Review: Feeding dishes for leopard geckos

I have used several feeding and water dishes for my leopard geckos, so I have decided to review some of them, and hopefully this helps.

Part of the regular diet I feed my leopard geckos consists of mealworms and dubia roaches; the benefits of these two insects being that they can’t climb smooth surfaces, so if my leopard geckos don’t eat any, I won’t have strays crawling around the vivariums.

Therefore, one of the important things I look for in a feeding dish is that they are escape proof- tall and smooth enough that the critters can’t escape.

I also was very conscious that I didn’t want very deep water dishes, but also didn’t want the water to evaporate too quickly, so this was a consideration when I was purchasing my water dishes.

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Exo Terra Shallow Feeding Dish

Let’s start with the shallower one, by Exo Terra. It looks great! Very natural with a lovely rock-like texture around the edge, but unfortunately, as soon as I put the mealworms in it, they were over the edge and crawling across the vivarium floor.

I didn’t even attempt to put the dubia roaches in as they’re much smarter and quicker. They would have escaped and hidden within seconds so I saved myself the trouble.

Having said that, I really do like the look of this dish, and didn’t want to get rid of it, so I tried it out as a water dish when my leopard geckos were babies, and it’s perfect!

It’s shallow enough that it doesn’t pose a danger to baby or juvenile geckos, and my lazy gecko seems to like treading across it instead of walking around it, so I’m hopeful this habit will keep his feet nice and moist around shedding time and prevent old skin from getting trapped around his toes.

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Exo Terra Dual Compartment Feeding Dish

Now moving onto the dual-compartment dish – again it looks great with a natural rock-like texture, and also is much deeper so I was hopeful that it would prevent any escapees.

When it arrived, it was smaller than I expected, but this isn’t a bad thing. It doesn’t take up a lot of space in my vivarium, and it means I can pile in quite a lot of mealworms on top of each other in the larger compartment. I find when there are more worms in a dish, the more they move; and the more they move the more interesting they are to my geckos.

When I tried putting my dubia roaches in this, I had a little more trouble. When I only put the very small ones in the dish, it was fine, however after watching them for a while, some of the larger ones were able to piggyback on top of other ones and get over the edge, so sadly it didn’t pass the dubia roach test!

In the smaller compartment, I have used this to keep my calcium powder in, and I’m very happy. I’m sure the two compartments could also be used for food and water, or two types of reptile food, but I find that it great for keeping the calcium in, and it is very space-efficient in my vivarium.

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Komodo terraced water dish

I love love love this dish, and both of my geckos have one (it comes in three colours). It was great for when they were babies as it has little steps, so they wouldn’t ever get stuck in it, and it holds so much water.

Also it looks very natural and is shaped so it fits nicely into a corner. I put this on the cool side of my vivariums so that the water evaporation is slower.

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Glass Ramekins

These glass ramekins are great because they are cheap, don’t break, will go in the dishwasher and are clear (so my geckos can see wriggling insects inside!)

You will see them all over my Feeding section of the blog if you look closely 🙂

Again, they are smooth sided and quite tall, so larger insects like morio worms can’t escape.

Now that my leopard geckos are adults, I use these for water and for feeding dishes, I like to change things up, so I will alternate when I feel like redecorating their vivariums or when I’m cleaning them.

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Tealight holders for calcium powder

OK, now don’t think I’m crazy for showing you candle holders – but these are ideal for holding calcium powder, and they look really pretty too.

They’re small enough that they don’t take loads of space in your vivarium, and if you have any left over they’ll look nice in your home as well.

Finally, they’re cheap and easy to wash – bacteria won’t sit on the surface and you can put them in the dishwasher for a thorough clean. I have been using these for a while now and really like how they look.

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Hope you enjoyed this post, and that it gave you some ideas around which feeding dishes to get. Make sure you check out my other posts and categories too 🙂