# How can an enclosure be to big?



## RepugnantOoze (Mar 24, 2017)

i mean besides trying to find where your tiny sling is and having more space on you shelves. what is the issue with having a to large enclosure?

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## Andrea82 (Mar 24, 2017)

RepugnantOoze said:


> i mean besides trying to find where your tiny sling is and having more space on you shelves. what is the issue with having a to large enclosure?


By putting a spider in a too large enclosure, you're reducing the chance that it finds the feeder insect, which is not a good thing, especially with slings. T's also need a closed space to feel comfortable, so in a too big enclosure, it will prrobably stay in its hide more or burrow a lot, which can make keeping a Theraphosid less fun for some people.

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## EulersK (Mar 24, 2017)

The biggest one to me is that big enclosures were designed for big animals. Because of this, small cracks and gaps weren't seen as an issue to the manufacturers. You're simply asking for an escape with a setup that's too large.

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## RepugnantOoze (Mar 24, 2017)

couldn't you just crush the feeders heads?

@EulersK seems like an easy thing to avoid.

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## Jeff23 (Mar 24, 2017)

RepugnantOoze said:


> i mean besides trying to find where your tiny sling is and having more space on you shelves. what is the issue with having a to large enclosure?


Quite a few of my sling enclosures are over-sized.  I do this to improve moisture control (since I travel on my job).  The biggest problem is trying to get food to your small slings.  To overcome this issue I feed often and I scatter the pre-kill cricket pieces in multiple places in the enclosure.  Clean-up is more work as well.  It works because the abdomens of my T's are nice and fat.

I would only recommend it for slings if you don't mind the extra work and you are away sometimes for a few days.

EDIT* Some individuals also oversize OW tarantulas to avoid re-housing so often.  There are also tarantulas that get stressed easily so placement in an over-sized enclosure can be an advantage (Megaphobema robustum).

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## nicodimus22 (Mar 24, 2017)

Too much ground to cover to easily find food, especially for slings and juveniles. They are ambush predators. They don't wander to hunt...the food usually comes to them.

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## RepugnantOoze (Mar 24, 2017)

how is there too much ground? as opposed to the earth?

If tarantulas can go months without eating I am sure they can make it to the other side of there enclosure before they starve.

Also, I mostly just drop food next to there hides and they snatch it up. Never had a problem. Especially now that I am using dubias.

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## Jeff23 (Mar 24, 2017)

RepugnantOoze said:


> how is there too much ground? as opposed to the earth?
> 
> If tarantulas can go months without eating I am sure they can make it to the other side of there enclosure before they starve.
> 
> Also, I mostly just drop food next to there hides and they snatch it up. Never had a problem. Especially now that I am using dubias.


It isn't that the tarantula will starve.  The problem is slings are most vulnerable to dying.  You want your sling to at least reach juvenile stage as soon as possible.  Over-sizing the enclosure will add delays in them finding food.  My slings do wander around the full enclosure that is over-sized, but they don't do it non-stop.  Sometimes a single cricket will be missed and then no longer desirable by the tarantula.  That is why I scatter multiple pieces of pre-kill.

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## EulersK (Mar 24, 2017)

RepugnantOoze said:


> couldn't you just crush the feeders heads?
> 
> @EulersK seems like an easy thing to avoid.


It's very easy to avoid. 
Do a quick search on the boards for "escaped tarantula" and see how often it's due to a large enclosure.



RepugnantOoze said:


> If tarantulas can go months without eating I am sure they can make it to the other side of there enclosure before they starve.


See @nicodimus22's post right above yours.

You'll find that many of us house growing spiders in large enclosures as to avoid frequent rehousings. That's perfectly fine. The issue comes when a keeper wants to put a 1" sling into their "forever home" like we've been seeing a lot of lately. There are many issues, all of which can be dismissed as easy to avoid.

Large falls resulting in an injury
High chance of escape
Spider having trouble finding food/water
Issues maintaining humidity
Issues _finding_ the spider
Removing uneaten prey or even noticing it was uneaten
I could go on, but you get the point. All of these are easy to avoid, but why create a laundry list of issues for yourself when proper housing would resolve all of them immediately?

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## RepugnantOoze (Mar 24, 2017)

So an oversized enclosure isn't that big of a deal is what I am surmising.

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## Lucashank (Mar 24, 2017)

RepugnantOoze said:


> how is there too much ground? as opposed to the earth?
> 
> If tarantulas can go months without eating I am sure they can make it to the other side of there enclosure before they starve.
> 
> Also, I mostly just drop food next to there hides and they snatch it up. Never had a problem. Especially now that I am using dubias.


Although I do not disagree with having a larger enclosure, I have always found that argument to be quite flawed.
If one wants to treat their tarantula as if it is living in the wild, why take any measures at all to ensure it is safe and comfortable?
It is just in consideration of your tarantula. There is no law on enclosure size, some people just prefer to make it easier for the tarantula.

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## RepugnantOoze (Mar 24, 2017)

Strong point @Lucashank 
I think thats what the others were alluding to as well.

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## cold blood (Mar 24, 2017)

Too big is really IMO, a sling thing.

Adults and even many juvies will do just fine in oversize enclosures.

Slings however are a differrent story.   A sling in an over size enclosure is inclined to hide a ton more, which leads to much less agressive feeding response....if the sling is hiding all the time it wont be eating as much and wont be able to be monitored....often this leads to spectacularly slow growth....something most sling owners dont want.

i see this behavior as closer to a wild slings actions....why dont we want to mimic wild?  Because survival rates are abysmal in the wild...with proper set up and care, captive ts have spectacular survival and growth rates comparatively.

Condiment cups and deli cups are the best place for slings IME.

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## RepugnantOoze (Mar 24, 2017)

@cold blood I think I have observed what you are referencing in my tiny little A. Chalcodes sling. He's finally in pre molt and its really been way to long. I will probably rehouse him afterwards. 

Also, I am not going to be using a to large enclosure because I don't have much space and I mostly agree with everyones points. I was only curious as to what folks would say on the subject and I was hoping to stir up the conversation a bit by being slightly contrary. Thanks for all the informative responses guys!

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## nicodimus22 (Mar 24, 2017)

cold blood said:


> why dont we want to mimic wild?  Because survival rates are abysmal in the wild...


Well said.

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## Jeff23 (Mar 24, 2017)

EulersK said:


> It's very easy to avoid.
> Do a quick search on the boards for "escaped tarantula" and see how often it's due to a large enclosure.
> 
> 
> ...


I've never had an escaped tarantula with my over-sized enclosures.  It is more about the size of the ventilation holes to me.

I've never seen any humidity or moisture issues with any of my slings.  Over-sizing the enclosure does help to slow down mold since you can leave a dry patch for placement of pre-kill prey.

Finding the tarantula is a problem for part of them.  I always create pre-made burrows in my over-sized sling containers.  I would wild guess that 80% of them accept the burrow I create and thus tracking the tarantula is a piece of cake.  But that other 20% (and I think this is impacted by species preferences) goes into unknown state for multiple months which WILL test your patience.  With regard to species, I bought some Cyriocosmus leetzi slings and 100% of them did their own custom burrows.  I have blindly fed them and kept substrate moist for several months now.  I have recently found that that two of them are live and doing well.  I haven't messed with the other ones after digging up two of them.

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## Dylan Bruce (Mar 24, 2017)

cold blood said:


> why dont we want to mimic wild?  Because survival rates are abysmal in the wild...with proper set up and care, captive ts have spectacular survival and growth rates comparatively.


I agree with cold blood completely here, I often hear people say "it happens in the wild so it must be fine" when we keep animals in captivity they are in a completely different situation and we want them not to just survive but to thrive. Although I do keep my B. Smithi in a slightly oversized enclosure and it simply sticks to the  side of it's enclosure closest to it's hide.

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## Nyke (Mar 24, 2017)

nicodimus22 said:


> Well said.


We would like to mimic their natural habitat, though, for them to be thrive. Eg. temperature/humidity/terrain

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## Dylan Bruce (Mar 24, 2017)

Nyke said:


> We would like to mimic their natural habitat, though, for them to be thrive. Eg. temperature/humidity/terrain


Yeah but there are also things in their natural habitat that aren't great for them which we try our best to avoid. Height for example, in the wild terrestrial tarantulas probably have a few opportunities to climb and  possibly fall and hurt themselfs but when keeping them in captivity we try avoid this. Not saying that too much floor space is bad just that a smaller enclosure has it's advantages.

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## Thaneem (Mar 24, 2017)

If you keep a sling in an enclosure that is too large, it'll die.  You won't be able to control the humidity as effectively as in a small enclosure, and it likely won't be able to find the food.  And yeah, you can say they manage to do this and that in nature, but the reality is that, in captivity, the spider will likely die if it's 1/4 of an inch long and stuck in a 5 gallon aquarium.  I'm not ashamed to say it happened to me when I first started keeping these animals, and it happened to someone else I know (that one pissed me off, because it was an animal I sold them and warned them to just keep it in the deli cup).

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## cold blood (Mar 24, 2017)

Nyke said:


> We would like to mimic their natural habitat, though, for them to be thrive. Eg. temperature/humidity/terrain


Not really.   We mimic _ideal_ conditions...ideal conditions are pretty infrequent in the wild.   You wanna mimic wild, don't forget those downpours, the flooding, the predators, the wild temp fluctuations, the high winds, etc.   _Everything_ in nature makes life for a sling hard...which is why so few survive to adulthood compared to the numbers born.

We offer an ideal habitat for them to thrive...ideal is not how nature works.  Our survival rates are so good because we don't offer wild conditions.

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## Jeff23 (Mar 24, 2017)

Thaneem said:


> *If you keep a sling in an enclosure that is too large, it'll die. * You won't be able to control the humidity as effectively as in a small enclosure, and it likely won't be able to find the food.  And yeah, you can say they manage to do this and that in nature, but the reality is that, in captivity, the spider will likely die if it's 1/4 of an inch long and stuck in a 5 gallon aquarium.  I'm not ashamed to say it happened to me when I first started keeping these animals, and it happened to someone else I know (that one pissed me off, because it was an animal I sold them and warned them to just keep it in the deli cup).


That is definitely not true.  I have been keeping slings in over-sized enclosures since July 2016 - ZERO DEATHS (so far).

EDIT* And all that I have seen have fat abdomens.  I have approximately 90 slings.  More than half of them are in over-sized enclosures.


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## Nyke (Mar 25, 2017)

cold blood said:


> Not really.   We mimic _ideal_ conditions...ideal conditions are pretty infrequent in the wild.   You wanna mimic wild, don't forget those downpours, the flooding, the predators, the wild temp fluctuations, the high winds, etc.   _Everything_ in nature makes life for a sling hard...which is why so few survive to adulthood compared to the numbers born.
> 
> We offer an ideal habitat for them to thrive...ideal is not how nature works.  Our survival rates are so good because we don't offer wild conditions.


Yes I agree. I meant IDEAL habitat.


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## Ungoliant (Mar 25, 2017)

RepugnantOoze said:


> So an oversized enclosure isn't that big of a deal is what I am surmising.


Excessive horizontal space is not really a _hazard_ if you provide proper furnishings, and the tarantula is not having trouble finding food. The main downside, IMO, with extra horizontal space is that as your collection grows, you may regret housing a tarantula in a space that could have comfortably accommodated two or three.

Excessive vertical space is, however, dangerous to terrestrial tarantulas. Vertical space should not exceed 1.5x their legspan.

Condiment and deli cups work great for slings. When they outgrow those, I upgrade them to juvenile enclosures like the small Exo Terra Breeding Box (8" x 8" x 5.5"). Then I won't have to rehouse for a long time.


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## Andrea82 (Mar 25, 2017)

Jeff23 said:


> That is definitely not true.  I have been keeping slings in over-sized enclosures since July 2016 - ZERO DEATHS (so far).
> 
> EDIT* And all that I have seen have fat abdomens.  I have approximately 90 slings.  More than half of them are in over-sized enclosures.


How oversized are we talking? Five times their DLS wide? Ten times? Twenty? 
I keep them oversized as well, but not like a five cm dls sling in a fifty cm wide enclosure


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## Jeff23 (Mar 25, 2017)

Andrea82 said:


> How oversized are we talking? Five times their DLS wide? Ten times? Twenty?
> I keep them oversized as well, but not like a five cm dls sling in a fifty cm wide enclosure


I have been raising 1/8" slings (0.125") in 5.5 oz containers.  These containers are 2.5" diameter at the top and 2" diameter at the base.  The ratio of size for mine is at least 16X.  The ratio for what you provided (five cm dls sling in a fifty cm wide enclosure) as an example is 10X.  But mine is round instead of rectangular so I would not be surprised if the ratio of sling versus substrate is not somewhat close for them.

But at the same time I am definitely not disagreeing with what @cold blood has said.  He said this:

*Slings however are a differrent story. A sling in an over size enclosure is inclined to hide a ton more, which leads to much less agressive feeding response....if the sling is hiding all the time it wont be eating as much and wont be able to be monitored....often this leads to spectacularly slow growth....something most sling owners dont want.*

This statement above is 100% correct because I have dealt with everything he has stated here.  It takes away a lot of the enjoyment of having a tarantula if you never see it.  If I didn't travel on my job or own a huge number of tarantulas there is no way I would keep mine in over-sized containers.  The fact that I own a large number of them allows me to tolerate this behavior with less frustration because there is always some tarantulas giving me activity to feed my enjoyment needs.  I have overcome the eating problem by inserting over-sized pre-kill cricket pieces to insure the sling will find food.

Just this week I dug up a couple Cyriocosmus leetzi because I haven't seen them since I bought them as 1/8" size at the start of Oct 2016 (approximately 6 months).  One of them is close to 1/2" size.  And one is slightly smaller.  I didn't dig up the others.  If someone kept these in a vial it would be a much more enjoyable experience in watching the tarantula grow.  I see my Aphonopelma occasionally so they aren't this extreme in hiding.

The quoted post also said "*You won't be able to control the humidity as effectively as in a small enclosure*".  This is also untrue.  Keeping moisture levels right in a vial is MUCH HARDER than keeping it right in my over-sized containers.  My leetzi would possibly be dead if I left them unattended in an appropriate sized vial for 3-5 days in Winter months.

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## Thaneem (Mar 25, 2017)

Jeff23 said:


> The quoted post also said "*You won't be able to control the humidity as effectively as in a small enclosure*".  This is also untrue.  Keeping moisture levels right in a vial is MUCH HARDER than keeping it right in my over-sized containers.  My leetzi would possibly be dead if I left them unattended in an appropriate sized vial for 3-5 days in Winter months.


Of course 'large' and 'small' are relative terms.  It is easier to control temperature and humidity levels in a 5 gallon tank than in a 40 gallon.  I mean, that's objectively true.  When you're talking about a small vs large deli cup, obviously there's not much difference.
Maybe I should have said, 'if you keep a sling an enclosure that is too oversized, it'll die'?  Idk.

EDIT:  rereading this thread...I am NOT saying a sling will die if it's put in a small deli cup rather than in a vial, or that it's easier to control humidity in a vial.  I'm talking about putting it into something like a 5 gallon tank.  The OP didn't mention what they meant by 'oversized'.  My mind immediately went to the guy I sold a baby S. alternans to, who stuck it in a tank that size.


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## PanzoN88 (Mar 25, 2017)

I prefer smaller enclosures for the reasons stated by many others, but I will use slightly oversized enclosures depending on the species.


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## Jeff23 (Mar 25, 2017)

Thaneem said:


> Of course 'large' and 'small' are relative terms.  It is easier to control temperature and humidity levels in a 5 gallon tank than in a 40 gallon.  I mean, that's objectively true.  When you're talking about a small vs large deli cup, obviously there's not much difference.
> Maybe I should have said, 'if you keep a sling an enclosure that is too oversized, it'll die'?  Idk.
> 
> EDIT:  rereading this thread...I am NOT saying a sling will die if it's put in a small deli cup rather than in a vial, or that it's easier to control humidity in a vial.  I'm talking about putting it into something like a 5 gallon tank.  The OP didn't mention what they meant by 'oversized'.  My mind immediately went to the guy I sold a baby S. alternans to, who stuck it in a tank that size.


That is okay.   I won't insult your wording or intentions.  My posts usually have a half-life where the edit button is constantly being cycled for a time period after I prematurely pulled the trigger.  People have probably decided to quote my posts and by the time they click the +Quote button my post has a brand new meaning.

I believe the big problem with this whole subject is that everyone talks in terms of over-sized, but never can easily explain in detail what they mean.  And by that I mean that you really need to talk species specific as well because some species do live better in one scenario or another.

I never worry about humidity on any of my tarantulas.  For my tropical arboreal slings and female adults I do spray a little moisture on one enclosure wall with a syringe each week during winter months, but I do this just as comfort thing.  I could care less about humidity levels and don't own a gauge.  Humidity levels are having no impact on the livelihood of my slings.  As far as substrate moisture is concerned for a burrowing sling, I can provide more consistent moist conditions in an over-sized enclosure than anyone using a precise sized enclosure.  While others in drier climates will be scrambling to apply new moisture during winter months for their precise sized enclosure, I simply focus on feeding my tarantula because I know the moisture in my over-sized enclosures is going to be good way beyond the period between feedings.  The over-sized enclosure will also allow for the sling to regulate its own transition from moist substrate to dry substrate as it gets larger.

No sling that is kept within the acceptable temperature range is going to have any life threatening situations in any size enclosure based on temperature.  My entire home is the same temperature so all of mine have a solid 74F temperature.  There is no difference based on enclosure size.


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## MrTwister (Mar 25, 2017)

RepugnantOoze said:


> So an oversized enclosure isn't that big of a deal is what I am surmising.


I'm no expert, but in my opinion no it isn't. As long as you make sure escape is not an option, and are willing to put a little extra care to make sure food is getting to the T, I see no downside.


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## Venom1080 (Mar 25, 2017)

MrTwister said:


> I'm no expert, but in my opinion no it isn't. As long as you make sure escape is not an option, and are willing to put a little extra care to make sure food is getting to the T, I see no downside.


what about space?

Reactions: Agree 1


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## Jeff23 (Mar 25, 2017)

Venom1080 said:


> what about space?


For really small slings it makes less difference.  For larger slings and especially juveniles and adults, it makes a huge difference if you own a high quantity of tarantulas.

I might need one less shelf unit in proper size enclosures.

Reactions: Agree 1


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## MrTwister (Mar 25, 2017)

Venom1080 said:


> what about space?


Haha, yes once you get to what seems the inevitable massive collection. So yeah, space should be a consideration if you are housing dozens of slings.

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## cold blood (Mar 25, 2017)

0205161701



__ cold blood
__ Jan 30, 2017
__ 2



						sling festival

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## MrTwister (Mar 25, 2017)

cold blood said:


> 0205161701
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Haha.....I think that may be a glimpse of my future.

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