Housing individual males

Crested Geckos typically produce 50/50 male vs. female offspring. So far, they don't seem to exhibit Temperature-dependent Sex Determination (TSD) so there's no way to alter this.

Since we typically setup breeding groups with 3-1 female to male ratios, there's the inevitable question of how do we house the extra males?

A common approach is to use 20-quart Sterilite bins. This particular model of bin is a little unusual in its dimensions as it's 9.5 inches tall. Both the 15-quart and 32-quart bins are only 6 inches tall by comparison. As an arboreal species, this extra height is pretty important.

I've been considering different designs for a rack system out of melamine for these bins. They are somewhat oddly shaped and most of my designs end up with an unacceptable amount of wasted material. What I like so much about my Sterilite(TM) 66-quart Ladder Rack is that there is virtually no waste which keeps the cost low.

After going over a number of designs, I came up with a rack that measure about two feet wide, by sixteen inches deep, by three feet high that can house 6 containers. Being relatively short, I figure I can stack a rack on top of this rack to get 12 containers in a two foot space. If I extend the height a bit, I can probably get 14 containers to fit but I think that would end up looking pretty ugly.

As far as space goes, as long as depth stays reasonable, it really doesn't matter. Ideally, we want to keep height at around 6 feet and utilized as fully as possible. Assuming that, we can compare racks by just focusing on width. For the 66-quart ladder rack, I'm able to achieve about 3.6 containers/foot. For the 20-quart rack, I'm looking at 2 containers/foot.

The question I'm now considering is whether the extra 1.6 containers/foot is a net win compared to providing a much larger space per enclosure. Obviously, the 66-quart bins are 3x larger than the 20-quart bins.

As of right now, I'm leaning toward using 66-quart bins for individual males. Given the scale I'm working at, the 20-quart bins simply don't seem to offer a compelling advantage since I would end up gaining 75% greater density at a cost of giving each gecko 330% more space.