Keeping P. muticus on shallow substrate..

[Venom1080]

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This was my muticus "temple." It's a 20 gallon (12x24x18" roughly) turned on end, with my lousy handiwork holding everything in. She started a burrow in the back corner and dug to the front. You can see her in her chamber. She didn't use the full depth, which I tried to maximize. I had a branch inside that I inverted to simulate a root system and the substrate was peat and top soil in a 1:1 more or less. The substrate held together very well. She took food just fine in there, and I kept it a bit on the damp side, but not soggy. There was a water dish in the front that I saw her use once. I like @AphonopelmaTX's idea of putting the dish near the mouth of the burrow. My girl had to make a trek.

I know my enclosure was excessive, but I wanted to pamper this beauty and I had hoped to breed her. I was also curious to see how crazy her burrow would get to be. In the end, she suffered a bad molt and I lost her. I'll spare you the pictures, but I don't think it was related to the enclosure.

Edit: found pics when it was half-filled and when I first put her in, for scale:
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Beautiful girl.

Awesome idea with that root system. Will absolutely be doing that for something.

 

[Trenor]

View attachment 257370 View attachment 257371
This was my muticus "temple." It's a 20 gallon (12x24x18" roughly) turned on end, with my lousy handiwork holding everything in. She started a burrow in the back corner and dug to the front. You can see her in her chamber. She didn't use the full depth, which I tried to maximize. I had a branch inside that I inverted to simulate a root system and the substrate was peat and top soil in a 1:1 more or less. The substrate held together very well. She took food just fine in there, and I kept it a bit on the damp side, but not soggy. There was a water dish in the front that I saw her use once. I like @AphonopelmaTX's idea of putting the dish near the mouth of the burrow. My girl had to make a trek.

I know my enclosure was excessive, but I wanted to pamper this beauty and I had hoped to breed her. I was also curious to see how crazy her burrow would get to be. In the end, she suffered a bad molt and I lost her. I'll spare you the pictures, but I don't think it was related to the enclosure.

Edit: found pics when it was half-filled and when I first put her in, for scale:
View attachment 257372 View attachment 257373

That's a lot of substrate for her to burrow in and a cool looking setup.

Is the insert a door double folding from the top?

 

[Thistles]

Beautiful girl.

Awesome idea with that root system. Will absolutely be doing that for something.

Yeah, she was a real beauty. Losing her was rough, especially how it happened. I'd read that they tend to burrow at the bases of shrubs or acacia trees rather than in the middle of nowhere, so I figured she'd appreciate the roots.

Woah... it's my eyes or what?

In one pics there's you looking like a kinda 'Blair/Salem Witch' while taking a pic and I loved that. I love you

Haha, is it the long skirt or the distortion from the slightly bowed front?

That's a lot of substrate for her to burrow in and a cool looking setup.

Is the insert a door double folding from the top?

Yeah, I was hoping to breed her so I wanted to make sure I could get into it and maneuver. I basically divided the insert into thirds so I could fill it 2/3 with substrate but only have 1/3 of a barrier if I needed to dig her out (or put a big branch in!). It worked well. I did end up having to dig her out, but I had waited too long.

 

[Trenor]

Yeah, I was hoping to breed her so I wanted to make sure I could get into it and maneuver. I basically divided the insert into thirds so I could fill it 2/3 with substrate but only have 1/3 of a barrier if I needed to dig her out (or put a big branch in!). It worked well. I did end up having to dig her out, but I had waited too long.

Cool idea. It looks like it would work well for poecs so you don't have to open the whole front when working with them. I might have to borrow it from you when I finally set up those 2.5/5 gallon tanks.

Sorry to hear about your girl.

 

[Thistles]

Cool idea. It looks like it would work well for poecs so you don't have to open the whole front when working with them. I might have to borrow it from you when I finally set up those 2.5/5 gallon tanks.

Sorry to hear about your girl.

Yeah, it works pretty well. I'm sure you could make it prettier than I did, too.

 

[Chris LXXIX]

Haha, is it the long skirt or the distortion from the slightly bowed front?

A mix of everything

The skirt looks like those ones 'kissed' by witch-trials fire, seems the branches of a ghostly tree

Kinda 'Insidious' movie, also

 

[Saark]

Concerning humidity in lower levels of substrate, anyone use a drainage layer such as bio balls or lava rock that is separate from the substrate? You could pipe water down into the drainage layer that would then slowly evaporate up into the bottom layers of substrate. Just a thought.

 

[Nightstalker47]

Concerning humidity in lower levels of substrate, anyone use a drainage layer such as bio balls or lava rock that is separate from the substrate? You could pipe water down into the drainage layer that would then slowly evaporate up into the bottom layers of substrate. Just a thought.

Not necessary, just pour water directly into the substrate. It will seep down and provide different levels of moisture within the sub.

 

[AphonopelmaTX]

Concerning humidity in lower levels of substrate, anyone use a drainage layer such as bio balls or lava rock that is separate from the substrate? You could pipe water down into the drainage layer that would then slowly evaporate up into the bottom layers of substrate. Just a thought.

Not necessary, just pour water directly into the substrate. It will seep down and provide different levels of moisture within the sub.

@Saark I agree with Nightstalker here. When pouring water into the substrate to drain to the bottom of a burrow, it's more about a small pool of water collecting in the burrow chamber so the tarantula can drink from it. Same for tarantulas that don't burrow in captivity. Just about every one of my tarantulas when given a choice between drinking from a small cup of water, or dish, and soggy dirt they almost always choose to drink from soggy dirt. Sometimes they drink from the soggy dirt, then follow it to the water cup and dive in head first. A puddle of water is what the tarantula uses to put water in its body, humidity in the soil is what keeps it in. It's how tarantulas that live in areas of little rain fall can survive.

All that being said though, Voker von Wirth and @Martin H. wrote an article that was published in the British Tarantula Society years ago that describes a method of housing Haplopelma (=Cyriopagopus) and other "tube dwelling" tarantulas which describes drilling holes along the bottom edge of a tall narrow container to drain water from it after flooding the entire container. A method like that could be adapted to other tarantulas as well making housing fossorial tarantulas even more like keeping a plant than an animal!

 

[Saark]

Ooh, flooding the tank would make me nervous. I'd worry the T might get trapped or that the water may cause part of the burrow to collapse or something. My suggestion of the drainage layer option wasn't so much a replacement for pouring water into the tank, rather just a supplemental way of managing humidity in the lower levels of the tank. I want to set my fossorials up with live plants partly so that I remember that there is something in there that needs water and also, just so there is something in the tank to look at the 99.9% of the time I can't see the T.

 

[Venom1080]

Honestly, I'm pretty sure my specimen was just hiding all the time to conserve water as I didn't know muticus preferred a slightly humid habitat and maintained it dry with a dish for a long time.

I added some more dirt. About 4". Spider has multiple entrances .eats great. And I get to see legs weekly now. Which is huge lol..