1.1 Rhopalurus junceus

[EmielVrolijk]

Hi there! Excuse me for the bad quality pic, but I will be receiving a pair of Rhopalurus junceus this week. Will this enclosure be okay for them? The tree-like thingy is synthetic, but the artificial bark feels just like the real thing, and it has plenty of holes and dark hiding places. Temperature lies between 26 and 29 degrees Celsius (78 and 85 degrees Fahrenheit), and the humidity is about 70%. It's not on the ground anymore: I've put it on a small table. The size of the enclosure is 30x25x30 cm (11.8x9.8x11.8 inches, lxwxh). Any other suggestions to make sure that they won't eat each other? Like... which one should I introduce first? The female or the male? And after that: how long should I wait before adding the other one? Extra info: the seller told me that both come from the same communal group, together with other specimens, and the female will probably be gravid.

 

[KDiiX]

Well first of all: the enclosure looks pretty good, BUT I would do maybe some small adjustments which aren't really necessary but might in help in a certain way.
Even though they don't dig burrows I would recommend to add some more substrate. If you have such small layer of substrate it will dry out pretty fast because it can carry not that much water.
You can add a cork backplane. It looks better in my opinion and allows the scorpions to climb at the back plane. That also increases extremely the surface they can use. I also would recommend to through in a lots of bark pieces etc. It's not necessary that you use the expensive cork barks from pet shops some normal bark from the woods are fine to as long as you don't carry in any sort of spider or ants. I'm not saying this exclusively because of the optic, but also it is necessary in my experience that they have more than enough space to avoid each other. Just one or two hide won't be enough if you wanna keep them long termed together. The females getting sometimes "anoid" by the males if they can't avoid the female in that situations it is not unlikely that she might eat him, even if they are fed well and frequent.
You don't need to measure the humidity. Often hygrometer aren't very exact and with humid enclosures it's most likely good enough if the substrate is kept medium to slightly moist. Not to moist because they aren't swamp scorpions :-D if the substrate is moist the humidity is most likely fine too.
You should also add some sort of isopods or other insects that help to keep the enclosure clean. White isopods are extremely good in eating all dead plant and animal material. So you will most likely never have any problems with mold.

If you're female was kept communal with adult male and is also female, she will not most likely be gravid, she is definitely gravid. R.junceus males mating the females even if they carry a fresh brood on their back. If they kept just for a few days communal it might be that a mating attempt failed and she isn't gravid. But with them in long termed communals you always.can be sure that the females are.gravid. so get prepared you she will give birth in the next 1-5 month.

Edit: forgot the introducing part. If you do communals you should always introduce them at the same time or directly after each other to avoid initial territorial fights. I don't know if territorial fight happens often if the put together but it's a general rule with keeping scorpions communal, which worked with mine fine.

 

[cb45]

Looks good I would fill the water bowl with pea gravel then water so the don't drown!

 

[KDiiX]

Looks good I would fill the water bowl with pea gravel then water so the don't drown!

Don't get me wrong, but has anyone ever seen a drowned scorpion in a "normal" water bowl?
I don't think that would happen. In that case the dish looks not deep enough that they drown as long as they stand stilting in there. And I know scorpions in general haven't a high frequent breathing rhythm as humans. So they can catch breath for several hours.
I would really be interested if such things happened to someone, because I think it might be just some sort of myth that scorpions drown in water dishes if they aren't very shallow.

 

[EmielVrolijk]

Thanks for the advice! I'll quickly order some cheap cork bark to put on the back wall. I have experimented with using local, heat-treated bark, but it all started to grow molt, so I threw it away. I had added some isopods and springtails to the enclosure already I'll add some more substrate as well.

My hygrometers are pretty precise: I own 4. 3 showed the same stats, only one was off. The good ones all show 70%, so I can probably count on that as a fact!

The water dish is quite shallow anyway... The depth is about 1 cm (less than an inch). It just seems deeper on the pic. I don't think they will drown, and once the babies are born, I'll raise those separately. No problem whatsoever!

I'm glad to know that the female will be pregnant! Looking forward to the little ones!

 

[KDiiX]

Yeah that sometimes happening with local bark, actually I don't know exact why but I think it's a matter of the sort of wood and most likely also depending on the ventilation in the enclosure.

The fact that your hygrometer works is fine, but I still recommend not to use it that much. May be for the beginning. But actually humidity in nature varies too so it's not necessary to keep it always at a certain level. Also you might read some recommendations with values of 60-70 % or something it does not mean it always has to be in that range. As I said as long as the substrate is moist it's fine. Most likely you might to mist the substrate, feed and refill water dish once a week and everything will be fine. Misting depends a little bit on the amount of substrate, temperature and ventilation. Your temperature is absolutely fine, but if the enclosure is really good ventilated of course the water in the substrate vaporates and leaves the enclosure faster and you might mist more often. So if you notice the substrate is already after 2 days bone dry you probably have to cover some of the ventilation surface.

what kind of enclosure you have? Especially the "closing mechanism" would be interesting to know. Because some enclosure mechanism aren't good for keeping gravid females because otherwise the brood might have a chance to escape.

 

[EmielVrolijk]

I'm using the hygrometer primarily to know what 70% looks and feels like When the scorpions arrive, I'll take it out, and just mist a few times a week, depending on the ventilation. As far as I can tell it's ventilated pretty well, but not so much that the substrate dries out really fast.

It's two sliding doors, with a tiny gap where the doors cross (about 3/4 mm), but I assumed that would be enough for the babies to escape. That's why I have a very thin layer of substrate near the opening, to prevent the babies from escaping until I can catch them and put them in small, separate enclosures. I'll keep a watchful eye on the whole thing, and add an extra barrier in front of the enclosure once the little ones are born, to prevent any escapes