Emergency!!! Help needed now!

[Caramell]

i would think that you should remove the bark chips and go with a peat moss/ coco fiber substrate. While you are redoing the tank, you really should turn that tank on its' end for an arboreal. Increase ventilation, hold off on the misting and make sure there is a large water dish that is always full. We mist the web of our Avics and they will drink directly from the web too. Cork bark works much better in humid tanks. You could also obtain some isopods. We have them in our humid loving species' tanks and what little mold that turned up was quickly taken care of.

Those aren't wood chips, that's coco fiber, that's all I could find at my LPS.
I know I should turn the tank on it's end, but I don't have the money yet to make a lid for it.
The dish always has water in it, and this is a new avic, so he hasn't made much webbing yet.
And the isopods...I dunno. My parents barely approved of me having a T, so I think they'll put their feet down on that one.

 

[MizM]

Your avic will do fine in a dry enclosure with a large water dish.

 

[Caramell]

Your avic will do fine in a dry enclosure with a large water dish.

What's the least percentage of humidity possible?

 

[Protectyaaaneck]

What's the least percentage of humidity possible?

As long as the tarantula can drink from a water dish than I don't think they will need any misting. With my larger tarantula's I tend to only offer a water dish and hardly ever mist.

 

[Caramell]

Update

Okay, here's the new enclosure:

I cleaned everything up, and I baked the log that my T is in. I also added more fake vines in it for climbing. I stopped misting near the log, and am going to buy some plexiglass soon to make better ventilation.

 

[LeilaNami]

All my Avics that molted in a dryer environment died from molting complications :? The one that I have in a humid environment didn't. Coincidence or no? Maybe I'm just unlucky

Haha Caramell that looks like the enclosure I did for my A. bicegoi sans the vines. I used a fake plant with rock base. She made her web right in that half log too.

 

[curiousme]

Those aren't wood chips, that's coco fiber, that's all I could find at my LPS.
I know I should turn the tank on it's end, but I don't have the money yet to make a lid for it.
The dish always has water in it, and this is a new avic, so he hasn't made much webbing yet.
And the isopods...I dunno. My parents barely approved of me having a T, so I think they'll put their feet down on that one.

Did you prepare the coco fiber like the directions said? You have to soak it in water and hydrate it and then let it dry back out.

You can get a sheet of 1/8" thick plexi glass at Home Depot. You'll also need to purchase the knife for scoring it. The scoring is a little bit difficult, but using a yard stick to cut, makes it easier.

Isopods are also known as rollie pollies, wood lice, sow bugs............ We collected ours from outside, but we knew no pesticides had been used in the area. Here is more info on them http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/showthread.php?t=126707&highlight=isopods

 

[LeilaNami]

Did you prepare the coco fiber like the directions said? You have to soak it in water and hydrate it and then let it dry back out.

You can get a sheet of 1/8" thick plexi glass at Home Depot. You'll also need to purchase the knife for scoring it. The scoring is a little bit difficult, but using a yard stick to cut, makes it easier.

Isopods are also known as rollie pollies, wood lice, sow bugs............ We collected ours from outside, but we knew no pesticides had been used in the area. Here is more info on them http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/showthread.php?t=126707&highlight=isopods

If the spider is large enough, the plexi glass can be drilled as well...oh wait are you talking about marking the place for the holes? (Small holes though!)

 

[Arachn'auQuébec]

take it out of the enclosure

it should dry out if you leave it in front of a window with plenty of sun for a while. someone else may know a faster way though.

Just to make sure - take the T out BEFORE putting the enclosure in the sun, otherwise you are calling for tarantula jerky...

Mold is a problem of ventilation more than anything, and from my limited experience, putting something where the hide touches the substrate can help a lot to prevent mold.

This is an avicularia enclosure I made a couple of months ago. The barks are random barks took from several species of trees, not even disinfected (I just forgot, but everything seems fine). Notice the bark is resting on a piece of foam ( the kind of foam used to make dry floral arrangements, bought at dollarascrap) it is less hygroscopic than peat moss, so is is pretty much alway dry, though I often flood this enclosure, and so far no mold. Aeration is quite good...

 

[MizM]

Personally, I have lost way more Ts to mold and parasites when I kept enclosures very humid. Since I've been keeping them dry, I haven't had any problems. But that is just MY experience.

I DO keep T. blondi and such much more humid... they depend on it. But I use roly poly bugs in their enclosures to clean up the nasties.

 

[c'est ma]

IME with vivs for other creatures (dart frogs; pygmy chams), the sort of mold that develops on new substrate (notoriously on grapevine) is more of an eyesore than a threat to the inhabitants. Usually it will run its course and disappear on its own. Dart frog keepers seed their vivs with springtails, which eat mold (and which the frogs eat in turn!) No T would eat springtails, and they might bother terrestrials just by crawling about them, but should not bother arboreals...

Fungi are like mites--there are thousands of spp of each, and the ones that feed on decomposing plant matter are almost always not the kinds that are threats to our animals...

 

[rustym3talh3ad]

All my Avics that molted in a dryer environment died from molting complications :? The one that I have in a humid environment didn't. Coincidence or no? Maybe I'm just unlucky

Haha Caramell that looks like the enclosure I did for my A. bicegoi sans the vines. I used a fake plant with rock base. She made her web right in that half log too.

thank you for posting what i was hoping would have been said...you must realize that certain T's do require humidity, i lost an avic recently to this same problem...it was to dry during a molt and it didnt make it...with most T's a tiny spritz of water before a molt will help but is perfectly fine being kept dry all the rest of the time...but blondis and avics should have moisture as they are a very humid species...and lots of ventilation for the avic is also necessary as not enuff of air is a contributing factor to SADS (IMO anyway)

so please do consider changing the substrate to something like coco fiber or vermic to hold humidity so that youre not adding a bunch of water to the wood, the chips and bark will just pool water up and then it will eventually become stagnate and very unclean. coco or vermic can be dried out every couple of days as it allows moisture to evaporate slowly without pooling. try to also add more ventilation to the enclosure and you shouldnt run into much more mold problems...

 

[Pacmaster]

Without reading all 3 pages of replies, Im gonna go out on a limb and tell you what I do . . .

This mold grows in all my cages AT FIRST, be it frog, snake, spider cage . . .
I(me) just let it grow itself out.
It WILL go away after the nutrients it lives on are used up.
It loves damp wood and substrate.

It IS NOT harmful to your T, it just looks like helll . . .

Another "quick-fix" is to wet it back down, but it will come back after a few days.

Everybody who has a damp cage has had it, everybody who gets a damp cage will get it, it WILL NOT cause any harm to your T.

Always remove any biological waste or exccesses, to inhibit its growth.
HTH

BTW- grapewood is 1 of the worst for this mold . . .

 

[c'est ma]

Without reading all 3 pages of replies, Im gonna go out on a limb and tell you what I do . . .

This mold grows in all my cages AT FIRST, be it frog, snake, spider cage . . .
I(me) just let it grow itself out.
It WILL go away after the nutrients it lives on are used up.
It loves damp wood and substrate.

It IS NOT harmful to your T, it just looks like helll . . .

Another "quick-fix" is to wet it back down, but it will come back after a few days.

Everybody who has a damp cage has had it, everybody who gets a damp cage will get it, it WILL NOT cause any harm to your T.

Always remove any biological waste or exccesses, to inhibit its growth.
HTH

BTW- grapewood is 1 of the worst for this mold . . .

LOL, Packie, your & my (see two posts above) answers are pretty much identical. We frog-keepers are a lot more familiar with wet vivs, eh?

 

[Marcink125]

Wash the log with physan 20 and get rid or the woods chips asap. Woods breed mold and fungus like crazy. Use new era peat moss and new era vermiculite as substrate.

 

[Pacmaster]

LOL, Packie, your & my (see two posts above) answers are pretty much identical. We frog-keepers are a lot more familiar with wet vivs, eh?

Like I said, didnt even read any replies . . . I knew what theyd be ;P
Diane, you nailed it, before I did!


Wash the log with chemicals . . . yeah, thatll fix it

 

[curiousme]

If the spider is large enough, the plexi glass can be drilled as well...oh wait are you talking about marking the place for the holes? (Small holes though!)

To cut plexi glass, you have to score it and then you can snap it into pieces. The scoring knife is basically an exacto knife with a hooked end.

 

[Caramell]

Just so I don't have to say it again...

I'm not using wood chips.

 

[rustym3talh3ad]

Just so I don't have to say it again...

I'm not using wood chips.

well dont get all brash, but im not gonna lie the first pic you posted looks like repti-bark or mulch, which IS....wood chips...if u've since changed then great..just going by what i (we) observe.

 

[DreadLobster]

I think I can clear this up.

Those aren't wood chips. They're coco fiber. Just not the finely ground up stuff that most of us use. I accidentally grabbed a pack of that stuff once when some pet store was doing a 3 for 1 deal... didn't look carefully. Its the same stuff, just more clumpy, even after you soak it. Its soft just like the other stuff, I just mixed the one brick of it in with the other, finer ground stuff and it worked fine.

I've read on here a bunch of times that peat moss is more acidic than either of these though, and that mold and mites have a harder time surviving on it. I haven't used it though so I don't know for certain.

Also, don't blame the pet store or even the wood you're using for mold. Yes you were correct to take all the substrate out and replace it and bake the wood.

But no matter how much you replace, there are ALWAYS mold spores in the air. Mold in the tank just means the mold will spread faster around it... so keeping the cage well ventilated and moist but not wet enough for the mold to thrive is the problem. Just try to keep anything from being soaked, and try to remove dead crickets, boluses, or anything else that is decaying. Its theoretically not a difficult thing to do, but I just had to replace all the substrate and stuff in my P. regalis tank because of a similar problem, so its not uncommon at all. Good luck!