burrowing mealworm, help apprectiated

Heroquetarro10

Arachnopeon
Joined
Mar 5, 2016
Messages
12
sorry if i am not posting this in the right forum (im new).

Today, i tried to feed my g rosea a meal worm, but the worm immediately burrowed right into the substrate. what should i do? should i dig for it in the substrate? or will my rosea dig it up?
heres a pic of the habitat
 

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EulersK

Arachnonomicon
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Feb 22, 2013
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Hello my fellow Las Vegan! Over 15 years living here and I still don't know what to call ourselves... Las Vegans? A Vegan? Regardless, welcome to the hobby :)

Your rosie will almost certainly not dig it up. Unfortunately, you're going to want to dig up the worm - rehouse if necessary. You do not want that in there with your tarantula.

For future reference, if you insist on using mealworms as feeders, always crush the heads first. Even if they do not burrow, there are stories of a mealworm chewing on the tarantula while it is being eaten. Better yet, just don't use them as feeders at all.

Since you're going to rehouse anyway, do the following:
-You only want about 2x the diagonal legspan of the tarantula from bottom to top in terms of height. A fall from that height will almost certainly kill your spider.
-Is that a mesh top? If so, your spider can very easily chew through it. Never use mesh unless you want a loose spider.
-There's a cable running under the aquarium. Is that a heat mat? Throw it away, sell it, whatever you want, but get it away from your spider. No additional humidity or heat is needed with this species. Not only is it unneeded, but you can end up roasting your tarantula.
-Is that a sponge in the water dish? Remove it - the tarantula doesn't need help drinking. The only thing that sponge is accomplishing is building bacteria.

You have all the signs of a pet shop employee giving you advice. Ignore literally everything they said. These are the simplest pets to keep, especially a G. rosea. Provide a hide, a water dish, and do not disturb it unless you need to.

Here's an example of how your rosie should be kept. The only difference is that you should not moisten any substrate, not even around the water dish. This is a different species that requires slightly higher humidity. Other than that, follow what I have here. Notice how small the enclosure is? It might seem small to us and other mammals, but spiders are perfectly happy in small enclosures.
20160305_205649[1].jpg

As a side note, if you end up wanting info on local reputable dealers, PM me and I'll give you their info.
 
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Heroquetarro10

Arachnopeon
Joined
Mar 5, 2016
Messages
12
Your rosie will almost certainly not dig it up. Unfortunately, you're going to want to dig up the worm - rehouse if necessary. You do not want that in there with your tarantula.

For future reference, if you insist on using mealworms as feeders, always crush the heads first. Even if they do not burrow, there are stories of a mealworm chewing on the tarantula while it is being eaten. Better yet, just don't use them as feeders at all.

Since you're going to rehouse anyway, do the following:
-You only want about 2x the diagonal legspan of the tarantula from bottom to top in terms of height. A fall from that height will almost certainly kill your spider.
-Is that a mesh top? If so, your spider can very easily chew through it. Never use mesh unless you want a loose spider.
-There's a cable running under the aquarium. Is that a heat mat? Throw it away, sell it, whatever you want, but get it away from your spider. No additional humidity or heat is needed with this species. Not only is it unneeded, but you can end up roasting your tarantula.
-Is that a sponge in the water dish? Remove it - the tarantula doesn't need help drinking. The only thing that sponge is accomplishing is building bacteria.

You have all the signs of a pet shop employee giving you advice. Ignore literally everything they said. These are the simplest pets to keep, especially a G. rosea. Provide a hide, a water dish, and do not disturb it unless you need to.

Here's an example of how your rosie should be kept. The only difference is that you should not moisten any substrate, not even around the water dish. This is a different species that requires slightly higher humidity. Other than that, follow what I have here. Notice how small the enclosure is? It might seem small to us and other mammals, but spiders are perfectly happy in small enclosures.

View attachment 206493
thanks for advice, but

-that's not a sponge, that's a rock.its just a bit of aid for the spider. never in a million years would i use a sponge for a water dish.

-yes, that's a heat pad, but the only reason its there it because i bought my aquarium from a previous owner. i already learned (luckily, the easy way, the internet) that these heat pads are only useful if I like having cooked tarantula.

-im looking for a smaller aquarium

-i never mist the aquarium, iliterally just changed the substrate today. know that my species hat damp substrate,so i dont use sprayers etc
 

Echo

Arachnopeon
Joined
Jan 14, 2016
Messages
26
oh and, um, do i just dig it up? or...
Dig the meal worm? Yes, it's kinda necessary. As EulersK said, the meal worm left in the substrate will be a invisible threat to your rose. When she molts someday, it may cause serious injury to her since she is vulnerable during molting. And just follow EulersK, crush the meal worm's head first before feeding, thus it will lose itself.
Besides, other feeders like dubia may also be a threat. Just grab it out if your T don't eat it.
 

Belegnole

Tarantula Guy
Old Timer
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Nov 30, 2005
Messages
171
You have two choices based on the picture I see.

Either; carefully removing your T to a temporary enclosure such as the box you brought it home in. Then slowly going through all of the substrate a small amount at a time. Until you find the worm.

Or; (not my choice) do the search while the T is still in the enclosure.

Either way I would start at one end, closest to where I saw the worm last. Push everything away from that wall, down to the clear bottom. Then bit by bit pull it towards the wall, always leaving a clear space. I would use something like card stock to do this. IF you are doing this with the T still in the enclosure I might suggest something along the lines of a wood or metal spatula. Once you see the *#&%@* worm grab it. Or just kill it.

You can see why this would be better done without your T in the enclosure.
 

EulersK

Arachnonomicon
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Feb 22, 2013
Messages
3,292
Rehousing isn't as stressful to a terrestrial (non-burrowing) tarantula as many make it out to be. Just carefully take it out, and find the mealworm. Done. You're going to need to take it out eventually anyway - again, the remolding you have to do. These spiders can glass climb, meaning you're asking for a fall. Speaking of... is that mesh actually attached? In the photo, it looks like it's torn along the back side.
 

Haksilence

Bad At Titles
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Rehousing isn't as stressful to a terrestrial (non-burrowing) tarantula as many make it out to be. Just carefully take it out, and find the mealworm. Done. You're going to need to take it out eventually anyway - again, the remolding you have to do. These spiders can glass climb, meaning you're asking for a fall. Speaking of... is that mesh actually attached? In the photo, it looks like it's torn along the back side.
Looks that way to me as well, op is asking for a rosea on the loose.

Anyway yeah OP, do exactly as the first poster instructed. I sugest going to Walmart and simply buying one of the 2 $ totes. Best terrestrial enclosures IMG_20160227_163624505.jpg
It's the sterilite shoe box type container.
This is the perfect size for a g. Rosea and there is no mesh that the spider ccan chew through or harm itsself upon.
It's actually rather urgent that you rehouse out of that aquarium, g. Rosea can and will actively climb glass, but that doesn't mean they are any good at it, if your tarantula falls while climbing it WILL suffer a major injury, and its only a matter of time.

Also while I understand the rock in the dish, it's entirely not necessary, the tarantula knows what a water dish is and won't drown or get stuck or whatever else you fear. It's only one more surface for bacteria to grow on and is one more unnecessary hard surface your t could fall on. You can leave it if you like, but it truely serves no purpose and only poses another potential hazard.
 

GG80

Arachnoknight
Joined
Nov 26, 2013
Messages
268
Mealworms love carrots. You could try and leave a small piece of carrot in a corner for a few hours and see it the mealworm turns up. But you are gonna have to rehouse the tarantula into a more suited enclosure anyway so maybe just do the rehouse and forget about finding the mealworm.
 

darkness975

Latrodectus
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there is nothing wrong with having a large enclosure if you desire. Just know that the spider will likely remain in the same area of the enclosure. you also have to do what others have said and add more substrate so that she will not have far to fall if she decides to climb.

regarding the rogue mealworm: yes you have to dig it up. Easiest thing to do would be to move your spider temporarily into a holding enclosure so that you can work with the current one and find the worm.
 

Andrea82

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If it was me,and the spider had to be rehoused anyway, i would just dump all the substrate out,along with the worm, and put new (and a lot more) substrate in.
 

dementedlullaby

Arachnobaron
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May 8, 2014
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300
At that size it's more likely to just die but I agree with Andrea. Better safe than sorry.

For future reference, just crush the head of the mealworm before feeding. I feed mealworms very often to my terrestrials. Along with superworms. I always crush the heads first so they're incapable of burrowing. They continue to wriggle a bit and the tarantula will find them just fine if they're hungry.

You can keep mealworms in the fridge or start your own colony. They reproduce really fast. I started with 25 less than 6 months ago and easily have 700 now and a bunch of beetles. I still switch up what I'm feeding but mealworms are cheap and great for terrestrials.
 

Heroquetarro10

Arachnopeon
Joined
Mar 5, 2016
Messages
12
ok so i put the rosea into second enclosure(box)and i wsa able to get the worm out. Yay! so now i got an acyrlic cage coming in in about a week or so, much smaller. (30*20*15 CM). hopefully it works out
 

EulersK

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Glad to hear you took our advice :) Enjoy your eight-legged buddy!
 
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