Viper Gecko — Fact Sheet

Hemidactylus imbricatus · Viper Gecko

📋 At a glance

🏠 Enclosure

• Provide a ventilated 60 × 45 × 45 cm enclosure for an adult.
• A single animal simplifies feeding and health monitoring; experienced keepers sometimes maintain compatible groups, with extra hides and immediate separation if competition occurs.
• Never house males together.

🪨 Enclosure furniture

• Use roughly 5 cm of compactable, fertilizer-free soil and sand, with stable low rockwork and cork shelters at both ends.
• Set heavy objects on the enclosure base before adding substrate.
• Seal ventilation gaps against tiny hatchlings and feeder escape.

💡 Lighting

• Use a 12-hour daytime cycle and darkness at night.
• Provide low-level UVB with approximately UVI 1–2 at an accessible exposed position and complete shade in retreats.
• Measure at gecko height; mesh and lamp distance alter exposure.

🌡️ Temperature

• Aim for a 33–35 °C basking surface, a 24–29 °C cool area and 21–24 °C at night.
• Heat one end from above, using a dimming thermostat and guarded equipment.
• Check surfaces with an infrared thermometer and air with fixed probes.
• Avoid heated rocks and a uniformly hot enclosure.

💧 Humidity & water

• Keep general daytime humidity around 30–50%, while maintaining a separate damp hide throughout the year.
• Provide a small, shallow bowl of fresh water and clean it daily.
• The moist hide should have damp substrate without standing water; do not saturate the whole floor to solve shedding problems.

🪳 Diet

Staple foods — follow the feeding schedule:

• Offer appropriately small, gut-loaded crickets, roaches and other cultured insects.
• Feed adults every 2–3 days, adjusting portions to body condition; juveniles need smaller meals daily or every other day.
• Remove uneaten biting prey; waxworms are occasional treats.
• Choose prey no wider than the space between the eyes; offer smaller items if swallowing looks difficult.

In moderation:

• Keep fatty larvae occasional and adjust portions to body condition.

Avoid:

• Pesticide-contaminated food, spoiled leftovers and unverified wild-collected foods.

Supplements:

• Dust prey with calcium and use a reptile multivitamin according to its label and the UVB arrangement.
• With effective measured UVB, use plain calcium for routine dusting and obtain D3 from a coordinated, label-directed vitamin plan; without effective UVB, dietary D3 needs deliberate provision.
• Do not stack D3 products.

🩺 Health — warning signs

• Track weight and tail condition.
• Retained toe shed, a thinning tail, weakness or declining appetite warrant an environmental check and reptile-veterinary assessment.
• Do not pull attached skin or medicate presumptive parasites without diagnosis.
• Weak jaws and poor grip can indicate metabolic bone disease; repeated straining or abdominal swelling may indicate obstruction or egg binding.
• These require veterinary diagnosis, not extra supplements or home extraction.