Why is sand harmful for T's ?

[Crimsonpanther]

Hello everyone
I had a question for all to answer , i know never to put a T in sand and ive always been told that sand is never good for a T , BUT i have a buddy who seems to disagree with the info.....So i was wondering if you guys could clear this up for me ! Why is it harmful for T's to live in sand or to keep them in sand !

 

[CedrikG]

because they PROBABLY get in their mouth and it stuck there ... also its very bad for burrowing ... it does'nt hold well the water ... very bad substrate

 

[TheDarkFinder]

Sand is not good for tarantulas.
1.) The tarantula's can not burrow in sand.
2.) Does not give up humidty well.
3.) Trapped water can sour.
4.) Maybe to abrasive to some species. Getting in the small places, irritating the tarantula.
5.) Lastly, 3 gallon of sands, for custom tunnel, would weight too much to be really useful.
thedarkfinder

 

[Mike H.]

Small grains of sand can get caught in there book lungs as well from what I have read...


Regards, Mike

 

[Windchaser]

In addition to the problems already mentioned, sand also sticks to everything. Therefore, you would more than likely end up with a T covered in sand.

 

[Crimsonpanther]

i personally would never think of keeping them this way but what about those T's from mexico and other such dry places...should they get sand and is sand really harful to those kinds of T's ?

 

[Windchaser]

i personally would never think of keeping them this way but what about those T's from mexico and other such dry places...should they get sand and is sand really harful to those kinds of T's ?

Even in their natural environments, they are not on 100% sand. It is usually a mix of soil or dry clay with some sand.

 

[Jmadson13]

i personally would never think of keeping them this way but what about those T's from mexico and other such dry places...should they get sand and is sand really harful to those kinds of T's ?

As windchaser stated these spiders inhabit a microhabitat in these natural environments. I'd imagine that it rarely gets over 78-80 degrees in their burrows, also the substra is more of a wed clay and soil once you get below the top layers of sand.

 

[xgrafcorex]

yep

i agree. and would never go get sand for a new t. but i recently received a free 10 gallon tank, rocks, stick, and 4" g rosea. its on sand and i must say it isnt dirty at all and they had it on sand the whole time i guess. but when the time comes to do a tank clean up i dont think i'm going to replace it with more sand, probably use coco fiber like most of the rest of them...my a seemani is living with potting soil since i figured it would hold the burrow shape better (so far it has)

 

[eman]

Even in their natural environments, they are not on 100% sand. It is usually a mix of soil or dry clay with some sand.

Exactly - this sums it up precisely. I don't know of any species that lives exclusively on pure sand.

 

[Morbus ascendit]

Hi!

Small grains of sand can get caught in there book lungs as well from what I have read...

Nope, that's an urban legend ... ;P I'm too lazy to translate the text Boris Striffler posted in another forum so I think Google-Translation should do as the important thing is the picture attached (=> you can see fine sand stuck in the hairs guarding the booklungs' entrance):

CLICK ME!

You'll have to scroll down a little ...

Regards,
Uwe

 

[Crimsonpanther]

Hi!



Nope, that's an urban legend ... ;P I'm too lazy to translate the text Boris Striffler posted in another forum so I think Google-Translation should do as the important thing is the picture attached (=> you can see fine sand stuck in the hairs guarding the booklungs' entrance):

CLICK ME!

You'll have to scroll down a little ...

Regards,
Uwe

i cannot find anything on this page to concure with your opion !

 

[matty J]

I personal have never had a problem with sand and my T's. What do you think african, mexican and american southwestern species do???? Aren't those areas pretty sandy. I think with the right species its fine, but I look to be the only one.

 

[Socrates]

i cannot find anything on this page to concure with your opion !

Oh but there is. Morbus linked to an awesome article - it's not his fault that the translation kind of got lost... ahem...the translation actually sucks.

Thanks for that link Morbus.

---
Wendy
---

 

[Windchaser]

I personal have never had a problem with sand and my T's. What do you think african, mexican and american southwestern species do???? Aren't those areas pretty sandy. I think with the right species its fine, but I look to be the only one.

See my earlier post regarding your question. In general though, just because a few specimens have not had problems, does not mean that a sand substrate is the best choice. Not every smoker will get cancer, so it not every tarantula will have a problem with sand as a substrate. At any rate, there are various reasons given in this thread which show why sand is not an ideal substrate.

 

[Morbus ascendit]

Hello!

ahem...the translation actually sucks.

Yes, actually it does ... I guess noone understands a word (that's the problem with colloquial language for automatic translation) So I'm going to translate the important parts and insert them here later on!

i cannot find anything on this page to concure with your opion !

Maybe after I'm ready with translation Sorry, but I'm not as fast as Google is

Regards,
Uwe

 

[Crimsonpanther]

sorry i apologize !

 

[Morbus ascendit]

Hi!

I tried to translate the important part(s) as follows...

And I thought I had read Ts could die because of fine sand which is why one shouldn't use sand as subsoil.
Whatever... The pix say enough...

Thx ... Best regards ...

Hello Dexxtro,

That's right, the animal has died 2 minutes after taking the picture as sand paralyzed its respiratory centre ;-))
No, in all seriousness - what do you thing if all Ts in the desert zones of this world that read this thread had to die? Obviously not, but some statements go independant and in the end the saying "Ts die when living on sand" remains.

It's like chinese whispers somehow. Someone said one shouldn't keep Ts on sand because this could be problematic. Another one picked that up guessing that the fine sand could lead to problems with the respiratory centre. Out of it the fact rose that tarantula lungs can block up with sand and dust.

Do you really think the entrance to tarantula lungs would be this unprotected so sand could "tickle" in? As I don't wanna speculate on whether there are fine hairs (guarding the respiratory tract) or not, have a look at the picture:


(see link above)


The entrance to the respiratory tract of a Poecilotheria regalis is shown.
In the stereomicroscope one can see very well that fine, dense standing hairs protect the entrace. In the picture one (only indistinctly) sees the fine dark dust pellets being on it.

The reddish pellets you can see above are fine grains of sand, which were applied intentionally to make size comparison easier. In addition some of those hairs have been pulled apart where marked with the arrow. The entrance measures 5 mm, the grains of sand ~0.15 mm

IMHO the most important part is the picture where one can see what Boris wrote with own eyes. Although sand isn't harmful it shouldn't be used unmixed. As TheDarkFinder mentioned:

1.) The tarantula's can not burrow in sand.
2.) Does not give up humidty well.

Regards,
Uwe

PS: @Crimsonpanther - what for? Google's bad translation? Doesn't seem 2 b your fault

 

[fscorpion]

See my earlier post regarding your question. In general though, just because a few specimens have not had problems, does not mean that a sand substrate is the best choice. Not every smoker will get cancer, so it not every tarantula will have a problem with sand as a substrate. At any rate, there are various reasons given in this thread which show why sand is not an ideal substrate.

Well, not a good comparison with the smokers because not every smoker gets lung cancer but every smoker gets his lungs spoiled by smoking.
I think sand is not a good idea just because very few animals can live on pure sand in the wild and like someone said, they just can't burrow in it and that's not their natural substrate. Of course, there are all kinds of sand...

 

[Boris Striffler]

Hi all,

as I wrote the German text and took the photo in discussion, I thought it might be easier to show it here again and add some words of explanation:

As Uwe was so kind to point to my (German) posting and translated the important parts, there are some few remarks I might add.
The reddish sand grains are spread on the spiracle on purpose to have a size comparision, as the dark dust particles are hardly visible (e.g. the little dark spot right from the yellow arrow). As written above the spiracle is about 5 mm long and the sand grains have a diameter of 0,15 mm.
BTW the sand is the typical very fine reddish Namib desert sand sold in pet trade. As you can clearly see even the fine particles could not get through the dense hair closing the spiracle of Poeciltheria regalis. The arrow only points to the spiracle opening.

I actually do think that one can keep tarantulas on sand as some do live in sandy habitats. For example Theraphosa apophysis can be found on quite sandy soils in Southern Venezuela. During dry season there is even no rain in that area for several months and temperature is rising above 35 °C and humidity dropping down to 50 % in the sesonal forest with open canopy stand. But this does not mean that T.apophysis needs to be kept on dry sand, because of these climatic conditions. Within the burrow of up to 1m temperature is not exceeding 25 °C and humidity is considerably high.
At home I keep my T.apophysis on a mixture of sand and garden mould with a cover of dead and dry walnut leaves. A species I keep on orbetter in sand is Citharischius crawshayi. For my big female I use the typical red Namib desert sand, but I keep it damp. My female made nice chamber under a flat limestone and waits for prey on her entrance every night. She lives in there now for about two years without any problems.

All the best,
Boris