adult size

[jeffro]

Hi there all. I have been lurking for about a month and cant believe the inactivity around here!
I have been lusting for some cave geckos for a while and jumped on 3 WC pairs of G. hainanensis. They seem to be settling in well as they are eating crickets like pigs but i had a few questions about their size.
I weighed them when they came in 2 weeks ago as they seemed a bit small for the sexed adults they were sold as via kingsnake.com. My females ranged from 9g-12g and males from 11-13. I havent handled them except to initially weigh them (ie. i havent yet attempted to sex them myself).The animals appeared well hydrated and not gaunt, lanky, or sunken in by any means and all in appearant good health
Am i right in assuming these animals are far from adult breeding size? The only weight information i can find is a generalization for the genus putting them at 30-50g, which brings about another question- are they sexable at this size? I would put them all at about 2-3" SVL. Also, is sexing just similar to a leo or other eublipharid?
thanks in advance,
Jeff

[Reptirus]

Im glad to hear you have been checking in with us threw the last month. I realize that we have a small member base right now and I am trying to improve it. The problem being is that alot of people sign up but never actually participate, or might make 2 or 3 posts and then we dont hear from them again. Goniurosaurus are awesome geckos and the fuel behind the forum is to help bring Goni lovers together share info and help more people find out about this awesome geckos. My next idea would be advertisitng the site via banners on other places like kingsnake and fauna, but honestly I as of right now until members start advertising here, my funding for the forum is pretty much all burnt up. Please help spread word of the forum and help bring new members in, we would greatly appreciate it:-) Also thank you for posting because more posts in the forum means more spiders crawling it putting us higher on searches so more people will be able to find us:-) Congrats on your Hainans, they are awesome and a great place to start with Gonis. I agree your gonis are alittle bit on the small side. They are definitely sexable at this point, but may have alittle bit of growing to do yet. My pair of Hains are 18 and 21 grams. Being WC it is hard to say how big they really will get, who knows they may never reach 21 grams, or they could grow larger than my pair and tip the scales at 30! My best advice would be make sure they are being well fed every other day and monitor their size/weight growth. Im sure you get where im going with this. Sexing is very simple just like leopards, look for bulges :-) Of course they also have the pre-anal pores. Thank you again for participating in the forum and feel free to post away!

[jeffro]

thanks for the quick response Reptirus, the reason i registered and posted is i felt guilty for not contributing and being part of such an awesome, although small, community of gecko-nerds. I don't think I am going to be taking any 10 step programs to cure me of my gecko addiction so i hope to be around for awhile.

I have pretty much been letting them chill out in their cages and not bothered them since they seem extremely shy. All are housed separately in about 8gallon or so containers with cocofiber, some flat stones and large tree bark slabs to hide amongst and crawl ontop of and some fake foliage and oak leaves for cover. I have been misting them daily a few hours prior to lights out and humidity fluctuates between 50-90%. I am keeping them rather cool at 69-74F. I have been offereing them 3-5 well gutloaded crickets every other day and i have yet to see a stray cricket the next morning.

With any luck I am hoping they will have a productive future for me as I am using this species to get my foot in the door with these awesome red-eyed beasties.

[Reptirus]

Sounds good. They love hiding places, which you definitely have covered. They like it cool, which you also have covered. Sounds like they are pounding their prey, which means they feel comfortable with their setup. Sounds like your doing great with them! Its great to hear that you are enjoying them and plan on eventually expanding. If your interested, I just got my caresheet up under the articles section. From the sounds of things you dont need it though:-)

[jeffro]

as an update i weighed them all again 3 weeks after receiving them. All have gained 3.5-4g. To be fair it was the day after a feeding night, but i am proud and excited none the less. They just might be breedable this season after all...we'll just have to keep fingers crossed and hopes high.

[Reptirus]

Thats great to hear! Got any pictures of them to post?

[jeffro]

unfortunately no pictures yet. I will have to recruit someone with a decent camera to take some pictures for me. I have been meaning to take picture of my breeder crested geckos anyways. Photoshoot to ensue in the near future.

[Reptirus]

You can get a relatively cheap digital camera that will do the job for ya. Since you would be using it just to post pictures online you could get away with an older used camera if you really wanted to. 7mp would be more than enough, just make sure it has a macro mode on it so you can get close up pics. Would be alot cheaper than paying someone to take pics for you every time