ShellessTime
Arachnopeon
- Joined
- Jun 8, 2014
- Messages
- 34
I don't necessarily know where this thread should go so I'm just doing to drop it here.
[EDITED]
I most commonly use these two websites for my questions about this species:
MikeBasicTarantula
Tom's Big Spiders
---------------
Hi, I am new at owning a tarantula and have done a lot of research in my time before and while owning him. What I have is a Hapalopus sp. Columbia (Pumpkin Patch T.) and I've noticed that he should be digging in his enclosure. I have 2 inches of dirt lain for him, a log against a coconut dome shadowed with giant plastic leaves, a ceramic bowl of water, and moss lain throughout along with strewn river rocks all on the wet side of the tank while the light shines on the dome side. I feed him a few of my already dusted/vitamin-boosted and gutfed crickets and dubias I feed my reptiles and he eats when he wants.
I've noticed he doesn't like to eat as much as I think he should; he once went in to his dome when I first upgraded him and then moved to the backside where the log lays against it to get away from the crickets. I've come to the obvious conclusion that he doesn't necessarily like curious humans scooting him out of his hiding place, so now he avoids that area completely. (That was dumb on my part, but I have been getting familiar with his odd behavior so I'm trying to see if HE'S STILL ALIVE. Beginner here, might I remind you.) Now that he doesn't stay in his original hiding, he goes under a few moss sections in the corners of the tank, if not there, curled up in the corner of a tank. He hates to be touched by anything, including crickets making their way across him. And something tells me he may be too thin for his age.
My first sign of something being odd about him is that ever since I got him as a sling, he's never dug a hole once. And for a good 8 weeks I had him in a critter cage full of mixed dirt and coconut shavings for moisture/water with leaves in his dome on top of a heating pad. I have been researching as much as my schedules allow me to try and get to the bottom of this concern but it seems that this species isn't popular enough to have sufficient advice on care and diagnosis.
So my question to this wonderful forum I keep falling back on is this: Why isn't he digging? And if you have knowledge or experience with this species, please let me know all of what I need to know. If I were to assume his age, I think he would be 8 months about now. Maybe more. I will add a picture of him, although it won't show a lot of detail, so I will describe him.
He doesn't seem happy at all and I want him to be the best looking boy/girl you come across - as all arachnid enthusiasts do! His name is Jack, by the way - for Jack the Pumpkin King. lol!
He's a very pale color with few hairs on his legs, his rump is still bald and he does shed great! (not as often as I would like him to be) Every now and then his thorax does get a nice bright orange and is black goes pretty dark, although a little pale still. He's got beautiful fangs and is very active (I see him prowling every now and then, sometimes just strolling). As for being skittish, I've heard that is normal with unhandled tarantulas.
I do have a theory of why he may not be as active or as "healthy" as the normal dwarfs would be and it's a factor I am missing with his settup (of what I know). What I think is it's his controlled humidity. He's in a normal glass fishtank with a screen top. The moss in the tank doesn't keep it's moisture and hasn't cemented it'self in to the dirt yet either. I use this moss for my Nightstalker gecko and for my Giant North American millipede (recently died of old age :c), Darkling beetles, and Flat Bladetooth Snail habitats. None of the moss has been able to keep their moisture. Even the live wood in the tanks are keeping little moisture and they're a good 3 inches thick with plenty of cork holes. The insect/snail habitat is in a regular desk-top fishtank without a lid and a 30-45 watt plant-light hovering above it. And for my gecko's tank, she is living in a bioactive tall 50-gallon with tons of moss and logs and her light is 70-120 watt light-bulb and a tropical UVB light. Anyway, this moss I specifically got for keeping humidity in and my open cages are getting the best of me. I don't know any other way of keeping the humidity in besides covering the cages completely or purchasing 3 expensive foggers to keep things alive and still having to find some place to plug-in and put them. (I have 9 tanks in my room, including my office area and 2 lights each tank with only 3 outlets in my room. My room stays at a constant 85 degrees during the day and all the lights shut off at night, dropping down to 78 degrees) So needless to say, foggers aren't the best option for the choosing.
If you have any advice on what I should do for my tarantula, or even my other animals, I would love you for eternity! I really am concerned about him because his behavior isn't what I would expect from a tarantula of his kind. And if everything is set and dandy, mind telling me what I should expect once he gets older? (if he isn't an adult already, which I hope not.)
Thank you!!
[EDITED]
I most commonly use these two websites for my questions about this species:
MikeBasicTarantula
Tom's Big Spiders
---------------
Hi, I am new at owning a tarantula and have done a lot of research in my time before and while owning him. What I have is a Hapalopus sp. Columbia (Pumpkin Patch T.) and I've noticed that he should be digging in his enclosure. I have 2 inches of dirt lain for him, a log against a coconut dome shadowed with giant plastic leaves, a ceramic bowl of water, and moss lain throughout along with strewn river rocks all on the wet side of the tank while the light shines on the dome side. I feed him a few of my already dusted/vitamin-boosted and gutfed crickets and dubias I feed my reptiles and he eats when he wants.
I've noticed he doesn't like to eat as much as I think he should; he once went in to his dome when I first upgraded him and then moved to the backside where the log lays against it to get away from the crickets. I've come to the obvious conclusion that he doesn't necessarily like curious humans scooting him out of his hiding place, so now he avoids that area completely. (That was dumb on my part, but I have been getting familiar with his odd behavior so I'm trying to see if HE'S STILL ALIVE. Beginner here, might I remind you.) Now that he doesn't stay in his original hiding, he goes under a few moss sections in the corners of the tank, if not there, curled up in the corner of a tank. He hates to be touched by anything, including crickets making their way across him. And something tells me he may be too thin for his age.
My first sign of something being odd about him is that ever since I got him as a sling, he's never dug a hole once. And for a good 8 weeks I had him in a critter cage full of mixed dirt and coconut shavings for moisture/water with leaves in his dome on top of a heating pad. I have been researching as much as my schedules allow me to try and get to the bottom of this concern but it seems that this species isn't popular enough to have sufficient advice on care and diagnosis.
So my question to this wonderful forum I keep falling back on is this: Why isn't he digging? And if you have knowledge or experience with this species, please let me know all of what I need to know. If I were to assume his age, I think he would be 8 months about now. Maybe more. I will add a picture of him, although it won't show a lot of detail, so I will describe him.
He's a very pale color with few hairs on his legs, his rump is still bald and he does shed great! (not as often as I would like him to be) Every now and then his thorax does get a nice bright orange and is black goes pretty dark, although a little pale still. He's got beautiful fangs and is very active (I see him prowling every now and then, sometimes just strolling). As for being skittish, I've heard that is normal with unhandled tarantulas.
I do have a theory of why he may not be as active or as "healthy" as the normal dwarfs would be and it's a factor I am missing with his settup (of what I know). What I think is it's his controlled humidity. He's in a normal glass fishtank with a screen top. The moss in the tank doesn't keep it's moisture and hasn't cemented it'self in to the dirt yet either. I use this moss for my Nightstalker gecko and for my Giant North American millipede (recently died of old age :c), Darkling beetles, and Flat Bladetooth Snail habitats. None of the moss has been able to keep their moisture. Even the live wood in the tanks are keeping little moisture and they're a good 3 inches thick with plenty of cork holes. The insect/snail habitat is in a regular desk-top fishtank without a lid and a 30-45 watt plant-light hovering above it. And for my gecko's tank, she is living in a bioactive tall 50-gallon with tons of moss and logs and her light is 70-120 watt light-bulb and a tropical UVB light. Anyway, this moss I specifically got for keeping humidity in and my open cages are getting the best of me. I don't know any other way of keeping the humidity in besides covering the cages completely or purchasing 3 expensive foggers to keep things alive and still having to find some place to plug-in and put them. (I have 9 tanks in my room, including my office area and 2 lights each tank with only 3 outlets in my room. My room stays at a constant 85 degrees during the day and all the lights shut off at night, dropping down to 78 degrees) So needless to say, foggers aren't the best option for the choosing.
If you have any advice on what I should do for my tarantula, or even my other animals, I would love you for eternity! I really am concerned about him because his behavior isn't what I would expect from a tarantula of his kind. And if everything is set and dandy, mind telling me what I should expect once he gets older? (if he isn't an adult already, which I hope not.)
Thank you!!
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