so i always get confused on which calciums i should use because many people have different opinions...

so yesterday i was talking to the girl who works at the pet store where i get my feeders, and she told that the calcium i was using was useless!

she said all i really needed was reptivite!?

was she right?

any calcium is good. As long as you have pure, calcium + d3 and multivitamins or you could get calcium and multivitamins with d3 and dist two times a week with multi vitamins

well reptivite is just mainly Vitamins you should still use PURE Calcium and Calcium D3. I do mine this way

Jurassi Cal 5x a week (monday - friday)
Rep-Cal wit Vit.D3 1x a week (saturday)
Reptivite 1x a week (sunday)

We use JurassiCal and JurassiVite. The vitamins have the D3 in it. As long as your constantly offering pure calcium w/o D3 in a cap, and dusting you're doing the right thing. I would take most advice you get from a pet store with a grain (or two or ten) salt.

Just wondering why it must be pure calcium left and not the stuf with d3? Would it be harmful to leave the calcium with d3 in the dish?

vitamin D is fat soluble it is toxic in excess amounts, too much vitamin D can also lead to over absorption of calcium, resulting in calcium intoxication. wich means 2 much calcium = BAD

So is the calcium with d3 fine for dusting as long as pure calcium is available in the dish?

use the D3 once a week and dust with PURE 5x a week and leave PURE in a dish.

thats exactly what she told me, but said that i had to use reptivite only which i find hard to believe...

There is a product out there that is made to use as a stand-alone dust for leopard geckos. I think it's called Leopard Gecko Dust? It is designed with the supposed needs of leopard geckos in mind, and if you are using it, you just dust all your feeders with this dust. (I would still have pure calcium in their tank at all times though).

I don't know if anyone on this forum uses it or not. When I first heard about it, folks were wary of using it, because it had just come onto the market. I haven't heard any bad reports on it yet though, so it may be okay.

I think most of us are using two or three vitamin powders. I have calcium w/d3 which I do not use because my multivitamin also has d3 in it; a separate multivitamin; and a pure calcium.

As far as whether or not you need a calcium with d3 in it, check the label of the reptivite. Does it have d3 in it's vitamin list? If so, the lady is correct in saying that you do not need a calcium with d3 dust.

You don't need to dust every day. If you ahve a cap of pure calcium in the viv at all times, you only need to dust with D3 once or twice a month. I have never used a vitamin and have been keeping leos for over a year with no issues. I take a multivitamin myself, but most people don't. Sure they can help, but not having one won't hurt either.

You can't compare humans to leos. Humans have the ability to eat the foods they need when they are lacking a certain vitamin in their diet (ie. liver when they're iron deficient). Leos in captivity do not have this option. They eat only what we feed them. Their food doesn't even have access to all the essential vitamins they would normally eat in the wild since the feeders only eat what we give them to eat. I don't think one year is long enough to make a true assessment of whether or not your leo is fine. Some vitamin related problems take a long time to develop.

Fair enough. I didn't mention food, I mentioned supplements. I do gutload with what is essentially a mutlivitamin, however the only real difference between insects in the wild and the ones we feed in captivity is the calcium level, assuming we properly gutload the insects and give them a varied diet.

Did you know that the FDA approves perscription medication based on clinical trials that last only a couple of months, even for medication that people could potentially take for their entire lives? Scary how little we really know about what we put into out bodies.

the FDA and the amount of manmade chemical crap that Americans put into their bodies is a whole different kettle of fish.

The reason we recommend dusting daily here is that there are leos which never use the Ca in their tanks for whatever reason. When you can't watch them 24/7 it is also wise to make sure they are getting it by dusting their food. Well gutloaded feeders are clearly essential but, for once following what my mom always told me about it being better to be safe than suffer mbd... or whatever her expression was, dusting every feeding is a good idea.