Help please with my Leopard gecko.

Question
I bought two baby leopard geckos (or so I assumed, since they were only about 3 inches long) from Petco about 3 weeks ago. I was keeping them in a dirt/bark substrate, but I later switched to paper towels after I read up some things online. The tank had paper towels, a water bowl, a meal worm bowl, a calcium bowl, two hide spots, wood for them to crawl on, and one hide with moss under it. I didn't have an under-the-tank heater, so I kept a light over top that I had used for my snake at one point. I read that the geckos were supposed to eat every day or every other day. I tried feeding them that often, but they wouldn't eat. In the first week, Spyro ate 2 crickets. That's it. Ziggy ate nothing. I saw them drink a lot, so I knew they were drinking and licking a little of the calcium out of the bowl as well. In the next week, Ziggy ate one meal worm. The food was the right size- very small and I had been feeding them crickets and meal worms both. I noticed that Spyro's feces were white and liquidy. I looked it up online and found that was abnormal. I didn't know what was wrong. We don't have a reptile vet anywhere near where I live. Two days ago, Spyro died. I cleaned out the whole tank and put Ziggy back, but he's still not eating and I'm worried he will die too. His feces are brown, but kind of liquidy as well... he seems to have problems releasing waste.

The pet store had been keeping the geckos in a 15 gallon tank, with about 12 baby geckos all together. They kept them in sand (but I heard that wasn't good for them) and had been feeding them a mix of meal worms and crikets...

Is there anything I can do to keep Ziggy alive?

Answer
Your question was sent to the pool, and unfortunately I'm answering it so late. I would appreciate it if you could email me back at phrynosoma_texas@yahoo.com and tell me who you originally asked this question. You may also tell me if Ziggy is still alive and I can try to help.

Unfortunately, my wife also works for Petco, and what they do with their reptiles up there is not to be followed. Almost everything they do up there is wrong and I complain all the time. My wife tries to change things to better their conditions ( such as not keeping the babies on the calci-sand ), but with their stupid corporate rules, there's only so much she can do before getting fired.

No, baby Leopard Geckos should not be kept on that sand. That is wrong. It will impact them and this could kill them. And they should not be getting fed mealworms as a baby. This can also impact them and kill them. So there's two double whammies right there which Petco does, which can impact your babies and kill them soon after you buy them.

If you really want to do something worthwhile...go back there and demand a refund because they set up the situation which probably killed your lizards, and misinstructed you on the setup because it's what they display to customers. At the very least, it sounds as if with the runny feces, that the geckos had a GI tract bacterial infection or parasite and should have been taken to the vet if this was the case at the time they were bought. Most Petco employees wouldn't notice if the storewas on fire, much less how an individual lizard is doing from day to day. The company doesn't care. I've gone in there 3 times in the last year and had to tell management that they had a dead Bearded Dragon in the tank! Yet, the animals are supposed to be checked by the "specialist" every hour. The last time it happened, I was so pissed, I took a camera phone picture of it so I could post it on the net.  

Complain loudly about their stupid corporate practices which any reptile expert would tell them is WRONG. They won't listen to those on the inside like my wife, who tries to do what she can when management isn't looking. They seem to only listen where it hurts...the customers.  

I am a reptile rescuer, and I see the evidence of Petco's screw ups all too often. They are incompetent.

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