Orthopous ornatus struggles... help!

[laurmerl]

Hi everyone, really hoping for some advice. About 2 months ago I ordered my first three pedes, all different morphs of Orthoporous ornatus. My texas gold lady wasnt very happy to begin with, was mostly curled up and after a day or two disappeared. I havent seen her since, honestly I'm worried she might be dead. I never saw any evidence that she ate food. My redish brown, Wayne, was pretty active crawling up some cholla and around the tank, staying above ground for a week or so and now he is underground.

But most sad, my little chocolate morph who is barely two inches seems to be limp! I saw her nestled around some leaves under the cholla, and she was fully curled a couple day ago but now is more of a U shape... and OF COURSE I touched her to check if she was alive... and then freaked thinking she died and didnt even think, she might be molting. Just two days before she was borrowed inside the cholla and I was a bit worried my substrate is too wet. I have good ventilation (10 gal tank, with 2 two inch vents on both sides and a quarter of the top open. I was definitely spraying too much thinking when the top of the soil is dry it needs to be wet.

Any advice??? I was going to leave the lid open but I'm worried if my little chocolate morph is alive (she twitched a bit when I picked her up and her color is duller... how long would it take her to molt?) That reducing the humidity below 70% will dedicate her

How often should the substrate be watered? Should I avoid misting all together? I know they're desert species so ventilation and temp are important

 

[laurmerl]

Okay... updates. I attached pics of my set up, and some of the pedes.

1. My texas gold, Beer Nut, is in fact molting!!! I had this idea of looking at the bottom of my aquarium and found her in all her glory!

2. I accidentally found Wayne, the reddish/brown adult, a little bit under some moss. Hopefully a little tiny nudge/discomfort wont interrupt his molting too much if he is.

3. Gail, my little chocolate, mightve moved her head some. I covered her with lose leaves and a bit of the moss. I'm really worried about her. Should I make sure she stays moist? I only noticed she wasnt moving originally because when I was spraying she didnt even flinch.

 

[SFA]

I just had an ornatus come up after going down to molt in November. Best thing you can do is be patient and keep the humidity up and your substrate moist. For your one on the surface, you can gently bury her with some loose substrate. You’re only going to hurt them by disturbing them if they are molting - let them do their thing. And don’t panic! Seriously, mine just took 5 months. And now she’s out munching on all the food in sight. You never know what conditions they were kept in before you had them, and I think sometimes that first molt after being in suboptimal conditions can be hard.