Reptile Care Guide

Written and reviewed by Hugo Mellado · Last updated August 2026

With reptiles you are not really keeping an animal — you are keeping an environment, and the animal lives in it. Temperature, light, humidity and enclosure size do the work that food and affection do for a dog. Get the habitat right and a leopard gecko can live fifteen to twenty years, a bearded dragon ten or more, and a box turtle longer than you might expect to keep it.

Nutrition

Diets differ completely between species, so identify yours precisely before buying food. Leopard geckos and crested geckos are insectivores or frugivores; bearded dragons are omnivores whose plant intake rises with age; most tortoises are strict herbivores; aquatic turtles are omnivorous and messy.

• Insect eaters: offer appropriately sized crickets, dubia roaches, black soldier fly larvae and the occasional waxworm as a treat. Insects should be no longer than the space between the animal’s eyes.
• Gut-load and dust: feed the insects vegetables for a day before offering them, and dust with calcium at most feedings and a multivitamin weekly. Whether the calcium contains vitamin D3 depends on your lighting — ask a reptile vet.
• Bearded dragons: juveniles eat mostly insects daily; adults eat mostly greens with insects a few times a week.
• Tortoises: grasses, weeds, dandelion, endive and squash. No dog food, no fruit for Mediterranean species, and no lettuce-only diets.
• Aquatic turtles: a quality pellet plus greens and occasional protein, fed in water with strong filtration.

Common feeding mistakes

• Skipping calcium supplementation — metabolic bone disease is the most frequent avoidable illness in captive reptiles.
• Feeding insects that are too large, which can cause impaction or neurological injury.
• Using sand or loose substrate under a feeding animal without care, another impaction risk.
• Offering wild-caught insects, which may carry pesticides or parasites.
• Avocado, rhubarb, spinach in quantity, and any toxic houseplant.

Habits & Behavior

Reptiles are ectotherms: they regulate body temperature by moving between warm and cool places. Behaviour therefore reads as a thermostat report. A bearded dragon gaping on the basking branch may simply be venting heat; one that hides constantly is probably too hot or has nowhere secure to retreat. A gecko that stops eating in autumn may be entering a natural slowdown, or may be too cold to digest.

Most species are not social and should be housed alone. Two male bearded dragons will fight; two leopard geckos may bully each other invisibly, with the weaker animal quietly losing weight. Cohabitation is generally a convenience for the keeper, not a benefit for the animal.

Handling should be brief, low and supported. Never grab a lizard by the tail — many species drop it as a defence and regrowth is imperfect. Turtles and tortoises dislike being lifted at all. Shedding animals want to be left alone; a snake in blue or a gecko with cloudy skin is temporarily half-blind and easily startled.

Care & Habitat

Build a thermal gradient with a measured basking zone at one end and a genuinely cool end at the other, and verify it with a digital probe thermometer and an infrared temperature gun — not with the dial that came with the tank. Control heat with a thermostat, always. Heat rocks are a burn hazard and should not be used.

• UVB: most diurnal species require a linear UVB tube, replaced every six to twelve months even though it still emits visible light. Mesh reduces output, and glass blocks UVB entirely.
• Humidity: match the species — dry for a leopard gecko with a humid hide for shedding, high for a crested gecko, seasonal for a box turtle. Measure it with a digital hygrometer.
• Enclosure size: bigger than the minimum listed on the box. A 40-gallon breeder is a floor, not a ceiling, for an adult bearded dragon.
• Substrate: choose by species — soil and sand mixes for diggers, paper towel for quarantine, coconut fibre for humidity lovers. Avoid calcium sand and cedar.
• Furniture: hides at both ends, branches, cork bark and cover so the animal can be out of sight without being cold.
• Water: a clean dish sized for the species; aquatic turtles need powerful filtration and regular water changes.

Clean daily spots, disinfect monthly with a reptile-safe product, and rinse thoroughly. Wash your hands after every interaction: reptiles commonly carry Salmonella, which is why the CDC advises against them in homes with children under five, elderly or immunocompromised residents.

Games & Enrichment

Reptiles are not playful in the mammalian sense, but they explore, hunt and problem-solve, and enclosures designed for that produce visibly more active animals.

• Let insect eaters hunt live prey in a foraging area instead of eating from tongs every time.
• Provide a deep digging substrate for species that burrow, and rearrange furniture occasionally to renew interest.
• Add climbing height for arboreal species and flat basking platforms at different temperatures.
• Offer supervised exploration outside the enclosure in a warm, secure space, and unfiltered natural sunlight when weather allows — never in a closed glass tank, which cooks.
• For tortoises, scatter-feed across a planted pen so grazing takes the whole day.

Health & Veterinary Tips

Locate a reptile-experienced veterinarian before you acquire the animal; general practices often cannot help. Annual exams plus a fecal parasite check are sensible, and a new animal should be seen soon after purchase, particularly if wild-caught or imported.

• Quarantine new reptiles for at least 60 to 90 days, in a separate room where possible.
• Keep written husbandry records: temperatures, humidity, feedings, sheds, weights. Your vet will ask, and the answer is usually in the numbers.
• Metabolic bone disease shows as tremors, a rubbery jaw, bowed limbs or reluctance to walk — it needs treatment and a lighting review.
• Retained shed around toes and tail tips can cut off circulation; raise humidity and check after every shed.
• Mouth rot, respiratory infection and impaction are all common consequences of incorrect temperature or substrate.

See a vet quickly

• Open-mouth breathing, bubbles at the nostrils or wheezing.
• Refusal to eat combined with weight loss, lethargy or sunken eyes.
• Straining, or no droppings for an extended period.
• A soft or deformed jaw, tremors, or an inability to lift the body off the floor.
• Any burn from a heat source, which usually means the thermostat failed or was absent.

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Next: our reptile articles, or the aquarium care guide, the other hobby where water and equipment come first.