Baby Pinktoe tarantula care

[Dorifto]

humidity: there’s a happy medium to be reached between swamp box and mini desert - I’ve found that intermittent misting works the best, so misting and then allowing it to dry out and repeating the process while also keeping the water dish full - in this way you can keep the relative humidity and air moisture close to their natural environment without producing the stagnant conditions which have led to premature deaths

Nailed it! A very easy way to provide them enough humidity to avoid issues. Following this advice problems caused by dryness should disappear or at least reduce in a significant manner.

And to follow that advice you don't need a PhD, the same goes for understanding that at low RH things dry or dehydrate faster.


Imho too, the ventilation is the key. Top or vertical ventilation.

 

[YungRasputin]

Nailed it! A very easy way to provide them enough humidity to avoid issues. Following this advice problems caused by dryness should disappear or at least reduce in a significant manner.

And to follow that advice you don't need a PhD, the same goes for understanding that at low RH things dry or dehydrate faster.


Imho too, the ventilation is the key. Top or vertical ventilation.

i would add that, with my observations, a good rule of thumb for me has been paying attention to the moisture gradient within the enclosure - misting so as the top layer of the substrate is moist while the bottom layer remains somewhat dry has been sufficient

and in doing things in this way at such a micro level, it’s easy to correct things if you happen to make a mistake, whether you left it a little too dry or you made it too moist - as long as the substrate isn’t completely saturated it will evaporate in no time and as long as you keep up with it daily the substrate will never become bone dry and you can try again - it’s a little more “work” but i think this is best; they’re a tropical island species after all

 

[cold blood]

here are still a lot of deads, and almost all of them because of keeping them dry

You can only speculate unless you are there inspecting the situation....there are other factors in existence aside from humidity.

and one of the factors you are ignoring deliberately is RH.

Yep, not important.

People posted their experience and problems regarding this issue, and you ignore them or directly tell them that they are wrong without even wanting to understand their experience, that's brilliant.

When did this happen? How are you even going to attack me for something in your imagination.

You are the only one I argue with about avics, and as you posted, you are not one of these avic owners.

For every dissagree always I give a response, it's the least thing one should do, at least imho. Because it's something that personally I hate, to receive a dissagree but not any answer. Hearing and learning from each other we could improve our hobby, resolving every issue or disagreement we could encounter. But for that, the pride it's the worst and biggest obstacle.

See here, the ONLY time I do that is when I have already repeatedly responded...I use the emoji instead of repeating my self....again.

Here I encounter the biggest contradiction on your advices, you say that they need dampness,

Again with your fantasy...so I said they need dampness now? Interesting, but not true. I said with optimal airflow they can indeed be kept damp.

now that you keep them dry even in single digit RH numbers, wich biologically it's a challenge

Nope, it simplified things.

Looks like you don't want to say to moist substrate

Again, you ignore the many many times where I have told you this.....damp substrate IS ALL THAT MATTERS.

I'm focused in the novices that follow the advice to keep them bone dry strictly, without having in mind other factors that could make that environment harmful or at least a challenge,

Again, I have said this over and over again....my advice is always geared for beginners, my goal is to make keeping easer for them, not to complicate things.

I'd love to know what's predominantly dry, because maybe there is a language barrier between us, because for me, dry means no moisture on it. If you are adding some moisture, for me it's slightly moist, slightly partially moist etc.

Really, its in the dictionary...the definition you find is exactly my intended usage.

NEVER.

If you want to use it like a way to disparage me, it's a pretty weak attack sorry.

Its not disparaging you, and its certainly not an attack either. If you are going to argue hand and foot till the cows come home, its completely reasonable to know where your experience on the subject lies...its 100% relevant.

It's like if I ask you how many vivariums did you keep? And in case of none, telling you that you couldn't keep none.

Not even close.

Its like me criticizing how you build vivariums and going on and on, thread after thread, attacking your highly successful methods when i have never personally built a single terrarium.

That's pretty childish approach

Like when you tell people that my advice is dangerous?

Show me a video of your enclosures at a single digit RH values, because you won't find a single one. Based on your advices and gallery they should be at least at 40-50 percent. And you are a experienced keeper, a novice, NO.

Again, you are claiming to know my conditions better then me.

If you look at the gallery, i have posted a ton of tarantula pics, I think I am in the top 10 posted to the site....literally any pic you see dated between November and april will see these conditions

I'm not wanting to change how succesful keepers keep their ts, that's your problem, you feel it that way. I'm always speaking about novices or people that don't know how to counteract any dryness that they could encounter during their care time.

We do agree here, when things are dry, more water can indeed be added. This is literally all any new keeper needs to understand on the subject..

Place a simple digital hygrometer, measure it and share them.

That could be helpful, but for you, it doesn't matter, it's irrelevant, and if someone refutes you, you laugh at his face, nice.

Laugh in who's face?

nprovable? If hundreds are unprovable, OK, IT'S UNPROVABLE

Yes, if one is not there, one can only guess.....you get your hands on the t for a full necropsy, then its provable. random deaths almost never are provable on a forum....we can only speculate.

The hobby make the right movement, and I'm not questioning this

But you absolutely are questioning this and arguing against it every chance you get.

People confirmed that adding a bit of moisture solved a lot of problems and death cases to them, and you are still telling them that they are wrong because you believe that humidity doesn't matter. Maybe that's an issue that doesn't help at all to our hobby.

No one EVER said to never add moisture....even ts gotta drink.

Keeping things predominantly dry and adding moisture are not mutually exclusive. You act like being kept dry means intentionally depriving your ts of water.

 

[waynerowley]

Vast majority of issues "casually" occur in winter, where usually RH lowers, heating that air, using powerful AC units... etc while they are kept dry.

Average RH levels where I live:

 

[Dorifto]

Average RH levels where I live:

View attachment 402066

Pretty same like mine, that's why I ask inside values. Some times in winter my house values can go to low 20's or lower if a polar air stream hits us, even if the average of that month is around 70.

 

[waynerowley]

Don't worry, I wasn't using you like the example, unfortunatelly it's not only your case, it's only the last example. It could have been other person easily, but just I had a conversation with you, so do not take it personally. But thanks for the clarification! We are here to help each other to prevent any other possible issues.

I didn't take it personally, but I was a little frustrated when I read in another post that you've never kept avics - which means your advice, although well-intentioned, is based on theoretical, learned or assumed knowledge rather than first-hand experience.

My current husbandry for my avics is based on advice from current/previous keepers, and yes, I've lost a sling, so will be reviewing my practices to see if I can improve them (though won't be completely throwing them away). The loss of my T:

• May have been based on a mistake I made. I'm a novice - it's not unlikely as you have said
• May have been completely unrelated. I did, note, and have documented for months, that this sling has never thrived in the same way my others have since the moment I brought it home. You can find my threads around here somewhere.

Noting what you said in another post on this thread:

What I did instead, because of my curious nature? I asked people about the possible causes, if there was any AC running, space heater, climate... etc and what happened? The predominantly factor I found was and is novice (95%)+bone dry+dry environment. And imho it's a thing that we should focus to try to reduce even more the deaths.

For the record:

• I am a novice
• My setups have never been bone dry (water dishes and/or dropping water in twice a week)
• My environment is not dry. No air con. Heating is GFCH only. RH of the area I live is consistently high, and they are in a room with an ensuite shower so get that warm humid air circulating once a day.
• Other avics are currently thriving

Kind regards,
Wayne

 

[Dorifto]

You can only speculate unless you are there inspecting the situation....there are other factors in existence aside from humidity.

Agree, to become a confirmed fact we should make a post mortem analisis.

But I'm going to answer you the same that I answered to another guy on FB. If we have a lot of dead flies after being sprayed by a bug killer, those deaths are a correlated facts or coincidences?

When did this happen? How are you even going to attack me for something in your imagination.

You are the only one I argue with about avics, and as you posted, you are not one of these avic owners.

Other people don't live at the same climate like you, some will live in better climates, other ones in worse ones. Are you going to deny those people that the low RH values won't affect at all? Like the bad experiences that @The Grym Reaper or @spideyspinneret78 commented recently in the next thread?
https://arachnoboards.com/threads/concerned-about-my-a-avicularia.349758/

I did quote them, and asked you if they were wrong, and you answered

YES

They posted their bad experiences with avic and other species and how they solve the issue with bad molts and, by adding a bit of moisutre. That moisture counteracts your irrelevant low humidity, the same low humidity that dries thing faster. Keeping them dry, it doesn't counteract ANYTHING.

If you are an avid keeper, you could someway prevent those issues, like you do with your spritz.

Again with your fantasy...so I said they need dampness now? Interesting, but not true. I said with optimal airflow they can indeed be kept damp.

That same damp sub that increases the irrelevant humidity automatically? Or maybe another damp sub?

Like when you tell people that my advice is dangerous

Where I did say that, I said that your statement of humidity is irrelevant plus the common advice of keep them dry with a water dish, it could be dangerous. If your advices where dangerous the vast majority of avic should be dead.

But for a lot of other people, that same advice that work for you doesn't work, because even if you call it irrelevant, that humidity could make things worse too fast. And I'm focusing on those cases, that's a thing that it looks that you don't want to undersand. Keeping the substrate slightly moist would prevent issues by itself, without the intervention of the novice keeper, not like the common advice, where in those cases where the keeper doesn't know how to provide it could be detrimental as there is nothing that is preventing any dehydration or molting issues.

We do agree here, when things are dry, more water can indeed be added. This is literally all any new keeper needs to understand on the subject..

And imho is where we should improve our advices, instead of telling automatically keep it dry with a water dish, moist sub and ample of ventilation... etc without knowing keepers conditions.

Once the keeper is aware of his climatic conditions and keeps it right, then we could say that other factors like RH are irrelevant, because it will modify his habits based on his experience, and those habits like giving and spritz like you do, or increase the moisture on the substrate, should prevent those issues. But for a novice keeper, their climatic conditions are relevant, his house RH is relevant, to choose how to keep them best, giving them more moisture more often or not, keeping the substrate dry or not... etc

Your advice of keeping them partially dry and giving them some moisture works for the vast majority, but there is other group that they are having problems, and ignoring how those people solved their issue because one advice works for the majority won't do any good to the hobby. Because one thing that works for me, it could be detrimental for you, and vice versa.

Bad Molts with Avics

I want to try getting another Avicularia/ Caribena species sometime, but I'm anxious about it. It could've just been coincidence, but my C. versicolor and A. juruensis both somewhat recently died from complications due to bad molts. I want to give it another shot, but I'm afraid of this...

arachnoboards.com

In that thread some exposed their issues and how they solved them, and there are other comments around that I'm not going to quote one by one. Should we ignore it? Or should we still are going to say that avics die more often than any other species? Because maybe we should focus on that last thing, and find ways to prevent it.

Laugh in who's face?

My bad, used basque slang language to express that you ignore others experiences and made a direct translation, so reading it again it sound like in spanish, and if that's the case ignore that comment.

No one EVER said to never add moisture....even ts gotta drink.

Keeping things predominantly dry and adding moisture are not mutually exclusive. You act like being kept dry means intentionally depriving your ts of water.

Until now, I only read dry, bone dry, everywhere. You were the one of the few ones that added that you give them a spritz.

So when I novice gets the advice of keep it bone dry with a water dish, what would you think he will do? Keep the substrate bone dry, keep the enclosure bone dry and add a water dish? Or keep it predominantly dry with occasional spritz like you do? Do you see the difference? Now add to this external factors, and we have the perfect storm.

@waynerowley thanks for sharing that info! Much appreciated.

Yes, my experince in this case is based on other's experiences, that doesn't mean that they are worthless, I passed several months reading, asking and still read and ask questions a lot about them, to know how to keep them better, because my next T is going to be surely an avic. If you feel that way, sorry, but if it reassures you, that's same advice is that Dave Fisher gaved in the post where you gave the advice of keep it dry with a water dish. Same advice, same principles.

That's how I work, this way I'm not commiting errors that I did before. People know that I try to understand every minor or subtle things that happens in my enclosures, and others would ignore, because they way I keep mine. My "obsession" to know how things could affect our Ts come from the first days in this hobby, when I swapped my sanderi for a geniculata. I received a T not in the best shape to be honest, and kept in a regular enclosure, with partially moist susbtrate. She died stuck in the molt, it was winter february to be exact and we had a very low humidity. The house not was very well insulated as people know reaching 45F inside... So external factors directly affected us. The only heated room was the Ts room, with a oil heater, so the RH were even lower in that room, and she died (I received another one in exhange, the current one)

After that and having suffered personally some issues too, I started to learn how those things could affect Ts or myself, because I had the goal to have two full vivariums, and having had some issues before, made me to learn more and better.

After that I started to learn al about my current Ts, and my next ones, avics etc. And here was when I encountered some discrepancies between their habitats, how were kept and how are kept. So I read, asked and compared cases. But if the people don't want to see the correlation for some specific cases, I'm not going to force anyone to believe me, or believe other's experiences.


My setups, as you can see they are a "step above" in terms of "difficulty" wich in reality before learning how they work, they are pretty simple to maintain.



Regarding to your husbandy or climatic conditions, I don't see any special problems, the central heater, in theory is counteracted by the humidity provided by the shower, and unless you have had a very dry air draft or your house (not climate) is dry enough, I'd discard it. For example my new house is too dry because of it's insulation, and the humidity could be in the low 20 sometimes, having outside higher values.

In this case we should focus on other things that could affect your T. So if you want forget that I have used you like an example.

The enclosure substrate was dry? Some substrates like coco fiber could act like a dessicant if they are dry. Usually the water dish and the drops should increase the humidity.

Did you see her drinking often?