Viper geckos are great little geckos. There friendly, cute and easy to keep and breed.



Housing

​Viper geckos are small geckos reaching about 1", so a tank of 18"x10"x7" could hold a colony of 1 male and 3 females. They are social animals so they should be kept in groups, breeding or not. In the tank, we have a few small branches and twigs because they like climbing, and we also have spider hides because normal reptile hides are to small for them. You could also use a plant tray turned up-side-down with a hole cut in it. This would make a great make-do hide for them. We also give them hatching bowls for food and water. For substrate, we have had great success with sand and a nesting box with vermiculite in.



Heating

They require a temperature of 85/95°F at the hot end and 75°F at the cool end. This can be easily achieved by a simple heat mat and a heat light.



Lighting

These geckos are nocturnal, so do not require UVB lighting. However, they should be given lighting that reflects the seasons, for example, we give them 14 hours of light in the summer, and reduce that to only 10 in the winter.



Feeding

Viper geckos, being so small, only require small food like mini meal worms and 2nd-3rd size crickets/hoppers. Despite only needing small food, they need a reasonably large amount of it. They also require water and will drink willingly from a bowl. 

Always remember to gut load the food before feeding it to any reptile. This makes the food a lot better for their health.



Breeding

These are great gecko's to breed, they lay eggs every two to four weeks through out most of the year, so they needed to be provided with calcium all year round so that they do not run out of steam and become ill.

There are no morphs in this species, just individual patterning and a small variety of shades of gray, so this makes choosing your breeders a lot easier than other gecko species.



Incubation/Hatchling Care

Once you find the eggs in the tank, immedietly remove them and place them in the incubator. We use a small deli tub full of dry sand, and place that tub in a larger tub with damp vermiculite in to create some humidity. 



When the hatchlings hatch, they will be less than 1" and very delicate. Ive had the best results for rearing these is in a in a simple setup with sand or paper towel as substrate, the set up should be gently misted every day, for the first few weeks. I use bottle caps or jam jar lids as water bowls and add some simple decoration and learning stimulants ie rocks, fake plants. Food should not be offered until their third day as they will be living off the nutrients from the yolk sac and the uneaten food will just irritate them.