# Communal Project Pictures



## AbraxasComplex (Sep 26, 2009)

So here are 3 of my communal tarantula projects. Sadly when I went to take pictures nearly all the tarantulas hid.

The first is a Holothele incei tank and has been running for nearly 2 years. It is now starting on it's 3rd generation. It has produced hundreds of Holothele incei. I've actually removed females with eggsacs and sold/gave away the babies. About 100+ are in there. The bugs that keep it clean in there have reduced the substrate in places revealing the hydro balls I used for drainage. 



































This is my Heterothele villosella tank. They had been together for 6 months in another tank and when I transfered them (9) into this tank about 3 weeks ago, but kept one out since she was on an egg sac. They haven't fully established yet, but they are quite active at times.























This is my Heterothele gabonensis vase. The vase is about 34'' tall. Inside are 3 tiny slings that have just started webbing. They have been in there for a week. If they do well I shall add the other 4 slings and maybe one or both of the adult females.


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## JimM (Sep 26, 2009)

Excellent job sir, and thank you for posting these pics.
Please keep them updated!


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## rochin (Sep 26, 2009)

that is just amazing.. thanks for posting those pics


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## Endagr8 (Sep 26, 2009)

Those are amazing.  :drool: 

Do you have any _Poecilotheria_ ssp. communal projects?

How's the _M. balfouri_ communal going?


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## AbraxasComplex (Sep 26, 2009)

Endagr8 said:


> Those are amazing.  :drool:
> 
> Do you have any _Poecilotheria_ ssp. communal projects?
> 
> How's the _M. balfouri_ communal going?




Haven't mixed the M.balfouri yet. But will in a bit. As for the communal Pokies, I decided not to get into them. I'd feel bad giving them a 2 foot tall tank. I'd rather do a 6+ foot tall tank. Maybe I'll convert another china cabinet into a tank.


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## JimM (Sep 27, 2009)

I especially like the vase.


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## micheldied (Sep 27, 2009)

sweet setups!
great job!


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## Miami Cracker (Sep 27, 2009)

OMG those are beautiful...if you dont mind ...what are the green vines? that are in the vase?


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## AbraxasComplex (Sep 27, 2009)

Miami Cracker said:


> OMG those are beautiful...if you dont mind ...what are the green vines? that are in the vase?


To be honest I'm not sure. I usually use ficcus, but this time I decided to switch it up and use a different species. So far it is paying off, but cannot tell you what it is. I will ask my botanist friend.


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## AbraxasComplex (Sep 27, 2009)

And for those who love the vases my room is full of them. Some contain tarantulas, others tailless whip scorpions, scorpions, jumping spiders, trapdoors, centipedes, and so on. All my tanks are decorative furniture. I'll post a video or more photos once my 3 large tanks are finished.


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## AbraxasComplex (Sep 27, 2009)

Miami Cracker said:


> OMG those are beautiful...if you dont mind ...what are the green vines? that are in the vase?


I found out it is a varient of Muehlenbeckia.


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## PrimalTaunt (Sep 27, 2009)

The vases are a very nice idea and a great change from the normal square tanks or plastic jars.  I'm looking forward to seeing more pictures of these once you upload them.


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## Miami Cracker (Sep 27, 2009)

AbraxasComplex said:


> I found out it is a varient of Muehlenbeckia.


Thank you for taking the time ......and again they are beautiful:clap:


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## kman (Sep 27, 2009)

That is certainly amazing! Thank you very much for sharing the pictures. I do have to ask though how on earth do you do maintenance on that first tank if it's needed? Keeping your eyes on one T can be challenging enough!


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## AbraxasComplex (Sep 27, 2009)

kman said:


> That is certainly amazing! Thank you very much for sharing the pictures. I do have to ask though how on earth do you do maintenance on that first tank if it's needed? Keeping your eyes on one T can be challenging enough!




When you open the cage the H.incei scatter and hide in the web tunnels. All I do for maintenance is wipe down the glass with vinegar and water, mist, and add carrots for the feeder bugs/detrivores that are in the tank. Every few months I have to add some extra soil. It's odd how an inch disappeares in a couple months. So far no escapes when cleaning. I may also have to add more plant clippings soon since they webbed over much of it.


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## Bothrops (Sep 27, 2009)

The H. incei terrarium is beautiful!


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## Teal (Sep 27, 2009)

*Very cool! I've got a little H. incei communal project going... so far, it's only a short amount of time, but I've got high hopes for it! *


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## TalonAWD (Sep 27, 2009)

Gorgeous setups! I do have one Q. 
Vinegar and water? Won't it make it smell a bit like vinegar and is it completely safe for the life in the tank?

I'm looking foward to seeing more of your setups.


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## AbraxasComplex (Sep 27, 2009)

TalonAWD said:


> Gorgeous setups! I do have one Q.
> Vinegar and water? Won't it make it smell a bit like vinegar and is it completely safe for the life in the tank?
> 
> I'm looking foward to seeing more of your setups.




Vinegar is the safest glass cleaner you can use around animals. Not only does it remove all the calcium and hard mineral deposits, it also helps get tarantula waste off the glass easily (in my experience). Vinegar is basically a watered down version of acetic acid. Acetic acid occurs naturally in nature, even being produced by animals such as vinegaroons. When it enters an environment it gets broken down, and since vinegar is already diluted acetic acid and I am adding more water to it, it becomes further diluted and has little to no affect on the pH of the soil or water in the tank.


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## blazetown (Sep 27, 2009)

Nice setups. Those clay balls are hella useful for a lot of things.


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## Bill S (Sep 28, 2009)

AbraxasComplex said:


> Vinegar is basically a watered down version of acetic acid. Acetic acid occurs naturally in nature, even being produced by animals such as vinegaroons. When it enters an environment it gets broken down, and since vinegar is already diluted acetic acid


Vinegar CONTAINS acetic acid - along with a host of other chemicals.  Most of those chemicals are probably harmless and will break down into other harmless chemicals.  But acetic acid is not particularly harmless.  The reason vinegaroons use it so effectively for defense is that it is powerfully irritating to moist membranes - and book lungs would qualify as moist membranes.  While the liquid you obtain by mixing water and vinegar contains dilute acetic acid, that liquid does not aerosolize along with the acetic acid.  The acetic acid that aerosolizes is pretty pure - there's just less of it than there would be if you used straight vinegar or more concentrated acetic acid solution.

I might use it to clean cages or objects that go in cages when no animals were present, but I would avoid using it in any place where there were live animals, especially in a cage where the vapors would be contained around the animal.  And if I used it to clean a cage, I'd definitely wait until all acetic acid vapors had thoroughly dissipated before I place an animal in that cage.


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## EDED (Sep 28, 2009)

AbraxasComplex said:


> When you open the cage the H.incei scatter and hide in the web tunnels. All I do for maintenance is wipe down the glass with vinegar and water, mist, and add carrots for the feeder bugs/detrivores that are in the tank. Every few months I have to add some extra soil. It's odd how an inch disappeares in a couple months. So far no escapes when cleaning. I may also have to add more plant clippings soon since they webbed over much of it.


what are these bugs you keep for house keeping? pill bugs?

i keep T. tomentosa but they are very small and i would need a big big colony to tackle something like your tanks lol


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## AbraxasComplex (Sep 28, 2009)

Bill S said:


> Vinegar CONTAINS acetic acid - along with a host of other chemicals.  Most of those chemicals are probably harmless and will break down into other harmless chemicals.  But acetic acid is not particularly harmless.  The reason vinegaroons use it so effectively for defense is that it is powerfully irritating to moist membranes - and book lungs would qualify as moist membranes.  While the liquid you obtain by mixing water and vinegar contains dilute acetic acid, that liquid does not aerosolize along with the acetic acid.  The acetic acid that aerosolizes is pretty pure - there's just less of it than there would be if you used straight vinegar or more concentrated acetic acid solution.
> 
> I might use it to clean cages or objects that go in cages when no animals were present, but I would avoid using it in any place where there were live animals, especially in a cage where the vapors would be contained around the animal.  And if I used it to clean a cage, I'd definitely wait until all acetic acid vapors had thoroughly dissipated before I place an animal in that cage.


Actually white vinegar is made by oxidizing a distilled alcohol (ethanol, with grain as a source). CO2 is produced and evaporates and acetic acid is also produced. The result is a solution of about 5% acetic acid and the rest water. Once diluted by half or more in the case of my glass cleaning, the concentration would decrease to <2.5% acetic acid.

Vinegaroons produce acetic acid at a much higher amount (about 85%) making the pH level substantially higher and the resulting dissociation of base materials more harmful. For other natural sources just look at any biological system. Acetic acid is needed in the metabolism of fats and carbohydrates (coenzyme A) and is the main component of the acetyl group found in nearly every organism. The acetyl group is also an integral component of DNA transcription. As the concentration of acetic acid decreases so do the potentially harmful effects, and in many cases becoming useful, tolerated, and even integral.

As for the dissociation of the acetic acid in my tanks, a large majority of it bonds to the calcium and other metals on the glass from hard water and various other sources to form a salt (neutralizing the pH effects). Insubstantial amounts of hydrogen are released in this process. The remaining acetic acid (acid is only an acid while dissolved in solution) and the salt on the glass is wiped away with the cloth I use to dry right after a quick wipe down.

But honestly. According to the LD50 it takes 3310 mg/kg to kill a rat through oral dose. That's an extremely high amount. And yes it does not correspond with what may be toxic to a tarantula, but I will continue using it on all my tanks to clean them until my tarantulas, snakes, scorpions, centipedes, tailless whip scorpions, snails, worms, millipedes and everything else I have shows signs of distress from that cause. I have been using it for over 10 years in large (6’x2’x2’) to miniscule (500 mL) vivariums with no visible ill effects. All those species are still alive and well and in some tanks there are multiple generations.


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## AbraxasComplex (Sep 28, 2009)

EDED said:


> what are these bugs you keep for house keeping? pill bugs?
> 
> i keep T. tomentosa but they are very small and i would need a big big colony to tackle something like your tanks lol


And the detrivores I use are sow bugs (another isopod), 2 species of worm (including red wigglers), tiny millipedes, spring tails, 2 species of tiny land snail, and predatory mites (to keep other mites at bay). So you only need a small colony of each if you have the other species aiding in the maintenance  of the tank.


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## Bill S (Sep 28, 2009)

AbraxasComplex said:


> Actually white vinegar is made by oxidizing a distilled alcohol (ethanol, with grain as a source). CO2 is produced and evaporates and acetic acid is also produced. The result is a solution of about 5% acetic acid and the rest water.


Yup, alcohols oxidize into acids, and those in turn oxidize into aldehydes.  Formanol becomes formic acid becomes formaldehyde.  Ethanol becomes ethanoic acid (aka acetic acid) becomes ethanal (an aldehyde).



> As the concentration of acetic acid decreases so do the potentially harmful effects, and in many cases becoming useful, tolerated, and even integral.


Yes, and acceptable food under certain circumstances.  But we choose how and when to ingest it.  Spraying it into a cage may or may not fit within that realm of choice or appreciation.



> But honestly. According to the LD50 it takes 3310 mg/kg to kill a rat through oral dose. That's an extremely high amount.


I took it for granted that you would be well below an LD50.  It's not the lethality I'd worry about, but just the possibility of irritating/stressing the animals in the cages.  You may very well have worked out the proper dilutions and habits to keep this to a minimum, but I don't think I'd give it a blanket recommedation to others who might not recognize the negative potential for misapplication.  You may have overstated its harmlessness.


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## EDED (Sep 29, 2009)

AbraxasComplex said:


> And the detrivores I use are sow bugs (another isopod), 2 species of worm (including red wigglers), tiny millipedes, spring tails, 2 species of tiny land snail, and predatory mites (to keep other mites at bay). So you only need a small colony of each if you have the other species aiding in the maintenance  of the tank.


hah, damn nice 'stack' of cleaning crew, i like that

thanks for the info


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## sharpfang (Sep 29, 2009)

*Communal Set-ups*

I 'd like to set-up p.ornata and Avi. Avic. 10 a cage.................................

View attachment 80712

	

		
			
		

		
	
           They are found in the wild that way
                                               But, they do pick off weak and injured.
                                               Naturalistic set-ups a must 4 colony...
                                                                                       Jason....


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## SandyMuffinCakes94 (Nov 2, 2009)

AbraxasComplex said:


> And for those who love the vases my room is full of them. Some contain tarantulas, others tailless whip scorpions, scorpions, jumping spiders, trapdoors, centipedes, and so on. All my tanks are decorative furniture. I'll post a video or more photos once my 3 large tanks are finished.


Id like to see more of the vases that is such a wonderful decorative idea!


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## Venari (May 20, 2010)

Sorry for bringing up an old thread - I was searching for something else, and this caught my eye.

Tell me more about that Vase setup. Substrate? Lid/stopper? Ventilation? Cleaning Crew? Humidity?

I found something similar at Michaels that could work, if I could fashion some sort of secure, ventilated lid for it.


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## AbraxasComplex (May 20, 2010)

Venari said:


> Sorry for bringing up an old thread - I was searching for something else, and this caught my eye.
> 
> Tell me more about that Vase setup. Substrate? Lid/stopper? Ventilation? Cleaning Crew? Humidity?
> 
> I found something similar at Michaels that could work, if I could fashion some sort of secure, ventilated lid for it.



You being with a drainage layer of gravel, covered with a layer of sand. Your substrate depends on the plants you want to keep. With ferns there needs to be more decaying organic matter. With plants that need drier conditions, use more sand for drainage. Mine are a mix of cocofiber, peat moss, top soil, earthworm casings, sand, and leaves/moss.

No lid stopper needed, the glass is usually heavy enough and well enough fit to keep the animal inside. I do only house dwarf species in a vase though. Ventilation is not really needed as the plants produce oxygen and the combination of acidic substrate and cleaning crew removes mold build up. Humidity is kept nearly constant due to the enclosed space, but every few months it can be misted with distilled water. As for a clean up crew use small snails, isopods, red wiggler worms, and springtails. Tiny millipedes also work well too.


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## Venari (May 20, 2010)

AbraxasComplex said:


> Ventilation is not really needed as the plants produce oxygen


I have a small glass jar in my back yard that would look pretty with a small plant in, and it reminded me of a project I read about in grade school: Put a plant in an airtight container, with some water, and leave where you get a natural day/night cycle, and the plant provides it's own oxygen/carbon dioxide, and condensation of the water within will continuously water the plant.

I got to wondering if adding a T, and pillbugs, would work: Throw in prey every now and then, and the T would drink from the condensation, and be supplied with air from the plant - just somehow make sure there is a shorter night cycle, if possible.


As to that particular setup, I'd have to do some research on plant care - I've never tried anything with live plants, and would need either practice, or extensive tutorial on it's care with a T in there with it. I wouldn't want to blindly throw in a plant and hope for the best.

Interesting thoughts.


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## seanbond (May 20, 2010)

very nice setups!!


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## Dinho (May 21, 2010)

H. incei tank is awesome


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## AbraxasComplex (May 22, 2010)

Dinho said:


> H. incei tank is awesome



Thanks. I'll post pics of its current state soon. After years of having the bromeliad and the creeping fig in that tank the webbing finally over took the creeping fig and killed it. I removed the bromeliad and placed it in my chicken spider tank and it is starting to grow new leaves. I replaced all the plants with marble pothos and it seems to be doing better. The leaves grow high enough that the H.incei do not web them over, they just web around the base and the stems. 

I'll post it in my picture thread though, as this thread is considerably older.

My New Thread


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