Pink Tongue Skinks

HISTORY

Pink Tongue Skinks (Cyclodomorphus gerrardii) are a medium sized semi-arboreal lizard from Australia. Because they are a Australian species, they are harder to find for sale in the US. They are a very under-rated skink because they are harder to find, but are fairly docile and are an extremely hardy species. They're a great species to add to any collection. 

SIZE & LIFESPAN

Pink Tongue Skinks have been know to live in captivity for 15-20 years. If you properly care for them, and give them the correct diet, this is a skink that you'll have as a pet for more than a decade. Pink Tongue Skinks are a slender mid-size skink weighing between 150-250 grams when full grown and measuring approximately 18 inches in total. Pink Tongue Skinks have a prehensile tail and sharper nails that help them climb branches and foliage. 

HEAT & LIGHTING

Pink Tongue Skinks are diurnal so should be provided with a 6% UVB light during the day. It can stimulate their appetite and also help mimic their natural environment in the wild. We recommend either the Arcadia Shadedweller or the Arcadia 6% bulb. Both bulbs work great and need replaced yearly to provide proper UVB. When using UVB, you also want to make sure to provide adequate coverage in the enclosure so that your skink can get away from the UVB when it needs to. In the winter, we give our skinks 8-10hrs of UVB light. In the summertime, we leave the UVB light on for 12-14hrs. Pink Tongue Skinks need a hot spot of 90-95 degrees with the rest of the enclosure ranging from 75-85 degrees. This can easily be achieve by adding a 50-75 watt heat lamp to your setup. If your house is on the colder side, you may need to use a Ceramic Heat emitter to warm the enclosure at night. Your enclosure can fall into the low-mid 70s at night with no issue. Be sure that your heat lamp is connected to a thermostat so that your enclosure never gets too hot. Be sure to always have a digital thermometer in your enclosure so that you can closely monitor the temperature in the tank. 

                                                                                                                        

DIET

Pink Tongue Skinks need to eat a varied diet of Cat Food, Snails, Turkey baby food, Live Crickets and Bluey Buffet. In the wild, PTS mostly eat live snails, but in captivity, they will eat a variety of things. We typically feed babies every 2-3 days and adults once a week. We dust all food with Calcium D3 every other feeding. You can either feed live snails (if you can find a source) or canned snails from zoomed or exo terra. Make sure the canned snails are safe for reptiles as some canned snails have salt or other preservatives that can be harmful to them. We reccomend feeding Zoomed Can-o-snails. As for cat food, we feed Tiki Cat Chicken and Quail Egg recipe. You can choose any wet cat food, but be sure the protein is either Chicken or Turkey so that the skink isn't having too much fat added to its diet. Cat food can be fed to young babies or pregnant females, but should be fed sparingly to adults so that they don't become obese. Repashy makes Bluey Buffet or Grub Pie which are also good diets to use with your skink. Our skinks tend to like to eat Repashy as a paste. Repashy can be fed as a staple since it is lower in fat. If you have a picky eater, you can mix cat food and Repashy and slowly get your PTS eating more Repashy diet. We typically feed a mixture consisting of Bluey Buffet, Cat Food and Snails mixed together to our PTS. Our babies are also given crickets or dubias once a week and enjoy hunting them down. 

 

HOUSING

A baby/juvenile can be kept in a smaller enclosure We use 12x12x18" enclosures to house our babies and juveniles. At around 6-8 months old, you should move them to their adult enclosure which should be 18x18x24" or larger. We house a pair of pink tongues in 120 gallon enclosure and prefer housing them in enclosures that are 40 gallons or more. We house all our adults in PVC enclosures because it helps keep in humidity and heat better than a glass enclosure. Different enclosures work for different climates. If you live in a dry climate, a PVC enclosure will lock in humidity. If you live in a humid climate, a glass enclosure will provided needed ventilation to insure mold does not start to grow. Being an arboreal species, they will thrive in tall tanks with vertical climbing spaces. We use cork rounds and bamboo bridges for climbing and hiding. 

 

BEDDING

Pink Tongue Skinks like humidity, so need a thick soil substrate to aid with humidity and shedding. You can use Reptisoil mixed with sphagnum moss or bioactive soil with this species. We typically use a mix of Reptisoil, sphagnum moss and reptichip in all our enclosures. In our baby and juvenile enclosures, we use 1-2" layer of damp bedding. In an adult enclosure, we use a 3-5" layer of damp bedding to keep the humidity up. The substrate should be moist, but there should be no standing water. If the top layer of bedding is drying out, be sure to mist it more to lock in the humidity. You can go bioactive with this species. With a bioactive tank, you want to make sure you have a good drainage layer so that you do not get standing water in your enclosure. Also, because some Pink Tongue Skinks will go after insects, you'll want to make sure to stick with dwarf isopods so that the skink doesn't decide they are a tasty treat.

 

DECOR

Pink Tongue Skinks live in shrubbery and on the ground in Australia and will appreciate elevated hides and space to climb inside their enclosure. We recommend using cork bark and bamboo bridges to give them plenty of decor to climb. Cork rounds work great for this species since it can act as both a hide and a place for them to climb. We like to get fake leafy vines and hang them throughout the cage with the assistance of suction cups or adhesive hooks to provide extra hiding places in the enclosure. Be sure to rinse off all plastic plants before you put them in the tank. You can also place live plants such as Snake Plants and Pothos plants. Be sure to rinse off the plant's leaves and re-pot any plants so that there is no way for your gecko to come in contact with pesticides or fertilizer. Personally we like to do a mix of both. Our enclosures typically consist of cork flats, cork rounds, a bamboo bridge, a live pothos plant, and some silk plants draped around the enclosure. You want to have plenty of horizontal perches zig zagging across the enclosure so that the skink has plenty of areas to perch. 

HUMIDITY

We recommend keeping Pink Tongue Skinks humidity between 70-90%. Having a digital hygrometer in the cage will help measure the humidity levels in your tank. Depending on your enclosure type, you may need to mist more frequently. Glass enclosures tend to lose humidity quickly, so need misted every day. Whereas PVC enclosures keep humidity better so need misted every few days. You want to mist enough so that your skink can drink water from leaves or decor in your tank. If humidity requirements are not met, the skink will have issues shedding and can also become dehydrated. Keeping the substrate moist and misting regularly will usually keep the humidity consistent. 

HANDLING/TEMPERAMENT

It is very rare that a Pink Tongue Skink will bite or act aggressive towards a human. We recommend taking your skink out 1-2 times a week for 15 minutes in order to get your skink used to you. The "hand-to-hand" method is the easiest way to handle a skink. This is done by placing your hands next to each other & slowly moving your hands to let your skink crawl over them. Baby and Juvenile Skinks can be a bit hissy when you get them out of the enclosure. They may hiss and lunge at you at first, but typically once you get them out of the enclosure, they settle down. As your skink gets older, it will get more and more tame. Adults are typically very docile and easy to handle. 

 

 WATER

All skinks should be provided with a small, shallow water dish. We always recommend putting a small bio ball in the water dish so that any crickets or isopods that find their way into the water bowl are able to get out. When using water, be sure to either use spring water or tap water with de-chlorinator added to it. DO NOT use distilled water. Distilled water removes trace minerals from the water which are an essential to keeping your skink healthy.

CLEANING

We recommend spot cleaning the cage at least once a week and doing a full bedding change and tank cleaning every 6-8 weeks. Every week look for poo, dead insects, shed, and food smears on the ground or glass and remove it from the enclosure. When cleaning the entire cage out, first remove all bedding and wipe down all surfaces with hot soapy water. Put the decor into a bucket with warm water & a capful of vinegar. Let it soak for 15 minutes & then rinse off the items & place them in bucket of hot water. Once the decor has soaked for 15 minutes, rinse them off again & then they are ready to go back into the tank once cleaning is complete. Then you want to be sure to disinfect the tank with either vinegar or a commercial reptile cleaning product. Once you have disinfected the tank, thoroughly rinse your tank out with hot water until it is free of any cleaning products. Let everything air dry before putting it back into the enclosure. When cleaning to enclosure put the reptile in either a deli cup or another small contained space. Do not put the reptile back into the enclosure until cleaning is complete.

 

SUPPLY LIST:

☐ 12x12x18" enclosure (for babies)

☐ 18x18x24 or 40 gallon breeder (for adults)

☐ Crickets, Roaches or Black Soldier Fly Larvae

☐ Escape proof bowl for rapches

☐ Bluey Buffet, Cat Food or Turkey Baby Food

☐ Live or Canned Snails

☐ Plastic or silicone cup for food

☐ Mister Bottle or Spray Bottle

☐ Dechlorinator or Spring Water

☐ Bamboo Bridges or cork rounds for climbing

☐ Plastic plants or Live plants

☐ Bedding - soil mix or bioactive mix

☐ 6% UVB tube light (Preferably Arcadia brand)

☐ Thermometer/Hygrometer

☐ Heat Lamp with Thermostat

☐ Shallow Water Dish