Alternatives to Cork Bark in Amblypygids Enclosures

[InvertsandOi]

Very nice video! Interesting that you are using Chiffon to cover the holes on the lid.

Great video! I thought I'd share my little setup too. I purchased my first Damon diadema 8 days ago. It appears to be a 3rd or 4th instar juvenile. I think.. Like I said, it's my first.
The deli cup it came in was probably an appropriate size for such a small specimen, but I must admit I was anxious to try out this setup. I bought some foam board (forgot the name for this type of foam) from the dollar store. It's not Styrofoam, but as mentioned earlier in this thread, it works just fine for this species. It navigates the foam board with ease.


As you can see I added a diagonal piece of foam since my whipspider is still so small. I don't want it to feel exposed. There is room on either side of the smaller piece for the whipspider to go above or below it. I also bought some sticky on both sides mounting pads from the dollar store and that is what I used to mount the main piece of foam to the back. I thought I was pretty clever for doing that until I tried to take this picture and it snuck behind the foam, haha. That was the first time I saw him/her do that. That was about a half hour ago and it's still there


For the ventilation I glue gunned some mesh in a hole I cut in the lid. I had a little problem with moisture loss so I taped some plastic over half of it. Seems to work pretty well now.

Overall the little whipspider seems to be doing pretty well. I regularly witness him roaming at night and sometimes during the day. I wasn't able to offer him any food until yesterday (USPS lost my package and I had to find a local pet store that carries small enough crickets) and he took the first one within ten minutes. The second one was ignored and I took it out today. @Aquarimax the idea for the screen on the inside of the lid is interesting. I hope you let us know how it goes if you do it.

 

[InvertsandOi]

Oops. Replied to the wrong post, haha.

 

[Aquarimax]

That is a great idea. What type of tape is that? Have you tried hot glue to hold it in place instead of tape?

It's called Nashua tape...pretty good stuff. I have also used hot glue on many of my enclosures to hold the chiffon in place...it's a little more effort, but it works fine too.

 

[Aquarimax]

As you can see I added a diagonal piece of foam since my whipspider is still so small. I don't want it to feel exposed. There is room on either side of the smaller piece for the whipspider to go above or below it. I also bought some sticky on both sides mounting pads from the dollar store and that is what I used to mount the main piece of foam to the back.
View attachment 207149

I love that idea...I may have to pick up some foam board now...

 

[Aquarimax]

I bought some foam board (forgot the name for this type of foam) from the dollar store. It's not Styrofoam, but as mentioned earlier in this thread, it works just fine for this species. It navigates the foam board with ease.

@Aquarimax the idea for the screen on the inside of the lid is interesting. I hope you let us know how it goes if you do it.

@Nick H, I really like the idea of the foam board. I will need to track some down that's like yours. Most of what I have seen in the dollar store is foam board sandwiched between sheets of paper that would likely be too smooth for the whiplings to grip. Did you need to peel paper off of yours, or was it just a sheet of the foam board? If I end up adding screen on the inside of the lid, I will definitely post about how it goes.

In the meantime, I got a half-decent video clip of feeding time last night:

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[InvertsandOi]

@Nick H, I really like the idea of the foam board. I will need to track some down that's like yours. Most of what I have seen in the dollar store is foam board sandwiched between sheets of paper that would likely be too smooth for the whiplings to grip. Did you need to peel paper off of yours, or was it just a sheet of the foam board? If I end up adding screen on the inside of the lid, I will definitely post about how it goes.

In the meantime, I got a half-decent video clip of feeding time last night:

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Nice! I haven't witnessed mine feeding yet, not for lack of trying. The first one I stepped out for a minute and missed it, and the second one took a day of hunting. I actually witnessed it try and miss five times in a row with the second cricket. Is that normal?

So I hadn't even noticed it until I read your post but my foam board does have a layer of some sort of paper on either side. I was about to tell you that I wasn't sure about the foam board because it has already started to warp a little bit and become discolored at the bottom from the moisture, but now I think that's probably just because of that paper. I just went and peeled a little bit of it off of the leftover foam board I have and it doesn't seem too hard to do. I have to go to work right now but I'll see how hard it is to peel the paper off and use the foam middle tonight. The Whipspider and the crickets have been climbing on it just fine btw. I don't think it's as smooth as normal paper. It did have me convinced it was foam, haha.

 

[InvertsandOi]

Yeah it's very easy to just peel off the paper. The foam is in good shape. No globs of adhesive or anything, but I am a little concerned that whatever was holding the paper on might be toxic to a little whipspider. I think I'm just going to wash it in warm water and see how it goes though.

 

[wizentrop]

@Aquarimax @Nick H it is very nice coming back to this post after some time (I was out of the country) to see the set ups you've been making for your Damon's.
I loved the video! Very informative and clearly shows how easy it is to make these containers. One thing to keep in mind is to try to press the styrofoam/foam board to the back wall as much as possible when using adhesive, otherwise you will get a narrow gap that is enough for the whip spider to squeeze into, and it will happily do so (as seen in @Nick H 's photos) - as this is the type of crevices they utilize in the wild.

@Nick H I love the idea of the additional diagonal foam board for smaller whip spiders. They have no problem using a single vertical board, but this kind of setup will make them feel more secure and unexposed, while still retaining a good visibility of the arachnid.

It is great to see this thread becoming a good source of information to anyone who is interested in keeping Amblypygi. These arachnids are often overlooked maybe because they seem too exotic, but they really make great pets. I hope more people will consider keeping them.

 

[InvertsandOi]

A little update on that foam board from the dollar store. After I removed the paper that the foam was sandwiched in, my whipspider seemed to not want to climb on the foam. First it climbed on to the screen on the lid of the enclosure and stayed there for a few days. I removed it from the lid. I'm not exactly sure why I did that. I guess I was a little concerned that it couldn't get down (probably an unfounded concern, but I watched it go up there and it took quite a while for it to find the right footing) and I was probably interested to see how it took to the foam without the paper. After that it almost exclusively stayed at the bottom of the enclosure. I don't mean the bottom of the foam, I mean standing on the substrate. This was not due to low humidity. I made sure the substrate was very moist (without being totally wet obviously). It still stayed on the floor. After at least a week of this, maybe two, I put some egg carton in there and the whipspider took to it right away. It now stays on the egg carton and still does not go on the foam. I plan on putting Styrofoam in there as soon as I get my hands on some.

I don't know why it didn't take to the dollar store foam board, but my best guess is that it had a hard time climbing on it. The couple times I coaxed it up on the foam it seemed like it spent a lot of time moving it's walking legs around kind of rapidly as if it were trying to find its footing. That said, it could move on it just fine if it got spooked or something and wanted to move quickly. The crickets also seemed to avoid the foam board. They COULD climb on it, just seemed to prefer not to climb on it compared to when the paper was still on the foam and both ambly and crickets both climbed on it readily.

The whipspider also didn't eat during the time post-paper removal and pre-egg carton, but I think this is at least mostly unrelated. I think I was offering crickets that were too large. The times it ate previous to that were when I bought 1/4" crickets and found the very smallest and freshly molted of the bunch. When I ran out of those, it wasn't interested in the slightly bigger ones. Soon after I added the egg carton some 3/16" crickets arrived in the mail and it has been chowing down on those, I think.. I put three in there (still kind of a big enclosure for such a small ambly and I was worried it wouldn't find them, and to be honest I still hadn't witnessed it capture one and I really wanted to. I know, not advised to add that many at once ) and over the course of three days I could see one less cricket a day until today I can't see any. They are small and could just be hiding in the egg carton somewhere, but I'm sure my little buddy ate at least one because his opisthoma is visibly more ballooned now.

Okay, sorry for how long winded this was, but that has been my experience. Maybe someone with more knowledge of these creatures can interpret it in a more well informed way. In the mean time, I would avoid the dollar store foam board. Sorry @Aquarimax I was excited about that stuff too. It's extremely cheap and looks really nice.

 

[InvertsandOi]

Oh, and the other theory I have is that maybe there was still some kind of residue on the foam from the adhesive that held the paper on and maybe that was the problem. It seemed fine to me, but I'm not an amblypygid.

 

[InvertsandOi]

Okay, one last thing! I just checked the dates of previous posts and it seems I accidentally exaggerated on lengths of time a little. The events and the order of events still stand though. I guess time does not fly at all when you're concerned about your ambly friend

 

[Aquarimax]

Thanks for the update on the foam board! Even if it didn't end up working, it's valuable info. I happened to find some pristine white sheets of Styrofoam at Hobby Lobby...I haven't bought any yet, but it seems a decent place to get it if you don't want to deal with peeling off backing, and you don't have access to free Styrofoam.

 

[MrCrackerpants]

Thanks for the update on the foam board! Even if it didn't end up working, it's valuable info. I happened to find some pristine white sheets of Styrofoam at Hobby Lobby...I haven't bought any yet, but it seems a decent place to get it if you don't want to deal with peeling off backing, and you don't have access to free Styrofoam.

Good to know! Thanks!

 

[Aquarimax]

I'd like to report that one of my D. diadema has successfully molted in a Styrofoam-backed enclosure! It's not really a surprise, just nice to see @wizentrop 's great results replicated.
Here's a very short clip I took just after I discovered it had happened:

 

[MrCrackerpants]

I'd like to report that one of my D. diadema has successfully molted in a Styrofoam-backed enclosure! It's not really a surprise, just nice to see @wizentrop 's great results replicated.
Here's a very short clip I took just after I discovered it had happened:

Thanks for letting us know! Are you using Styrofoam that you have to remove paper off of or just Styrofoam?

 

[Aquarimax]

Thanks for letting us know! Are you using Styrofoam that you have to remove paper off of or just Styrofoam?

This was Styrofoam from which I peeled plastic on one side and Mylar on the other. It was from Home Depot, the stuff they sell very cheaply for insulation. I buy it in 2' x 4 ' by 0.5" sheets for about $2.50 USD.

 

[MrCrackerpants]

This was Styrofoam from which I peeled plastic on one side and Mylar on the other. It was from Home Depot, the stuff they sell very cheaply for insulation. I buy it in 2' x 4 ' by 0.5" sheets for about $2.50 USD.

OK. Good to know. I was thinking about buying it at Lowes and peeling the paper off but was not sure if they could molt on it after the paper was removed. Good to know it will work. Thanks for giving it a try!

 

[wizentrop]

That's great news @Aquarimax ! I'm glad it worked for you.

 

[MrCrackerpants]

FYI: I have had successful molts using Exo Terra Styrofoam backs and sheet Styrofoam from furniture packing. In both cases the Styrofoam was placed at an angle and not upright.

 

[Aquarimax]

FYI: I have had successful molts using Exo Terra Styrofoam backs and sheet Styrofoam from furniture packing. In both cases the Styrofoam was placed at an angle and not upright.

For a while, I used an Exo Terra background too, placed at an angle as yours was, and it seemed to work well.