've improved. Either that or I somehow can't smell pee.

But I do agree on things being expensive in there. Apparently though, the dog food is cheaper. Why is it that's cheaper and everything else isn't, I have no clue.

So air plants are out of the question again. Asked my mom about them and she said she doesn't like them.
It might sound repidiculous that I'm 19 and still listening to my parents about all this stuff. But given that I still live with them, every decision I make that they don't like, I'd have to hear them complain about it for quite some time. I know they're trying to help and all, but when I've been researching these things for a couple months and have all my plans thought out in advanced, I prefer to carry out those plans exactly as I thought of them. Plus it's my money. I see no reason why they feel they have to decide how I spend my own money even after I've proven capable of spending it wisely and knowing how to compare and look for the cheapest way to do something efficiently (seriously, those two potted plants ended up costing more than getting the substrate stuff and plant bundle on that one website), but I digress.

On the bright side this means it wouldn't quite take as long to get the last bits I need. Just a couple of wall hides, get the cork bark and grape vine situated as well as the mesquite branch, and should be it for the setup for now.

I'm sorry that you already knew, I feel bad explaining it now

I find that a lot of shops are absolutely extortionate and others are crazy cheap. On Saturday after visiting a bird zoo I went in to the nearby town because I had heard good things about the reptile shop there. The prices were really good, albeit I wouldn't pay £100 for a normal young hognose. All the other animals were cheap and the equipment was good too. Shame I didn't have the money otherwise I'd of stocked up. They had natural enclosures too which was nice. Beardies had a natural loose substrate with excavator clay making cool hides and things

I'm doing my research at the moment on air plants and from I can tell most of them require an arid environment anyway. They do well in lower humidity enclosures like beardies, leos, skinks and such. You probably can get some that like a higher humidity but I don't know if a crestie enclosure would be too much. I haven't the foggiest, they look awesome though Without being rude to your parents, what does the plants inside your animal's enclosure have to do with them? That's like when I was living at home my nan coming in to the garden, looking into the aviaries and saying nah I don't like that swing Doesn't make sense!

Honestly, I'm not sure. I'm guessing my mom is trying to help with trying to set up a low-maintenance method for this vivarium.
Though she failed to understand that having a bio-active vivarium with plants, scavengers and all is relatively low-maintenance. I mean, you have the springtails/Isopods/milipedes on the bottom cleaning up most of the mess including mold that might grow in there, and the substrate would keep the humidity up for a while which would mean less misting (Though judging by the hygrometer, there's enough humidity in there as it is already).

Why my parents feel the need to dictate what I buy with my money, for my pets, I don't know... Maybe they feel like they're helping, or trying to teach me something, or maybe they don't trust that I've planned ahead about a month in advanced and already found the easiest and most efficient options... Either way, I just try to work around it to avoid too much conflict.
This could just be the bratty teenager in me talking too, so feel free to completely disregard this.



Anyways, I ordered the last item I wanted online, and it should be here in a few days. I will be glad to finally have just about everything off my list. This was one of the few items that had stayed on even after all of the changing in plans, and that's a hiding cave to go on the side of the vivarium.

So that, tree branch, corkbark and grapevine and this thing will finally be completed. Given I already have the latter three objects and just need to figure out how to put them in there, it shouldn't take much longer.

Dottie's still pale but she's acting normal. I noticed that the tip of her snout is actually lighter than the rest of her body, so I'm wondering if she's really just getting ready to shed her skin.

EDIT: okay... Never mind about that less misting part I mentioned about a bio-active vivarium being efficient. I read that having enough humidity helps cresties shed, and while the humidity is already in the range for cresties at about 60-65% humidity (required range is 50-75%), I decided to very lightly mist the giv just to increase it ever so slightly. Lo and behold I watch her lapping up the droplets on the leaves like a dog.
Geez, no wonder she's been so pale! She doesn't know how to drink from a bowl (for those who don't know, it's common for many lizards to get their water from leaves after it rains in the wild, so getting water from a bowl is rather unnatural for them). Poor thing probably haven't had any water for days aside from the water mixed with her powder food. I hadn't seen the need to mist her vivarium because it was already humid enough according to the hygrometer, and after seeing mold in the smaller one I was afraid of overdoing it with the misting again.
How did that not occur to me? It was like that for my anoles too. I misted a little more to make sure she got enough water. Hopefully this was all there was to it and her color will return (or her skin will shed correctly if that is actually the case).

Now if I can stop being an idiot and remember the common knowledge to keeping reptiles from tropical environments, that'd be great.

I'm glad you figured out what the problem was!

Would it help to ask your parents nicely if they could step back and let you make your own mistakes? That's the best way to learn after all. They can give advice, but you need to learn how to function as an adult so the final decision should be yours. If it turns out that they were right and you were wrong, that's a learning experience. It's also a learning experience if it turns out the other way around.

You aren't being a bratty teenager at all! I moved out when I was 18 and had to leave all of my aviary birds at my grandparents (where I was raised). I would visit every single day and my grandfather would tell me how to look after them or that I should do this or that or that they had too many toys and not to feed so much fresh food because they drop a lot of it yadda yadda. I've had it since I was really young and it's why I moved out at 18. We were going to move all of the birds out but in both houses we rented our gardens were broken into! Now I have my own home I'm planning on getting my new aviaries up here in the near future. I just turned 22, I have a job, a house, I'm marrying my best friend next year after a 6 year old relationship. I STILL get told how to do things. I go up there every single day to clean, feed etc. My grandfather fed the hawk yesterday at 3pm even though I left him a message to say I was coming just after 3 to fly him. He said 'yeah but he looked hungry'. That isn't how falconry works Trying to explain food management and weight management to him is like drawing blood from a stone. How somebody who has little to no clue on the subject can comment on it I do not know! Rarrrrrrrrrr, makes me so mad. I have to get the top of my garden levelled in the new year to accommodate some of my aviaries so I'll just keep gritting my teeth and doing what I do best haha. I can completely understand your frustrations. I was made to rehome my first snake because I asked to have him in another room in the house as I didn't want him around my birds. Obviously they said no. He went to a good friend at the time. Now I have my own place I have my collection and hey ho

That would definitely explain why she had gone pale! Did she look dehydrated at all or just pale? Maybe just spray her with a couple of sprays to lick it off in future so you don't have to mist the entire enclosure ? I do it for my beardies, just a little bit on the top of their head to run down their nose and they'll start licking away

Can't wait to see the set up

I'm not exactly sure what a dehydrated gecko would look like other than pale (apparently), but given that her color is back to normal now, it's safe to assume that it was dehydration afterall.

Although now she's insisting on hiding, even more than usual. I wonder if that's just because it's starting to get a little colder?
Just yesterday I found her curled up in the philodendron with her tail on top of her head. I wish I got a picture because it was honestly cute.

I got her out for a few seconds to examine her and make sure she's okay. When I tried to put her back in her vivarium, she climbed up my arm and hid under the collar of my shirt. Not sure if she wanted to be there, or she felt in danger of my hand and saw that as a hiding place. But I let her stay there for a few minutes before putting her back.

The wall hide is coming on the 19th I think. I wish it'd come sooner, but eh... At least it's on the way in the first place.
I ordered the exo terra "canopy cave". I'll have to be careful with placement since it has a strong sticky adhesive as opposed to a hide with a magnet, but what I like about it is the cover you put on the outside of the vivarium. If geckos are smart enough to realize they can be seen through the glass, then she'd probably be more comfortable in this one.

That's a cool hide! I am going to save to go to one of the expos next year I think so I can do something a little bit like pimp my viv

No real updates on the vivarium, but I got a few pictures of her that I thought I'd share.





I found her kind of buried in the philidendron, so I thought I'd take a few pictures from my camera.

Also I took this one a few weeks back. For whatever reason she was hanging on the bottom of the feeding cup.

I find her in the funniest positions sometimes. Makes me wonder how they can possibly be comfortable like that.

Shooting for this weekend with the branch and piece of cork bark. Then hide comes in next weekend and then it will finally be time to reveal the viv.
The Pilidendron's starting to grow and be a little more vine-like. I'm gonna see if I can adjust it it to grow around the branch.