Ancylometes

wolfs79

Arachnolord
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Dec 24, 2012
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645
Curious any other people ancylometes mainly speaking if bogotensis?

Whats the setup like they are still 3rd or 4th instar so they are in vials yet.

Should the substrate be very damp? I keep phoneutria slings as well and people say to make sure it's not to damp because it can kill them.

Some pics of your setups would be greatly appreciated.

This is the current setup not much to it.
 

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Stefan2209

Arachnodemon
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May 7, 2005
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729
The substrat should be moist. That's it. It's no rocket science and not difficult. Keep light moist at all times and you're good to go. Want to go on a vacation for 10 days? No problem, flood the vial so that there's literally water standing above the substrate level. It will NOT harm the spider.

Your only enemy is molt / fungus, which can kill any spider pretty quick if not taken care of.

The only Phoneutria species i've ever raised which were sensible towards too much humidity were P. nigriventer and P. keyserlingi. Kept them like P. fera and had no problem raising them up to some point where they started to refuse prey and also showed symptoms of "being ill". Tried various things but nothing worked.
Let the vials dry out and they would recover and starting eating again. After some weeks i raised humidity again and never had that happen again.

With P. fera i've never seen something like this. The species is literally hard to kill with wrong keeping conditions. The temps you asked about are perfectly fine, they can also tolerate lower and much (!) higher values than the ones you stated.
For the people telling you that too high moisture would kill Phoneutria slings, i wonder about what species they were talking about?
 

wolfs79

Arachnolord
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Dec 24, 2012
Messages
645
The substrat should be moist. That's it. It's no rocket science and not difficult. Keep light moist at all times and you're good to go. Want to go on a vacation for 10 days? No problem, flood the vial so that there's literally water standing above the substrate level. It will NOT harm the spider.

Your only enemy is molt / fungus, which can kill any spider pretty quick if not taken care of.

The only Phoneutria species i've ever raised which were sensible towards too much humidity were P. nigriventer and P. keyserlingi. Kept them like P. fera and had no problem raising them up to some point where they started to refuse prey and also showed symptoms of "being ill". Tried various things but nothing worked.
Let the vials dry out and they would recover and starting eating again. After some weeks i raised humidity again and never had that happen again.

With P. fera i've never seen something like this. The species is literally hard to kill with wrong keeping conditions. The temps you asked about are perfectly fine, they can also tolerate lower and much (!) higher values than the ones you stated.
For the people telling you that too high moisture would kill Phoneutria slings, i wonder about what species they were talking about?

I'm asking because I just lost my second P. fera for no reason it molted everything looked good it sat for two days on the ground, figured it was still hardening after molt then checked this morning it was dead.

The temps and humidity were fine I've asked you once before for some tips which were greatly appreciated.

So far my other two are still doing both have molted and are eating good.

As far as the ancylometes I was just curious/ figured they could be setup in half land half water .

Only concern is one seems to be not eating as well as the other. Any clues or tips that could help?


The larger one which has molted twice in 3 weeks is a pig eats everthing the smaller.one molted once and ever since then has kinda been a fussy eater.
 

Stefan2209

Arachnodemon
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Messages
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I'm asking because I just lost my second P. fera for no reason it molted everything looked good it sat for two days on the ground, figured it was still hardening after molt then checked this morning it was dead.

The temps and humidity were fine I've asked you once before for some tips which were greatly appreciated.

So far my other two are still doing both have molted and are eating good.
I apologize i didn’t know you had already dead slings. While this may happen every now and then it’s understandably a much more severe problem if you’re dealing with a very limited amount of slings to begin with.

Yes, temp & humidity sounded ok. Which stage were the slings when you got them, what did you feed them with and which stage are the surviving slings now?

I have seen deaths in slings under similar circumstances, thankfully rare though. While it’s most often not possible to identify a definite reason, I sometimes suspected diet as a factor as I have seen this happen primarily with specimens that were fed with fruit flies.

Slings that were on other diets had sometimes “sudden deaths” but it’s to my personal experience a rare occurrence.

As far as the ancylometes I was just curious/ figured they could be setup in half land half water .

Only concern is one seems to be not eating as well as the other. Any clues or tips that could help?

The larger one which has molted twice in 3 weeks is a pig eats everthing the smaller.one molted once and ever since then has kinda been a fussy eater.
For the Ancylometes, yes you can house them with a semi-aquatic set-up. I never did this while raising them but with adult specimens and those would often sit directly at the water with their first leg pairs resting on the water surface.


One sling not eating quite as well as its siblings isn’t unusual to my experience and I wouldn’t pay too much attention unless it is extremely thin and still refuses prey.

Often a sling may be a picky eater in one stage and after the next moult will be back to normal. If it continues to refuse prey and is very thin I’d try prey (same as you already use) in a smaller size. If that doesn’t work I’d give a different type of prey a try.

In rare occasions I’ve had picky eaters that were from 1. Instar very reluctant to accept any kind of prey, regardless of size and type. It wasn’t uncommon with such specimens that they’d hang on for two or three moults and then died.


Having development differences with regard to size and instars in siblings is pretty normal. I often had variations of up to 3 moults and size differences of 300% between smallest and largest specimens. I observed on several occasions that the slings that were slow in their development and took longer to mature grew to larger sizes as adults than their faster developing siblings. So unless everything else works fine I’d consider it normal and wouldn’t worry about it.
 

wolfs79

Arachnolord
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Joined
Dec 24, 2012
Messages
645
I apologize i didn’t know you had already dead slings. While this may happen every now and then it’s understandably a much more severe problem if you’re dealing with a very limited amount of slings to begin with.

Yes, temp & humidity sounded ok. Which stage were the slings when you got them, what did you feed them with and which stage are the surviving slings now?

I have seen deaths in slings under similar circumstances, thankfully rare though. While it’s most often not possible to identify a definite reason, I sometimes suspected diet as a factor as I have seen this happen primarily with specimens that were fed with fruit flies.

Slings that were on other diets had sometimes “sudden deaths” but it’s to my personal experience a rare occurrence.



For the Ancylometes, yes you can house them with a semi-aquatic set-up. I never did this while raising them but with adult specimens and those would often sit directly at the water with their first leg pairs resting on the water surface.


One sling not eating quite as well as its siblings isn’t unusual to my experience and I wouldn’t pay too much attention unless it is extremely thin and still refuses prey.

Often a sling may be a picky eater in one stage and after the next moult will be back to normal. If it continues to refuse prey and is very thin I’d try prey (same as you already use) in a smaller size. If that doesn’t work I’d give a different type of prey a try.

In rare occasions I’ve had picky eaters that were from 1. Instar very reluctant to accept any kind of prey, regardless of size and type. It wasn’t uncommon with such specimens that they’d hang on for two or three moults and then died.


Having development differences with regard to size and instars in siblings is pretty normal. I often had variations of up to 3 moults and size differences of 300% between smallest and largest specimens. I observed on several occasions that the slings that were slow in their development and took longer to mature grew to larger sizes as adults than their faster developing siblings. So unless everything else works fine I’d consider it normal and wouldn’t worry about it.
I apologize i didn’t know you had already dead slings. While this may happen every now and then it’s understandably a much more severe problem if you’re dealing with a very limited amount of slings to begin with.

Yes, temp & humidity sounded ok. Which stage were the slings when you got them, what did you feed them with and which stage are the surviving slings now?

I have seen deaths in slings under similar circumstances, thankfully rare though. While it’s most often not possible to identify a definite reason, I sometimes suspected diet as a factor as I have seen this happen primarily with specimens that were fed with fruit flies.

Slings that were on other diets had sometimes “sudden deaths” but it’s to my personal experience a rare occurrence.



For the Ancylometes, yes you can house them with a semi-aquatic set-up. I never did this while raising them but with adult specimens and those would often sit directly at the water with their first leg pairs resting on the water surface.


One sling not eating quite as well as its siblings isn’t unusual to my experience and I wouldn’t pay too much attention unless it is extremely thin and still refuses prey.

Often a sling may be a picky eater in one stage and after the next moult will be back to normal. If it continues to refuse prey and is very thin I’d try prey (same as you already use) in a smaller size. If that doesn’t work I’d give a different type of prey a try.

In rare occasions I’ve had picky eaters that were from 1. Instar very reluctant to accept any kind of prey, regardless of size and type. It wasn’t uncommon with such specimens that they’d hang on for two or three moults and then died.


Having development differences with regard to size and instars in siblings is pretty normal. I often had variations of up to 3 moults and size differences of 300% between smallest and largest specimens. I observed on several occasions that the slings that were slow in their development and took longer to mature grew to larger sizes as adults than their faster developing siblings. So unless everything else works fine I’d consider it normal and wouldn’t worry about it.

Thank you for all that great information very appreciated.

Here's a picture of the A. bogotensis in a close up picture I guess it doesnt look to thin just not seeing it attack prey like the other maybe it eats when I am not around.

I have fruit flies right now for it the larger one is ready for pinhead crickets.
 

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Stefan2209

Arachnodemon
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Messages
729
The specimen in the pic looks ok to me. Unless it doesn't thinner it should do well.

Change to pinheads as soon as you can. Also it'll greatly limit the chance for moulting problems and sudden deaths if you pre-feed the pinheads (one day in advance before you give them to the spiders). Seems like especially amino-acids are important for the moulting process so make sure to feed some protein source to the crickets, e.g. oat flakes and / or dry cat / dog food. Fish food (the kind that comes in flakes) should work, too.

I wish i had known some of the stuff 10 years ago, would have drastically lessened some trouble i encountered back then. Sweet late hindsight.
 

wolfs79

Arachnolord
Old Timer
Joined
Dec 24, 2012
Messages
645
The specimen in the pic looks ok to me. Unless it doesn't thinner it should do well.

Change to pinheads as soon as you can. Also it'll greatly limit the chance for moulting problems and sudden deaths if you pre-feed the pinheads (one day in advance before you give them to the spiders). Seems like especially amino-acids are important for the moulting process so make sure to feed some protein source to the crickets, e.g. oat flakes and / or dry cat / dog food. Fish food (the kind that comes in flakes) should work, too.

I wish i had known some of the stuff 10 years ago, would have drastically lessened some trouble i encountered back then. Sweet late hindsight.

The ancylometes just died this morning I'm very frustrated the other one is thriving.
 

Tarantula155

Arachnobaron
Joined
Dec 1, 2012
Messages
494
The specimen in the pic looks ok to me. Unless it doesn't thinner it should do well.

Change to pinheads as soon as you can. Also it'll greatly limit the chance for moulting problems and sudden deaths if you pre-feed the pinheads (one day in advance before you give them to the spiders). Seems like especially amino-acids are important for the moulting process so make sure to feed some protein source to the crickets, e.g. oat flakes and / or dry cat / dog food. Fish food (the kind that comes in flakes) should work, too.

I wish i had known some of the stuff 10 years ago, would have drastically lessened some trouble i encountered back then. Sweet late hindsight.
Lost one of my P fera slings as well, fed them a mixture of Widow slings, fruit flies, and pinheads

Going to stop feeding ALL my true and Ts fruit flies. Forget it.

I was thinking it was a good chance of inbreeding too, many generations causing weak slings
 

wolfs79

Arachnolord
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Dec 24, 2012
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I've raised other slings before without any problems like this but maybe the phoneutria and Ancylometes are different.

I even make my own fruit fly medium/ food loaded with good stuff protein things they need granted they lose some from the larvae stage to fly stage.

I do like Stephans idea of getting them on pinhead crickets asap but when they are still so small what choice do you have.
 

Tarantula155

Arachnobaron
Joined
Dec 1, 2012
Messages
494
I've raised other slings before without any problems like this but maybe the phoneutria and Ancylometes are different.

I even make my own fruit fly medium/ food loaded with good stuff protein things they need granted they lose some from the larvae stage to fly stage.

I do like Stephans idea of getting them on pinhead crickets asap but when they are still so small what choice do you have.
Contain the Phoneutria in a small vial, and throw dead cricket legs or mashed up mealworms chunks
 

Tarantula155

Arachnobaron
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Dec 1, 2012
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494
Although I've never tried feeding my phoneutria dead before.

I hope they're as eager to scavenging as some of my other species
 

wolfs79

Arachnolord
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Messages
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Although I've never tried feeding my phoneutria dead before.

I hope they're as eager to scavenging as some of my other species
Let me know if it works with the phoneutria unfortunately at the rate things are going in a couple weeks I may have nothing left.
 

CtenidaeMan

Arachnopeon
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Dec 28, 2020
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How big should the enclosure be (in cm) for Ancylometes, Phoneutria, Macroctenus?
I keep my adult females in 20x20x30, but Ancylometes and Macroctenus aren't aboreal, so they only need a higher enclosure for molting. If they are adult, 20cm in high would be okay also.
 
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