# Tarantula cage too high?



## deviance1911 (May 12, 2013)

recently i bought a new tarantula cage but its like a foot and a half wide and 3 feet tall.  Is my tarantula at risk of falling in this enclosure and dieing?? Its got soft substrate but there is a log in there thats hard and large.  This is a mexican red knee btw.


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## Oreo (May 12, 2013)

Your B. smithi is a terrestrial species and requires more horizontal space than vertical. The height should be 1.5 times the leg span of your spider....so 3 feet is way too tall. I'd suggest reading Pikaia's newbie rant found in this thread: http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/showthread.php?248130-G.-Rosea-won-t-eat&highlight=rant 
About substrate: http://people.ucalgary.ca/~schultz/substrate-010.html


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## deviance1911 (May 12, 2013)

damn I dont think i can return it.... what should i do?


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## spiderengineer (May 12, 2013)

deviance1911 said:


> damn I dont think i can return it.... what should i do?


get an arboreal species like an avic who will love it


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## deviance1911 (May 12, 2013)

my parents will only let me keep one spider  what if i just make the soil like slope up? u think that might be safe for it?


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## spiderengineer (May 12, 2013)

deviance1911 said:


> my parents will only let me keep one spider  what if i just make the soil like slope up? u think that might be safe for it?


a slope could cause a land slide or your T could still fall backwards roll down and that could still harm the T. your best bet is to find a tank that is more suitable for a terrestrial species. it doesn't have to be a tank bought at a pet store. some of us just go to wal mart or some container store and get cheap plastic containers and drill holes. as far as your current tank it sound like you should just put it in storage and see if your parents down the road let you get another T.


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## deviance1911 (May 12, 2013)

maybe I should ask the store for a trade/storecredit? i have proof of purchase and tank is like 2 days old


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## spiderengineer (May 12, 2013)

deviance1911 said:


> maybe I should ask the store for a trade/storecredit? i have proof of purchase and tank is like 2 days old


you can try, worse they will say is no


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## sugarsandz (May 12, 2013)

Maybe if you can't return it you can sell it yourself, you probably wouldn't get what you paid for it but it'd be enough to get a new tank. I keep my spider of the same species in a 5 gallon glass tank and it's half filled with coco fiber so my tarantula only has a little more than its leg span to fall. She climbs a lot when she is webbing or rearranging things and mostly at night, they are sneaky. 

The most important thing right now is to put the spider in something else if it's in the tall cage as it only takes one climb to the top or not even to the top from the height of your tank to fall and die. Also, how big is your fuzzy friend? A 10 gallon tank should be plenty big, even to big for a full grown red knee.


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## Poec54 (May 12, 2013)

spiderengineer said:


> get an arboreal species like an avic who will love it


It's too tall for an Avic too.  

Always best to do some research online before buying a spider or a cage.

Reactions: Like 1


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## BaddestRuffest (May 12, 2013)

Is it an exoterra enclosure ? If so then yeah I would try and get a store credit or sell it on yourself. If not could you not lay it on its side ? Half filled with substrate that would work.


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## Poec54 (May 12, 2013)

BaddestRuffest said:


> Is it an exoterra enclosure ? If so then yeah I would try and get a store credit or sell it on yourself. If not could you not lay it on its side ? Half filled with substrate that would work.


For an adult, but if he's got a young smithi, it's like a football field for it.  It's going to have trouble finding food.


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## BaddestRuffest (May 12, 2013)

Yes true, I just assumed it was an adult with the op buying such a large enclosure.


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## deviance1911 (May 12, 2013)

side method will not work its got a large vent on the top, this is it, http://zoomed.com/db/products/EntryDetail.php?EntryID=100&DatabaseID=2&SearchID=5

Lol this is such bs i was on the phone with the petstore and the guy is like I have to see it I cant gaurantee anything, hes the same guy who told me OH YOU SHOULD GET THIS cage, doesnt know jack about T's..... I dont either I'm the newbie. But I feel if you work with them and sell them you should know your stuff. :/ waste of 73$


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## EightLeggedFreaks (May 12, 2013)

That's huge, I wouldn't even put a P.Ornata in there!  Just do your best to clean it out and bring it back the way you bought it.  If it looks brand new then I doubt they will not take it back.  For a B.Smithi you can probably get away with a 2.5 gallon, but a 5.5 gallon works too.  Depending on how big your T is.


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## edgeofthefreak (May 12, 2013)

If you tip that enclosure onto it's back, cover the "top" screen (would be just another side when tipped) then it looks like a top opening terrestrial cage... You'd be able to add a whole bunch of substrate. It wouldn't give the best ventilation though, so I'd suggest only blocking 2/3 - 3/4 of the screen. Maybe with some acrylic or corrugated plastic? Or even look around your house to see if there's something else you have that can block that screen off.

I almost bought the Exo-terra version of that one (Nano-wide I think?) but I'm moving soon, and don't have anything to live in it yet, didn't want to pack it either. But I was gonna tip it backwards and modify the heck out of it!


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## EightLeggedFreaks (May 12, 2013)

A 3 foot long enclosure is pretty damn long!  Especially for a B.Smithi that is not an adult.  So tipping it on it's side doesn't really help either.  Clean it and take it back.  I'm sure it's still in great shape.


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## edgeofthefreak (May 12, 2013)

Oh wow... I somehow didn't catch that it was 3 feet tall! I went from the posted pic... which made it look like the Nanos from Exo-terra. 3 feet would certainly be huge. Sorry OP, bad advice from me!!


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## Stan Schultz (May 12, 2013)

deviance1911 said:


> recently i bought a new tarantula cage but its like a foot and a half wide and 3 feet tall.  Is my tarantula at risk of falling in this enclosure and dieing?? Its got soft substrate but there is a log in there thats hard and large.  This is a mexican red knee btw.


I can't tell whether you're a newbie or not. So just in case, I'm going to abuse you with my Newbie Intro. Even if you aren't it appears you might profit from the review.

[size=+1]*STAN'S NEWBIE INTRODUCTION*[/size]​
*DID YOU HEAR THAT? THAT WAS THE NEWBIE ALARM!*

[SIZE=+1]*WELCOME TO THE HOBBY!

WELCOME TO THIS FORUM!*[/SIZE]

:biggrin:

Okay, so we're all newbies, often for a long time. We've done what everybody else does: Read all the Internet care sheets. Listened attentively to everything the expert down at the local pet shop told us. Wasted a lot of money on things we shouldn't have. Incorporated a lot of things that were useless or even dangerous. Stressed out over meaningless details while ignoring the real issues. Way overkill. That's not a criticism; I'm just delineating the problems. It's just the way humanoids are, I suppose.

We can deal with all that.

There's nothing wrong with being a newbie as long as you do something about it. After 45 years of keeping tarantulas, I still consider myself a newbie. We can trace a tarantula's ancestry back over *HALF A BILLION YEARS*. They've had that long to develop and fine tune their lives and lifestyles. They're incredibly complex and detailed creatures. We're gonna be playing catch-up (that's the newbie part) for a long, LONG, *LONG* time!

The first thing you need to understand is the *KISS principle*, not to infer that you're stupid. Inexperienced, maybe. Stupid, I don't think so. As proof, you can speak, read, and write English (arguably one of the more difficult languages on Planet Earth), and use a computer just fine. But, I digress. As long as you supply the basic necessities of life for your captive tarantula, the less you incorporate into its cage and care regimen, the less there is to go tragically *haywire*. KISS, indeed!

The second thing you need to understand is that tarantulas are like no other creature you've ever kept or even heard of before. All the ingrained assumptions and prejudices that you've been taught since childhood don't apply, and may even be dangerous to them. They're neither tropical fish, reptiles, canaries, nor gerbils, and you don't take care of them like any of those animals. One of the biggest problems with newbies is trying to get them to abandon all their prejudices and begin to look at the world from the vastly alien perspective of a huge, fuzzy spider.


*FASTEN YOUR SEAT BELT.
MAKE SURE YOUR SEAT BACK AND TRAY TABLE ARE SECURED IN THEIR UPRIGHT POSITIONS.
THIS IS GOING TO BE ONE H*** OF A RIDE!*​
Because tarantulas are so bizarre and unique, you have a lot of homework to do. To begin, you need to read the following webpages.

1) *Stan's Rant*. *ESPECIALLY, READ THE PART ABOUT NOT TRUSTING ANYTHING A PET SHOP TELLS YOU! AND ESPECIALLY, [Strike]READ[/Strike] STUDY THE FOUR RECOMMENDED BOOKS.*

2) *Myths...*. Read the entire webpage tree.

3) *Care and Husbandry of the Chilean Rose Tarantula*. *IF YOU HAVE A WILD CAUGHT CHILEAN ROSE TARANTULA (Grammostola rosea) YOU NEED TO READ THIS WEBPAGE!* If you don't have a Chilean rose you can safely ignore this one for now. Just remember that it's here for whenever you do get a rose. Or, you can read it out of curiosity. It contains a lot of hints applicable to other arid species.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The comments and instructions in *Care and Husbandry of the Chilean Rose Tarantula* are applicable only to wild caught _G. rosea_. *CAGE BRED AND RAISED* _G. rosea_ are no different than any other captive tarantula and are best cared for just like any other arid species. See *Growing Your Own* for further information. 

4) *Substrate*. Because you need to know about this very basic, underlying part of a tarantula's existence.

5) *Growing Your Own*. This is a global, game plan for caring for your newfound little buddy. You need to figure out where it is in the vast scheme of growth and development, then start taking care of it properly from that point onward.

6) If you can possibly spare the time, at least skim through the entire *Spiders, Calgary* website.

Lastly, be aware that this system is not the only one available. Neither is it necessarily the best one. You'll see and hear all sorts of other ideas as you go along. But, Marguerite and I have spent decades selling tarantulas to all kinds of people of all ages, and fine tuned this system so as to make it pretty much as bullet proof as it can get. Use our system at first, until you begin to understand these weird animals. Then maybe you can experiment with some of the not-so-conservative approaches recommended by others.

You need to learn to look at the world from the vastly alien perspective of a huge, fuzzy spider. *READ THE BOOKS! READ THE WEBPAGES!*

___________________________________________

Hope this helps.

Best of luck. Remember, your little 8-legged Yoda is going to be giving you pop quizzes daily!


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## SuzukiSwift (May 12, 2013)

A 3 foot tank is massive for any species! I would only use something like that if I had a communal going, definitely unusable for a young b.smithi. What is the size of the T btw? Find something approximately 3X its leg span long and 2X wide (and of course not a high ceiling) You don't have to pay $73 for an enclosure, you can spend a few bucks on something from walmart etc. and make holes in it for air flow =)

Reactions: Like 1


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