T. Blondi cage sizes?

[InsaneCat]

Hi, been spotting here for a few days (Only found the board, not T's however) and finally decided to post up a question. I've heard many different sizes thrown around, but what is the average tank/cage size for a sub-adult to adult T. Blondi? I've heard anywhere from 1 person telling me that a 15 gallon can hold a Blondi just fine, others say 35 gallon, but it appears most say 20 gallon. So, without further ado, my question. Is a 20 gallon suficiant space to house a Blondi comfortably. Comfortably being the key word, however badly I spelled it

 

[mebebraz]

Ive seen quite a few full sized ones in 10gl tanks, so its really up to you and the space you have. Plus what you going to put in the tank with it.

 

[InsaneCat]

Well thanks for the quick reply, first off. Second, I don't have an AWFUL lot of room, but I have enough to work with. I'm probably not going to make it too fancy, just a half-burried Clay pot, a water dish, substrate (of coarse, but ya know...) If such a device exists, a humidity moniter and maybe a plant, but I'm fine without a (fake) plant.

 

[danielr6543]

Well thanks for the quick reply, first off. Second, I don't have an AWFUL lot of room, but I have enough to work with. I'm probably not going to make it too fancy, just a half-burried Clay pot, a water dish, substrate (of coarse, but ya know...) If such a device exists, a humidity moniter and maybe a plant, but I'm fine without a (fake) plant.

Humidity gauges are generally crap and a waste of money. Its far easier to just keep the soil evenly moist for species that need high moisture. Make sure it isnt so moist that you can squeeze water out of the substrate though, if you can squeeze water out its overly moist.

 

[InsaneCat]

Thanks for the heads up.

While reading through the older posts, I read that putting wet towels over 90 percent of your cage lid is a good way to keep the humidity up. I will try that as well.

 

[Jmadson13]

All of my adult T. blondi are housed in roughly 20l tanks with a sufficient amount of bedding. You wouldn't want them to climb and fall risking injury. My subadults all the way down to 4 inches are housed in 10 gal tanks and spiderlings in 4 by 4 sterlite containers.

 

[jbrd]

Well ya all can have a smaller tank if ya want, but personally i like this tank for our T.blondi better. Its 36X18X16, I keep him on dry bed-a-beast, with a full fresh large water dish. He seems to do just fine so far, no bad molts as of yet.
Just my opinion. ;P

 

[Rounder]

My 3.5" blondi is currently in a 10 gallon tank, I have a 29 gallon waiting for it and that will be way more than enough room. I have a humidity gauge in there that we use for our hermit crabs as well and with 100% peat moss it stays at about 70% humidity about 2" off the substrate by just adding some water to the peat once a week or so.

 

[Cirith Ungol]

Oh man...

Ok, let's say this = Gallons dont say <edit> about what kind of dimentions the tank has. Come on, we're not talking fish here, we're talkin tarantulas. If anything internationally, lets talk legspans, because that's about the only thing applicable in regard to any T owner and in regard to his own T.

Well, that out of the way I'd say that a T. blondi needs about 2-3 times it's legspan in floorspace. If you want more, then go for more, but the above is the least.

Humidity (and I KNOW Mike H. would agree with me) keep it dry, with the occasional mostening of one corner and the T will do just fine. I'm talking from my personal and Mike H.'s experience that T's do just fine in bonedry conditions if you give them well fed feeder insects and have a water dish that's always filled with fresh water.

In regard to bonedry conditions - I keep all of my nearly 30 T's that way and none of them have ever had a bad moult. I just see to it that their feeder insects are in good shape before I offer the T's any. Bonedry I'd say is when you let the tank dry out completely but if you add some water to one corner of the tank sometimes so that there's gonna be sum moisture there at least.

 

[AphonopelmaTX]

Well, that out of the way I'd say that a T. blondi needs about 2-3 times it's legspan in floorspace. If you want more, then go for more, but the above is the least.

I will be the first to disagree with this statement. The least I think is a few inches longer than its legspan. I have a 8 inch female (recently molted;previously 7) that is kept in a 14-3/4" x 10-1/8" x 5-5/8" h shoe box. She does perfectly as she thinks the whole box is hers. However the only downside to this is when the top is opened urticating bristles go everywhere, but that's more of my problem than hers. :razz:

Humidity (and I KNOW Mike H. would agree with me) keep it dry, with the occasional mostening of one corner and the T will do just fine. I'm talking from my personal and Mike H.'s experience that T's do just fine in bonedry conditions if you give them well fed feeder insects and have a water dish that's always filled with fresh water.

I agree with this to some extent as I have had a basis for comparison. My captive bred T. blondi (5 inch female) does fine with dry (not bone dry though) substrate, but two of my WC adult females could not deal with it at all, or excessive moisture for that matter. And just as a note, I've found that if part of the substrate is moist, then that will be fewer times you need to fill a water dish. It's great when one has lots of individuals to care for.

I guess for every way to keep a tarantula, there will be some who has done it successfully the opposite way.

- Lonnie

 

[DaleGribble]

seriously spiders are not like reptiles they aren't going anywhere! A few inches longer then legspan is fine as long as you have enough depth for absorbant substrate (I find coconut earth is the BEST substrate ever; I keep my blondi on a mix of large pieces and the ground stuff. You saturate it once and you don't have to worry about the humidity for a while, even with 50% ventilation) and a good hide.
Do you think breeders who keep rooms of spiders have them all in huge aquariums?

 

[DanHalen]

I prefer larger tanks myself. My Blondi sling is quite active and wanders frequently, and at night my 7" Apophysis sub starts crawling all over the place!

A shelter for a Blondi/Apophysis (or any T for that matter) would be recommended, and I would be concerned that as the T approaches it's final moults, it would have enough room for a post moult stretch so to speak, with the limited flor space and the size of the shelter to take into account. This may give the possibility of stunted growth.

I guess it depends on whether it's going to be part of a collection, or on display. If you have alot of T's, then a smaller enclosure is obviously going to be more useful. If you want the specimin to grow large or for display purposes, go for a larger tank.

 

[InsaneCat]

Wow, this is a much more active board than the ones I've been in before, thanks for all the quick replys. I'm probably going to the local petstore this evening and look at some tanks, get some measurements ya know? I'm going to look at my options for a 10-11 inch specimen, because I'd like to have a rather large specimen. I'm leaning towards a juvenile/sling 3.5", to house in my 10 gallon I have right now.

Just in case you guys were wondering what hatched my question about the broad spectrum of sizes, read the thread. I noticed some people say 29 gallon, 10 gallon, shoe boxes, etc. It's actually kind of funny. Anyway, thanks for all the replys and will try to keep about 20-30 inches floorspace in mind!

 

[AfterTheAsylum]

I'm sure at least one person is waiting for me to jump this boat. I have 20 T. blondis currently. I do not agree with anyone who thinks a blondi should be kept in a ten gallon tank. A 20 gallon is even a bit small, but it can still be used. I keep most of mine in 30 gallon tanks, and a few in larger tanks. Think about this... you obviously thought that something was wrong with keeping a blondi in a 10 gallon tank - if you didin't, you wouldn't have posted. Don't keep her in that small tank. I have some posts from a month of so ago about T. blondi enclosures - that might be better to see. I would say to get a tank around 25 gallons, or if not, try to get a 20 gallon (long), this should be okay. This crap about a few inches larger than the blondi is what I already said it is. PM me and I can set you up with some helpful hints.

Cheers
The Sickness

 

[Mister Internet]

The nice thing about a topic like this is everyone's got a different opinion, all of them believe their opinion to be correct, and no one has any hard proof whatsoever that their opinion is anything other than jus that... an opinion.

Basically, it's impossible to scientifically measure or prove the minimum amount of floorspace needed by an invertebrate, so those telling you that it only needs to be twice as much floorspace as their legspan and those telling you you need 30gal tanks are both merely stating an opinion.

 

[DanHalen]

I have a scientifically proven formula which I devised for calculating the size of a tank needed to house a L. parahybana, T. Blondi, or T. Apophysis. After many hours of vector math, translation/scale/rotation matrices and trigonometry I derived this, and I share it to you all for free and to distribute in any scientific journal you may wish:








Big spider = big tank

 

[InsaneCat]

Touche, after carefully researching your method, and following many leads, I've come to the conclusion you are not correct. See, Giant Spider, suh as mentioned, could not = Giant tank, because that's like a 50-100 gallon tank lol.

anyway, I like your method

 

[jbrd]

My previous post is "purely" an "opinion" based on.

1, This is my display T.

2, Why keep such a large T in such a small enclosure, would you wanna live in a half bedroom house?

3, If a go by the 2 to 3 times there leg span that means an at least 20 to 30 inches right. Last i checked a ten gallon was way smaller, well at least where i am from that is.

4, Would you not want your T to be comfortable in there enviroment where they could chose to move around if they want to.

5, I have read that if there enclosure is small to the point that they think the whole place is there burrow that it might lead to a more aggressive T.

I could come up with a few more but this will do for now.

 

[InsaneCat]

I agree with what you've said, and never had any intention of keeping it in such a small inclosure. That's why I tried to make the emphasis on comfortable. I don't think it is very fair to have a large T like that in a box he/she could hardly move in. That's cruel, that's like being locked in a jail cell....

 

[jbrd]

yeah the ol jail cell sure does suck!