skyeskittlesparrot
Arachnopeon
- Joined
- May 29, 2024
- Messages
- 9
First post on here (have spent quite a bit of time on here looking through posts and trying to find as much information as I could to see what I could find on my own and hopefully not end up asking too many simple questions that have already been answered many times before).
My very first Mygalomorph:
September last year I got my first mygalomorph. She was sold to me as a brush footed but was most likely an idiopidae (and likely an idiosoma because she had the dots on her abdomen which seem characteristic of idiosoma). She was rather large and I had her in a 15x15x25cm acrylic enclosure with around 20cm of coco peat mixed with sand as the substrate. Part of her burrow was against the side of the enclosure so I could very easily see her fully whenever I moved that side of the enclosure away from the wall to check on her. She ate 2-3 medium crickets roughly once every 1-2 weeks (would grab a cricket, take it to the bottom of the burrow, then come back to the top waiting for more).
She passed away in March with no noticeable changes to behaviour or appearance. She moulted in early February, ate 2 weeks later then twice more with the latest being just over a week before I realised she had passed. I went to feed her one day and she didn’t immediately take the cricket like she usually does. Left it overnight and the next day the cricket was still untouched. I moved the enclosure to check on her and she was sitting unmoving at the bottom of the burrow. Tapped the enclosure right where she was and also messed around with the burrow lid and there was no reaction at all from her so I emptied the enclosure to get her out and found that she was lifeless.
^ my first girl. She had just missed the cricket she was trying to catch.
^ her inside her burrow
The next lot of spiders:
Early January this year (while my first girl was still alive and seemingly doing well) I got a few more.
An Arbanitis (‘Nambucca’) which I still have and it seems to be doing well, it’s one of my favourites out of all the spiders I have. It’s a decent size and currently in a 20x20x30cm glass enclosure. Has around 20cm of coco peat and the burrow goes to the bottom and along the bottom with a small area where the burrow first reaches the bottom of the enclosure being against the glass. Also has a sphagnum moss tube extending 5-6cm above the substrate. The top of the tube is open most of the time. Generally after feeding it lightly webs the entrance and then opens it back up again after around a week which is when I feed it a single relatively large cricket. Once in around march it fully covered the entrance with moss for a few weeks and 3 days ago has done that again (I assume to moult? Although that seems a little frequent for such a large spider? Last time I never saw a moult but that doesn’t mean it’s not what was happening. Through the little window at the bottom I could sometimes see the ends of its feet but couldn’t see the full spider clearly).
^Arbanitis Nambucca
At the same time I got a stanwellia (‘black springs’) which was rather lethargic when it arrived and it passed away around 3 days later.
And along with the Arbanitis and that stanwellia I also got a Cataxia babindaensis and a stanwellia sp.1 Victoria both as slings which are also both seemingly doing well currently and have both grown quite a considerable amount.
They also arrived with 2 jumping spiders one of which was DOA so I’m thinking the issue with the larger stanwellia would have been something during transit. Considering the second jumping spider was a male and only passed recently very likely of old age and the other 3 trapdoors are still seeming to do quite well and all spiders I later got from the same place have always seemed healthy and I haven’t had any spider losses since the ones already mentioned (first trapdoor, this stanwellia, and the male jumper).
3rd/4th lots of spiders:
February I got 7 more (between 2 orders around a week apart). 3 more arbanitis (gracilis, ‘drawbridge Barrington tops’, and ‘lid builder Strickland’), another Cataxia (purchased as ‘Cataxia sp. black springs’ but came from the same seller as the ‘brush footed’ I got as my first mygalomorph so I’m not confident in her being labelled correctly. The only other spider I have gotten from this person), a stanwellia sp. orange, an Ixamatus broomi, and a Euoplos Amamoor.
The euoplos being a sling, Ixamatus a juvie, and everyone else larger.
^the Cataxia sp. black springs. The day I got her. This container was a temporary set up for the first week as her enclosure hadn’t arrived yet. She is now in a 20x20x30cm glass enclosure. Her burrow is open top and almost entirely against the glass and reaches the bottom of the enclosure (around 25cm of substrate depth).
5th and 6th lots of spiders (May):
I had to suddenly move around a week after losing the first trapdoor in mid march (mentioned above). So I didn’t get any more spiders until May once I’d made sure that all the current spiders had moved well and were still eating and acting as normal and I was completely settled into my new place with everything organised.
So, in May I got more spiders including my first funnel webs. I know I’m quite new to the hobby and inexperienced for it to be smart for me to have funnel webs and everyone probably thinks I’m stupid and have a death wish. All my friends and family definitely wasted no time in going off on me about how stupid I am to even consider getting one.
The spiders I got in May are a tube building arbanitis qld locale (large), chenistonia Newcastle locale (juvie), idiosoma subtrist (sling), Cataxia sp. Brisbane (sling), proshermacha sp.9 ‘flinders golden wishbone’ (large
, teyloides bakeri (sling. Has grown super fast. Will show comparison photos below), Hadronyche walkeri (sling), Hadronyche sp. orange (sling), Hadronyche sp. Barrington tops (large), and Hadronyche versuta (large sling).
I should note that the only funnel web I actually ordered was the H. Walkeri. I figured one sling would be a good place to start in keeping funnel webs and at the time was honestly the only FW I planned on ever keeping and just so that I could see how they differed to the other types of non-t mygs in ways other than venom. The others were sent as extras (seller did contact me to inform me that another spider I ordered was actually out of stock and asked if I wanted a refund or a substitution. I picked sub and they asked if I was ok with it being a FW as one of the spiders I ordered was one and I said I was fine with that). And with all the previous spiders I got (mentioned above) only roughly 2/3 of them were actually ordered, some were extras sent along with the ones I ordered.
The larger funnel (H. Barrington tops) is in a 20x20x30cm glass enclosure with a secure wire mesh lid on the top that has a small flap which securely clips shut and can be opened to drop crickets in and the spider conveniently dug its burrow directly under that flap. Since these spider arrived I’ve only taken the lid off once when I added some live moss to the enclosure last week.
The walkeri is in a 5x5x7cm plastic container. It’s burrows are all fully against the sides of the enclosure so I can very easily and clearly see exactly where it is whenever I take the lid off to drop food in and I make sure to be cautious whenever I do take the lid off to feed it.
The other 2 funnel webs are both in the plastic containers that have 10cm diameters and are 16cm tall (although both are only filled to around 10cm with coco peat so that when I take the lids off to feed them my fingers aren’t within biting range).
The next week I also got 2 paraembolides (Newcastle and tallaganda), a bymainiella terraereginae, a stanwellia nebulasa, a larger idiosoma subtriste, 2 Euoplos (regalis and similaris), and a Cethegus undescribed species
The cethegus I recently (2 weeks ago) gave to one of my coworkers. He has never had any spiders before and after showing him a lot of mine he said he was interested in getting one and asked where he could purchase one from. I let him just pick any from my collection other than the funnel webs and he picked the cethegus. It’s quite small and in a 12x12x15cm acrylic enclosure filled just over half way with coco peat. There’s a couple pieces of wood in the top section. It has a burrow directly under one of the pieces of wood and it has a lot of webbing filling the open area in the enclosure. Ate the day after I got it and ate every few days since. Webbed up the enclosure within the first 48hrs. From what my coworker has said it’s eating well for them still and spends its evenings just sitting in its webbing around the enclosure. One of the least shy mygalomorphs I have/have had for sure.
Other than the idiosoma these are all very small spiders. The paraembolides, bymainiella, and cethegus I believe are all smaller genera so I would say they probably are older than slings but are just rather small in size due to being smaller species.
^ Teyloides bakeri on the 15th of May
^the same spider last week (31st July). Until around 2 weeks ago I hadn’t actually seen this spider fully since the day I got it. Only seeing glimpses of it when feeding. The last couple weeks I’ve been ending up feeding the spiders at around 11pm so I’ve been seeing a lot more of them then what I used to see when I was generally ending up feeding in the late afternoons before it was dark. So the other week when I saw them in full for the first time since May I had to double take and almost doubted if it was even the same spider.
Can anyone tell me if it’s normal for this species to grow so quickly? I was under the impression that most mygalomorphs are pretty slow growers, taking at least a couple years to reach maturity. So I was surprised by the rather rapid growth of this one. My other species acquired at around the same size definitely haven’t grown quite as much as this one.
Last/most recent lot of spiders:
Then in June I had to move again. Where I am now I should be staying until at least July next year.
All the spiders moved well and everyone has been acting normal and has eaten a few times since moving.
Now that I’m fully moved and settled in and all the spiders are sorted I got some more spiders. I want planning on getting more until the ones I already had all got some major enclosure renovations to suit each of them as well as possible but then I saw the Namea’s available and I didn’t have any of that genus yet so I decided to just go ahead and get them along with a few others.
I got a Proshermacha sp Bedforddale WA, Namea sp Woombah, Namea Brisbaensis, Namea Cucurbita, Euoplos Thynnearum, Euoplos Turrificus, Cataxia Pulleinei, Ixamatus Barina, Ixamatus Caldera, Arbanitis benakin, Hadronyche Macquariensis, and a stanwellia sp. Tallaganda. All decently sized.
This was only last week. So I’ve had them 5 days and all of them each ate a cricket 3 days ago.
What I want to know:
Feeding frequency?
Just want to know if what I’m currently doing is ok or if I should be changing anything when it comes to feeding.
Currently the slings I generally offer food to every 2-3 days. Larger individuals I generally offer food to 1-2 times a week. This is based on when I see them sitting at near the burrow entrances at night (those with lids I’ll see the lids lifted slightly and maybe some little feet poking out. Open burrow ones some I’ll see just sitting in the entrance of the burrows and others keep their burrows slightly webbed over for a few days after feeding so I just feed again once they open their burrows up again).
How much and how often I feed differs between each individual. Some will only take 1 cricket in a night, some will take a couple, some will take different amounts each feeding day, and others will always keep taking more and more and never seem to plan on stopping These ones that will take many in a night are the ones where I’m most unsure on how much and how frequently I should be feeding them. It doesn’t seem healthy to let them have too much food
Everything else I want to know is relating to enclosure set ups.
Size? Plastic vs acrylic vs glass?
I’m thinking that I want to get everyone decent sized into glass enclosures 20x20x30cm glass enclosures so that they all match. But maybe the same dimensions except horizontal for the hexathelids? The slings I would have in smaller enclosures until they get a bit bigger (currently only 6 of them are so small I wouldn’t want to put them in the 20x20x30cm enclosures. 2 funnel webs and 4 trapdoors/wishbones). I would possibly be interested in doing a few larger set ups just to have more space to play around with landscapes and plants. Currently the smallest slings are in 5x5x7cm containers and the largest adults are in 20x20x30cm glass enclosures. And there’s a range of different sized plastic containers and actylic
Substrate?
I’ve tried to find as much information as I could on each species but it’s been very hard to find any useful species specific information. There’s a bit of family and genus related information but I know that between different genera in the same family and even different species from the same genus there can be quite a difference in habitat and behaviour. So I’m struggling a bit to work out the best way to set up enclosures for each individual spider that I have. And that this would be an ongoing issue when it comes to any new spiders I get in the future from other genera.
What I’ve found:
Euoplos and Cataxia - almost completely vertical clay with moss. Does this apply to all species from these genera? With Euoplos it is seemingly the case for all species but with Cataxia from what I could find there seems to be more variation between the habitats of different species.
Idiosoma - I assume is likely the same or similar to Euoplos and Cataxia.
Hexathelids - I believe most don’t need very much substrate depth, the area above the ground being more important and having things for them to anchor their webbing to? But I haven’t really seen anything on what sort of substrate.
Anamids - they seem to vary a lot between genera. Teyloides and Chenistonia I have found a lot of contradictory information on what their natural habitats are like. I’ve had mine a little while in moist coco and they both settled in very quickly, have good appetites, and are noticeable growing rather fast (the teyloides definitely growing faster than the chenistonia and has also always had a bigger appetite) but I don’t want to keep them in this simply because it seems to be working so far if their is something better for them. I know coco peat isn’t something they would encounter in the wild and I want them to be as comfortable as possible while in my care. They have both grown enough that they are definitely ready for a rehouse/upgrade so I want to set up their new enclosures to suit them as well as possible. The Teyloides dug a burrow and had its first meal within an hour of initially being put into this container.
Proshermacha seems to be quite well known to do best with clay? And I couldn’t find any definitive information on Namea.
Funnel webs - moist conditions? But different species like to have wood or rocks to build burrows under? Tree dwellers needing a pretty different set up to burrowers but none of mine are tree dwellers. Couldn’t find much on what the substrate should be (coco? Top soil? Clay? Sand? Some combination of these?).
Stanwellia, arbanitis, and Ixamatus I have no real idea on what works best. Stanwellia there’s just so much contradictory information out there and no one seems to really know what exactly stanwellia are? The more I try to research them the more confused I seem to get. Arbanitis there seems to be a lot of variation between each species in terms on how they build their burrows (some have doors, most? have open burrows, and some have tubes extending above their burrows. Cataxia also seem to have a mix of open and lidded burrows but very few species seem to have open burrows). Ixamatus (at least I. broomi. Was the only one out of the species I have which I could find much information) from what I could find seem to have relatively shallow burrows in looser moist soil?
My I. broomi has 3 burrow entrances all a few cm apart and only meeting at the bottom of the burrows. Distance from surface to where the bottom of the burrows are is 7-8cm (has 14cm of substrate available to it and the body length of the spider is around 2cm). 1 burrow is almost always webbed over and covered in debris, another is webbed over a lot of the time (just webbing, no debris), and the main burrow which is against the side of the enclosure and is where the spider spends most of its time is only webbed over just after feeding and when I assume it’s moulting. And there is a thin layer of webbing completely covering the surface of the substrate. The other 2 Ixamatus I haven’t had long enough to see if their burrow structure and behaviour is similar or not. And I couldn’t find much information at all on burrow structure or behaviour for this genus in general. Has anyone with this genus found this to be common behaviour?
Plants/wood/rocks/leaf litter/etc?
I want to have live plants wherever possible for aesthetic reasons. If any spiders prefer conditions in which it wouldn’t be viable to have plant life then that is fine, the comfort of the spiders is the priority. But wherever plants would work well with the ideal set up for the spider I would like to incorporate plant life.
In terms of rocks, wood, leaf litter, and any other possible additions I want to go with whatever works the best for each spider.
All the spiders I currently have should be listed on my profile and listed throughout my post.
What should my next steps be from here? Which spiders most need different set ups/better substrate? I have around $500aud available to me right now to get whatever I need to get these enclosures set up right for these spiders. If anyone can tell me specific products and where to get them? Only a couple of these spiders are from areas close enough for me to potentially travel to (I don’t drive so I can only really get around via public transport). So it’s hard for me to go and see any of their natural environments for myself and it’s easier for me to purchase whatever I need rather than try to go out and collect things.
My very first Mygalomorph:
September last year I got my first mygalomorph. She was sold to me as a brush footed but was most likely an idiopidae (and likely an idiosoma because she had the dots on her abdomen which seem characteristic of idiosoma). She was rather large and I had her in a 15x15x25cm acrylic enclosure with around 20cm of coco peat mixed with sand as the substrate. Part of her burrow was against the side of the enclosure so I could very easily see her fully whenever I moved that side of the enclosure away from the wall to check on her. She ate 2-3 medium crickets roughly once every 1-2 weeks (would grab a cricket, take it to the bottom of the burrow, then come back to the top waiting for more).
She passed away in March with no noticeable changes to behaviour or appearance. She moulted in early February, ate 2 weeks later then twice more with the latest being just over a week before I realised she had passed. I went to feed her one day and she didn’t immediately take the cricket like she usually does. Left it overnight and the next day the cricket was still untouched. I moved the enclosure to check on her and she was sitting unmoving at the bottom of the burrow. Tapped the enclosure right where she was and also messed around with the burrow lid and there was no reaction at all from her so I emptied the enclosure to get her out and found that she was lifeless.
^ my first girl. She had just missed the cricket she was trying to catch.
^ her inside her burrow
The next lot of spiders:
Early January this year (while my first girl was still alive and seemingly doing well) I got a few more.
An Arbanitis (‘Nambucca’) which I still have and it seems to be doing well, it’s one of my favourites out of all the spiders I have. It’s a decent size and currently in a 20x20x30cm glass enclosure. Has around 20cm of coco peat and the burrow goes to the bottom and along the bottom with a small area where the burrow first reaches the bottom of the enclosure being against the glass. Also has a sphagnum moss tube extending 5-6cm above the substrate. The top of the tube is open most of the time. Generally after feeding it lightly webs the entrance and then opens it back up again after around a week which is when I feed it a single relatively large cricket. Once in around march it fully covered the entrance with moss for a few weeks and 3 days ago has done that again (I assume to moult? Although that seems a little frequent for such a large spider? Last time I never saw a moult but that doesn’t mean it’s not what was happening. Through the little window at the bottom I could sometimes see the ends of its feet but couldn’t see the full spider clearly).
^Arbanitis Nambucca
At the same time I got a stanwellia (‘black springs’) which was rather lethargic when it arrived and it passed away around 3 days later.
And along with the Arbanitis and that stanwellia I also got a Cataxia babindaensis and a stanwellia sp.1 Victoria both as slings which are also both seemingly doing well currently and have both grown quite a considerable amount.
They also arrived with 2 jumping spiders one of which was DOA so I’m thinking the issue with the larger stanwellia would have been something during transit. Considering the second jumping spider was a male and only passed recently very likely of old age and the other 3 trapdoors are still seeming to do quite well and all spiders I later got from the same place have always seemed healthy and I haven’t had any spider losses since the ones already mentioned (first trapdoor, this stanwellia, and the male jumper).
3rd/4th lots of spiders:
February I got 7 more (between 2 orders around a week apart). 3 more arbanitis (gracilis, ‘drawbridge Barrington tops’, and ‘lid builder Strickland’), another Cataxia (purchased as ‘Cataxia sp. black springs’ but came from the same seller as the ‘brush footed’ I got as my first mygalomorph so I’m not confident in her being labelled correctly. The only other spider I have gotten from this person), a stanwellia sp. orange, an Ixamatus broomi, and a Euoplos Amamoor.
The euoplos being a sling, Ixamatus a juvie, and everyone else larger.
^the Cataxia sp. black springs. The day I got her. This container was a temporary set up for the first week as her enclosure hadn’t arrived yet. She is now in a 20x20x30cm glass enclosure. Her burrow is open top and almost entirely against the glass and reaches the bottom of the enclosure (around 25cm of substrate depth).
5th and 6th lots of spiders (May):
I had to suddenly move around a week after losing the first trapdoor in mid march (mentioned above). So I didn’t get any more spiders until May once I’d made sure that all the current spiders had moved well and were still eating and acting as normal and I was completely settled into my new place with everything organised.
So, in May I got more spiders including my first funnel webs. I know I’m quite new to the hobby and inexperienced for it to be smart for me to have funnel webs and everyone probably thinks I’m stupid and have a death wish. All my friends and family definitely wasted no time in going off on me about how stupid I am to even consider getting one.
The spiders I got in May are a tube building arbanitis qld locale (large), chenistonia Newcastle locale (juvie), idiosoma subtrist (sling), Cataxia sp. Brisbane (sling), proshermacha sp.9 ‘flinders golden wishbone’ (large
, teyloides bakeri (sling. Has grown super fast. Will show comparison photos below), Hadronyche walkeri (sling), Hadronyche sp. orange (sling), Hadronyche sp. Barrington tops (large), and Hadronyche versuta (large sling).
I should note that the only funnel web I actually ordered was the H. Walkeri. I figured one sling would be a good place to start in keeping funnel webs and at the time was honestly the only FW I planned on ever keeping and just so that I could see how they differed to the other types of non-t mygs in ways other than venom. The others were sent as extras (seller did contact me to inform me that another spider I ordered was actually out of stock and asked if I wanted a refund or a substitution. I picked sub and they asked if I was ok with it being a FW as one of the spiders I ordered was one and I said I was fine with that). And with all the previous spiders I got (mentioned above) only roughly 2/3 of them were actually ordered, some were extras sent along with the ones I ordered.
The larger funnel (H. Barrington tops) is in a 20x20x30cm glass enclosure with a secure wire mesh lid on the top that has a small flap which securely clips shut and can be opened to drop crickets in and the spider conveniently dug its burrow directly under that flap. Since these spider arrived I’ve only taken the lid off once when I added some live moss to the enclosure last week.
The walkeri is in a 5x5x7cm plastic container. It’s burrows are all fully against the sides of the enclosure so I can very easily and clearly see exactly where it is whenever I take the lid off to drop food in and I make sure to be cautious whenever I do take the lid off to feed it.
The other 2 funnel webs are both in the plastic containers that have 10cm diameters and are 16cm tall (although both are only filled to around 10cm with coco peat so that when I take the lids off to feed them my fingers aren’t within biting range).
The next week I also got 2 paraembolides (Newcastle and tallaganda), a bymainiella terraereginae, a stanwellia nebulasa, a larger idiosoma subtriste, 2 Euoplos (regalis and similaris), and a Cethegus undescribed species
The cethegus I recently (2 weeks ago) gave to one of my coworkers. He has never had any spiders before and after showing him a lot of mine he said he was interested in getting one and asked where he could purchase one from. I let him just pick any from my collection other than the funnel webs and he picked the cethegus. It’s quite small and in a 12x12x15cm acrylic enclosure filled just over half way with coco peat. There’s a couple pieces of wood in the top section. It has a burrow directly under one of the pieces of wood and it has a lot of webbing filling the open area in the enclosure. Ate the day after I got it and ate every few days since. Webbed up the enclosure within the first 48hrs. From what my coworker has said it’s eating well for them still and spends its evenings just sitting in its webbing around the enclosure. One of the least shy mygalomorphs I have/have had for sure.
Other than the idiosoma these are all very small spiders. The paraembolides, bymainiella, and cethegus I believe are all smaller genera so I would say they probably are older than slings but are just rather small in size due to being smaller species.
^ Teyloides bakeri on the 15th of May
^the same spider last week (31st July). Until around 2 weeks ago I hadn’t actually seen this spider fully since the day I got it. Only seeing glimpses of it when feeding. The last couple weeks I’ve been ending up feeding the spiders at around 11pm so I’ve been seeing a lot more of them then what I used to see when I was generally ending up feeding in the late afternoons before it was dark. So the other week when I saw them in full for the first time since May I had to double take and almost doubted if it was even the same spider.
Can anyone tell me if it’s normal for this species to grow so quickly? I was under the impression that most mygalomorphs are pretty slow growers, taking at least a couple years to reach maturity. So I was surprised by the rather rapid growth of this one. My other species acquired at around the same size definitely haven’t grown quite as much as this one.
Last/most recent lot of spiders:
Then in June I had to move again. Where I am now I should be staying until at least July next year.
All the spiders moved well and everyone has been acting normal and has eaten a few times since moving.
Now that I’m fully moved and settled in and all the spiders are sorted I got some more spiders. I want planning on getting more until the ones I already had all got some major enclosure renovations to suit each of them as well as possible but then I saw the Namea’s available and I didn’t have any of that genus yet so I decided to just go ahead and get them along with a few others.
I got a Proshermacha sp Bedforddale WA, Namea sp Woombah, Namea Brisbaensis, Namea Cucurbita, Euoplos Thynnearum, Euoplos Turrificus, Cataxia Pulleinei, Ixamatus Barina, Ixamatus Caldera, Arbanitis benakin, Hadronyche Macquariensis, and a stanwellia sp. Tallaganda. All decently sized.
This was only last week. So I’ve had them 5 days and all of them each ate a cricket 3 days ago.
What I want to know:
Feeding frequency?
Just want to know if what I’m currently doing is ok or if I should be changing anything when it comes to feeding.
Currently the slings I generally offer food to every 2-3 days. Larger individuals I generally offer food to 1-2 times a week. This is based on when I see them sitting at near the burrow entrances at night (those with lids I’ll see the lids lifted slightly and maybe some little feet poking out. Open burrow ones some I’ll see just sitting in the entrance of the burrows and others keep their burrows slightly webbed over for a few days after feeding so I just feed again once they open their burrows up again).
How much and how often I feed differs between each individual. Some will only take 1 cricket in a night, some will take a couple, some will take different amounts each feeding day, and others will always keep taking more and more and never seem to plan on stopping These ones that will take many in a night are the ones where I’m most unsure on how much and how frequently I should be feeding them. It doesn’t seem healthy to let them have too much food
Everything else I want to know is relating to enclosure set ups.
Size? Plastic vs acrylic vs glass?
I’m thinking that I want to get everyone decent sized into glass enclosures 20x20x30cm glass enclosures so that they all match. But maybe the same dimensions except horizontal for the hexathelids? The slings I would have in smaller enclosures until they get a bit bigger (currently only 6 of them are so small I wouldn’t want to put them in the 20x20x30cm enclosures. 2 funnel webs and 4 trapdoors/wishbones). I would possibly be interested in doing a few larger set ups just to have more space to play around with landscapes and plants. Currently the smallest slings are in 5x5x7cm containers and the largest adults are in 20x20x30cm glass enclosures. And there’s a range of different sized plastic containers and actylic
Substrate?
I’ve tried to find as much information as I could on each species but it’s been very hard to find any useful species specific information. There’s a bit of family and genus related information but I know that between different genera in the same family and even different species from the same genus there can be quite a difference in habitat and behaviour. So I’m struggling a bit to work out the best way to set up enclosures for each individual spider that I have. And that this would be an ongoing issue when it comes to any new spiders I get in the future from other genera.
What I’ve found:
Euoplos and Cataxia - almost completely vertical clay with moss. Does this apply to all species from these genera? With Euoplos it is seemingly the case for all species but with Cataxia from what I could find there seems to be more variation between the habitats of different species.
Idiosoma - I assume is likely the same or similar to Euoplos and Cataxia.
Hexathelids - I believe most don’t need very much substrate depth, the area above the ground being more important and having things for them to anchor their webbing to? But I haven’t really seen anything on what sort of substrate.
Anamids - they seem to vary a lot between genera. Teyloides and Chenistonia I have found a lot of contradictory information on what their natural habitats are like. I’ve had mine a little while in moist coco and they both settled in very quickly, have good appetites, and are noticeable growing rather fast (the teyloides definitely growing faster than the chenistonia and has also always had a bigger appetite) but I don’t want to keep them in this simply because it seems to be working so far if their is something better for them. I know coco peat isn’t something they would encounter in the wild and I want them to be as comfortable as possible while in my care. They have both grown enough that they are definitely ready for a rehouse/upgrade so I want to set up their new enclosures to suit them as well as possible. The Teyloides dug a burrow and had its first meal within an hour of initially being put into this container.
Proshermacha seems to be quite well known to do best with clay? And I couldn’t find any definitive information on Namea.
Funnel webs - moist conditions? But different species like to have wood or rocks to build burrows under? Tree dwellers needing a pretty different set up to burrowers but none of mine are tree dwellers. Couldn’t find much on what the substrate should be (coco? Top soil? Clay? Sand? Some combination of these?).
Stanwellia, arbanitis, and Ixamatus I have no real idea on what works best. Stanwellia there’s just so much contradictory information out there and no one seems to really know what exactly stanwellia are? The more I try to research them the more confused I seem to get. Arbanitis there seems to be a lot of variation between each species in terms on how they build their burrows (some have doors, most? have open burrows, and some have tubes extending above their burrows. Cataxia also seem to have a mix of open and lidded burrows but very few species seem to have open burrows). Ixamatus (at least I. broomi. Was the only one out of the species I have which I could find much information) from what I could find seem to have relatively shallow burrows in looser moist soil?
My I. broomi has 3 burrow entrances all a few cm apart and only meeting at the bottom of the burrows. Distance from surface to where the bottom of the burrows are is 7-8cm (has 14cm of substrate available to it and the body length of the spider is around 2cm). 1 burrow is almost always webbed over and covered in debris, another is webbed over a lot of the time (just webbing, no debris), and the main burrow which is against the side of the enclosure and is where the spider spends most of its time is only webbed over just after feeding and when I assume it’s moulting. And there is a thin layer of webbing completely covering the surface of the substrate. The other 2 Ixamatus I haven’t had long enough to see if their burrow structure and behaviour is similar or not. And I couldn’t find much information at all on burrow structure or behaviour for this genus in general. Has anyone with this genus found this to be common behaviour?
Plants/wood/rocks/leaf litter/etc?
I want to have live plants wherever possible for aesthetic reasons. If any spiders prefer conditions in which it wouldn’t be viable to have plant life then that is fine, the comfort of the spiders is the priority. But wherever plants would work well with the ideal set up for the spider I would like to incorporate plant life.
In terms of rocks, wood, leaf litter, and any other possible additions I want to go with whatever works the best for each spider.
All the spiders I currently have should be listed on my profile and listed throughout my post.
What should my next steps be from here? Which spiders most need different set ups/better substrate? I have around $500aud available to me right now to get whatever I need to get these enclosures set up right for these spiders. If anyone can tell me specific products and where to get them? Only a couple of these spiders are from areas close enough for me to potentially travel to (I don’t drive so I can only really get around via public transport). So it’s hard for me to go and see any of their natural environments for myself and it’s easier for me to purchase whatever I need rather than try to go out and collect things.
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we’re they find there info . But someone from Australia is pretty knowledgeable. Resonantvoid.. I forgot how to spell it. Not sure if he has any care sheets or not though . Tarantulas are hard enough to keep , I don’t know much about trapdoors. But I do know info about fossorial Tarantulas. I’ve only kept a few. Pretty much a pet hole.. however they are totally different species.
