A bad molt and a question about a. versi

[6StringSamurai]

I've been lucky in that most of my Ts have been doing extremely well.

I had a b. emilia that had more personality than any of my OBTs. It was a vicious little thing that was about a year old, it was great. I have never even heard of an emilia like that.

Well, a few days ago it molted and everything seemed to go well. It crawled into it's little hide, leaving the shed skin out on the opposite corner of the cage.

This morning I went in to retrieve the skin and noticed that the emilia was in a classic death curl inside the hide. I carefully took it out, it was definitely dead.

The poor thing must have had some real problems during the molt. It's back two sets of legs were much thinner than the others and set at awkward angles. Other things about the proportion were just "off" as well. The abdomen was oddly shaped and the fangs seemed strangely small for it's size.

Was there anything at I all I could have done to cause this? Or to prevent it? I've been keeping spiders for a while and I've never seen anything like this before.

Now I'm getting paranoid about one of my other spiders. I got two avic versi slings a while back. They were hatchlings when I got them and it's agonizing how slowly they grow, knowing that sometimes they just die for no reason.

They both were eating well but one of them quit molting. It's sibling molted three times but this one just wasn't shedding at all. Then one morning I found it dead.

Now it seems like the other one hasn't shed for a while and it's still pretty small.

Has anyone had experiences like that with versi, I know about SAD: Sudden Avicularia Death, but I was curious if others had seen the "reluctance to molt" problem.

Or if anyone saw a mutant spider like more poor b. emilia this morning.

Ouch :8o

 

[Cirith Ungol]

Sad to hear (no pun intended).

I can only give you this as advice for the versis: The most success I've had with them was by keeping them dry, extremely well ventilated (basically the cup/tank littered with air holes) and giving them to drink every other day (just so much water so they can quench their thirst, not enough to moisten the substrate). Avics, and especially versis are to my experience extremely thirsty spiders, but they can't cope with moist air, especially if it's stagnant. I've lost 5 versi slings myself, with the sixth one I finally learned what they die of and I've kept it like described above and it has done great for a year now and moulted in record time and without complications several times.

I have no idea about the emilia and knowing it didn't have any direct complications from the moult makes me think it was doing well otherwise. The only thing I can think of is wondering if it always had a full water dish. Other than that, I can only think of a genetic problem or some moult problem that didn't have to do with you. Bad luck you can call it also.

 

[6StringSamurai]

The emilia did have a small water dish, if you know a cap from a 35mm film container, that is what I used since it was still only about 2 1/2 inches. I kept it full and every once in a while I would overfill it a little. It did seem to be doing well, it was a good eater and has always molted without problems in the past.

As for my versi, I actually think I read one of your posts about your experience with them when I set up my enclosure, as your situation with losing several sounds familiar to me. I use a larger container then I normally would with this size T and it has a ton of ventilation. I give mine water in a similar way as well.

The slings you lost, did they grow more slowly and seem to molt less than other slings?

Thanks!

 

[Cirith Ungol]

The slings you lost, did they grow more slowly and seem to molt less than other slings?

Thanks!

I can't say, to be honest. The ones that made it through shipping didn't survive that long that I could establish any kind of feeling for their moult timing. A few others I counted into the deathtoll died during shipping or right afterwards. All of them were shipped in moist viles with no ventilation. Two of them were DOA and must have died rather quickly because the package took only a day in the mail, another died a few days after shipping in an ICU.

While the ICU was "fresh" and moist the spider looked dead. When I let the ICU dry up the spider perked up also and improved. In my hope of saving the poor thing I remoistened the ICU and it died quite soon afterwards. Since the versi that made it has been kept dry (besides the frequent watering) it is my understanding that they can't take the moist environment often stated in caresheets. Moist tanks can work though if they're very well set up but I have no experience with that and I don't see myself trying a moist setup anytime soon.