Crested Gecko Basics

According to a recently published scientific study, Crested Geckos are the fastest growing reptile in Google trends over the past decade. This is because they are an incredibly easy pet to care for, small, beautiful and worth investing in. 

Crested Gecko Morphs

Crested Geckos come in all sorts of patterns and colors. Whether you are looking for a pinstripe, harlequin, extreme harlequin, dalmatian, lilly white, axanthic, tricolor or patternless, you have multiple options. Their colors range from our favorite, red, pink, orange, black, brown, bluish, gray, yellow, green and just about any variation in between. 

Some of the most popular Crested Gecko Morphs include: 

Red Crested Geckos – Red crested geckos are probably the most popular color and most sought after. They can be difficult to breed consistently so when you find a nice red crested gecko they usually are expensive. A real red crested gecko will start around $500 and cost as much as a couple thousand dollars. 

Red Lilly White Crested Geckos – One of the most striking crested geckos is the Red Lilly White Crested Gecko because their base color is a paper white which looks amazing in contrast to the rich red colors along the upper lateral sides of the gecko. 

Cappuccino Crested Gecko – Cappuccino crested geckos are a codominant mutation that when bred together creates a melanistic crested gecko, aka, leucistic crested gecko or translucent crested gecko. The Cappuccino crested gecko’s can be identified by the Y at the base of their tails, pinstripe dashes along the dorsal and a lock of pattern on their lateral sides. 

Melanistic/Leucistic/Translucent Crested Gecko –  The melanistic crested gecko is the super form of the cappuccino crested gecko. They have been described as more translucent than melanistic in recent months. Reptile City Korea was the first to discover them and announce them to the world. Since that time it appears that many people around the world have Cappuccinos and everyone was just sitting on them. 

Frappuccino Crested Gecko – The frappuccino crested gecko is the combination of the codominant cappuccino gene and the codominant lilly white gene with both genes being expressed simultaneously. Visual cappuccinos and lilly whites. The frappuccino crested gecko has that characteristic cappuccino brown but other than that it is difficult to differentiate the newest frappuccinos from a normal brown lilly white. We are interested to see the first Melanistic Lilly White Crested Gecko in 2022 as many Frappuccinos already exist and all they will need to do is breed it to a Cappuccino. 25% of the offspring should be Melanistic Lilly White Crested Geckos. I wonder what they will name them? Maybe ‘Latte Crested Geckos!’ Hahaha! 

Crested Gecko Care

Crested Geckos are extremely easy to care for with some simple preparations before you purchase a crestie. First you are going to need a crested gecko tank or terrarium. We recommend you buy a ExoTerra or ZooMed terrarium 12x12x18” at the least in size. Most crested gecko care sheets recommend that you use some forest substrate with coconut bark for your bottom. Purchase some fake plants and cork wood and make sure there are plenty of places for your crested gecko to hide. Buy a feeder ledge that is held up by strong magnets and feed and water your crested gecko from the feeding perch. Feeding is really easy, purchase some Meal Replacement Power (MRP) from Pangea or Replashy. Feed your crested gecko 3 times a week and give them bugs (crickets, mealworms, dubias) 1 time a week. Be sure to provide plenty of humidity and a temperature range between 70 – 80 degrees. 

Crested Gecko For Sale

If you are looking for a crested gecko for sale or are wondering how much they cost there are a few great areas to find out.Crested Geckos cost anywhere from a few hundred dollars to thousands of dollars depending on how they look. Genetics, colors and patterns all greatly effect the cost of a crested gecko for sale. In 2022, the market is looking for highly reduced patterned crested geckos that are often referred to as extreme harlequins. Another favorite we have been seeing is red spot dalmatian crested geckos. Whatever your favorite crested gecko be sure to checkout multiple breeders websites before deciding on the right crestie for you. 

Crested Gecko Breeders 

There is a website run by Tenny’s Crested Geckos where they keep track of the best crested gecko breeders in the world. In fact, if you qualify, they will even send you a badge that you can display on your website. 

The same website keeps track of all of the crested gecko breeders in the United States by each State. I think if you go to their crested gecko breeders near me page you can find your State. If you contact them they will add you to your State that you breed crested geckos in for free. They also have Crested Gecko breeders badges by State that you can add to your website. They look pretty cool, almost like a Wisconsin Cheese Stamp. 

Starting A Reptile Business

Everyone’s dream is to own your own reptile business, at least it has always been ours. How do you start a reptile business? It can be tough to know what to do first when starting a reptile business. But I think investing in good quality reptiles is the number one first step. The second step would be to grow your online presence on Instagram. Facebook is a tough place to sell reptiles because all of the big group sites are owned and governed by admins who are reptile breeders. The only reason they started the group site is so they can sell their reptiles to the group. So they make it difficult for you to sell yours. If you want to sell reptiles on Facebook you need to start your own group or use Facebook Ads. Instagram is much easier to sell reptiles on and we probably sell 90% of all of our reptiles online through Instagram and Morph Market.