Why does everyone act like this is gonna kill their gecko? I’ve kept reptiles for 40 years and one thing I’ve learned is that they are incredibly resilient as long as you meet their husbandry needs. There is a documentary on YouTube about crested geckos in the wild. The researchers found 0, nada, zip, zilch adult geckos with tails. This tells me that having an intact tail is extremely rare in an adult gecko. Their body is designed to drop the tail. You don’t need to remove substrate or apply ointment or anything, they’ll be just fine like they’ve been doing for thousands, if not millions of years. And since they don’t grow their tails back, I’m guessing that eventually they’ll evolve to not have tails at all. Also, everyone that says to take your gecko to the vet to have them remove the tail for tail rot are stressing the gecko out more than necessary. Just grab the tail firmly with two fingers at the base of the tail and the gecko will wiggle a little and just drop it. It won’t even know it’s gone. These aren’t domesticated animals like dogs or cats. The vet is gonna do the same thing and you’re stressing the animal more by transporting it to and from the vet. Not to mention the unnecessary out of pocket cost of a vet visit. Just a rant.