There is a little bit of a debate about the lighting that gargoyle geckos need. In the wild, they live in small trees or bushes close to the ground. They are nocturnal, which means they sleep during the day. So, you would think they do not get much sunlight if they are awake and hunting at night then finding a nice hiding place to sleep during the day.
So, do they need specific lighting in a terrarium?
The answer is yes... and no. It depends on the room you have them in and the plants that you include in the terrarium. I have two terrariums in a home theater. There are no windows in there and the nearest windows are on the far wall of the game room that adjoins the media room. If I did not have lights above the terrariums, they would be in almost complete darkness all day, so mine definitely need a light just to be able to feel like there is a separate day and night.
The plants need light too. A 5000k bulb is necessary for plants to grow, so if you want to have your gecko in a planted terrarium then you will need light for the plants.
Heat is a concern if you keep your house cold. Gargoyle geckos need to be kept in a temperature range that is above 65 degrees in the coldest spot to no higher than 85 degrees in the basking area. They should never be colder than 65 degrees or hotter than 85, so if there is a temperature range in their terrarium, they can find a temperature that is comfortable to them. To create this range, a warm incandescent bulb can be placed near a structure that the gecko can climb. The warmest spot in the terrarium, the basking spot, will be near the top of the terrarium and the coolest will be on the opposite side of the terrarium near the bottom. My basking spot is near the back right corner of the terrarium.
UVB bulbs - there is a debate about UVB lights for gargoyle geckos. Some say they don’t need the extra bulb like many other reptiles do, but there is still a chance that gargoyle geckos can get metabolic bone disease (MBD). MBD is caused when a reptile does not get enough vitamin D3. I have a UVB light sitting on the top of the terrarium right in the middle so the light shine as evenly as possible into the terrarium.
Too much light? - So, in the wild, we have a gecko that normally lives in a shady bush or tree during the day. This gecko is active when it is dark. It may seem like overkill to have two different light sources on the terrarium. Well, in the wild, the sun supplies both UVB and the right amount of heat necessary for the gecko to thrive. In a terrarium, the two different light bulbs supply the UVB and the heat. Naturally, the sun is bright. It is the plants and hiding places that protect the gecko from too much sun. So, providing hiding places and plants in the terrarium will protect the gecko from too much exposure to the lights. I have one gecko that always sleeps on a log a couple inches above the bottom of the terrarium in the light. Another sleeps inside a hollow log every day. I only see him at night after the lights go off. A third gecko likes to sleep as near the top of the terrarium as she can get. Sometimes she is near the lights. Other times, she is in the back left corner where it is darker.
I choose to give them light, heat and different objects and plants so they can either find a dark, colder spot or a warm, bright spot. If they have choices they will find the spot that they like best.
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