To sum it up... my Chaco Golden Knee died recently. I've had it since it was a sling, and it's been with me for 5 years. It's death may have been yesterday, or a few days ago, I couldn't tell. That's why I need help, and I was hoping someone could provide me with the answers I need.
My main suspect is dehydration- the abdomen is terribly shriveled, as seen in the picture below. It was like this when I realised that there was something wrong.
But the fact that there are white patches, and tears in the abdomen have had me looking at other possibilities.
But regarding humidity issue. Admittedly I was not consistent with it. This is partly due to my earlier research about how my species did not need to much of it, and of my earlier negative experience with maintaining too much humidity, which resulted in a mite infestation(I took care of that quickly, tho)
But albeit all that my tarantula was fine with the low humidity. He was an active and energetic fella, which always pounced on the mealworms I dropped in immediately.
I did not use a humidifier. All I used was the water dish and occasionally pouring small amounts of water into the substrate, but not thoroughly soaking it.
Up until a few weeks ago it started acting weird. It stopped eating, with all the mealworms I dropped in ignored. For a period of time it hid itself under the bottle cap(which was emptied so I filled up a new one and left it in the middle of the enclosure). It even flipped itself upside down, buried under the surface of the substrate. It couldn't have been molting as it just did about a month ago... I did some research and thought that maybe it was going through a phase and I shouldn't disturb it. Also, at this point it had a shriveled abdomen... and was still moving its legs rather energetically when I prodded them so I felt that he still had the strength to drink from the dish.
But, recently I went on a 6 day vacation- I left with some soaked substrate and a full water dish, and by the time I came back the enclosure was bone-dry. And the tarantula had been reduced to the state in the image.
I don't know if it acting weird had contributed to this, but what I do know is that I am terribly at fault for not ensuring that the humidity was maintained- I should've made sure that the enclosure was sufficiently humid. I should've told my grandparents to refill the water dish every single day, yet I forgot and thus... most probably resulted in my tarantula's demise.
Apart from humidity being the most probable cause, another possibility would have been a fall. The enclosure is as such- the substrate may not have been deep enough- but I did make sure that the height was the same as my tarantula's leg span. He did have a habit of climbing up to the blue cover, but there are no possibly sharp decorations, the only other item being the bottle cap I used as a water dish.
However, before my trip the tarantula only had a shriveled abdomen- it did not have any white fluids leaking out of it so I doubted that it suffered any injuries.
The third possibility would be a mealworm attack. Unfortunately, although I removed most of the uneaten worms, one of them remained burrowed and upon my return from my vacation, had metamorphed into its adult beetle form.I felt that it may have attacked the weakened tarantula during my absence, but I am not sure.
Dehydration, fall damage, mealworm attack- these are the three possibilities I'm looking at right now.
I am a terrible keeper and I understand that I have failed horribly. I deserve no respect or tolerance for my acts... I only hope to understand my shortcomings, and I pray that even though I deserve every bit of hate from all of you... someone will be able to tell me what I did wrong.
That is all I ask for.
I'm sorry.
My main suspect is dehydration- the abdomen is terribly shriveled, as seen in the picture below. It was like this when I realised that there was something wrong.
But the fact that there are white patches, and tears in the abdomen have had me looking at other possibilities.
But regarding humidity issue. Admittedly I was not consistent with it. This is partly due to my earlier research about how my species did not need to much of it, and of my earlier negative experience with maintaining too much humidity, which resulted in a mite infestation(I took care of that quickly, tho)
But albeit all that my tarantula was fine with the low humidity. He was an active and energetic fella, which always pounced on the mealworms I dropped in immediately.
I did not use a humidifier. All I used was the water dish and occasionally pouring small amounts of water into the substrate, but not thoroughly soaking it.
Up until a few weeks ago it started acting weird. It stopped eating, with all the mealworms I dropped in ignored. For a period of time it hid itself under the bottle cap(which was emptied so I filled up a new one and left it in the middle of the enclosure). It even flipped itself upside down, buried under the surface of the substrate. It couldn't have been molting as it just did about a month ago... I did some research and thought that maybe it was going through a phase and I shouldn't disturb it. Also, at this point it had a shriveled abdomen... and was still moving its legs rather energetically when I prodded them so I felt that he still had the strength to drink from the dish.
But, recently I went on a 6 day vacation- I left with some soaked substrate and a full water dish, and by the time I came back the enclosure was bone-dry. And the tarantula had been reduced to the state in the image.
I don't know if it acting weird had contributed to this, but what I do know is that I am terribly at fault for not ensuring that the humidity was maintained- I should've made sure that the enclosure was sufficiently humid. I should've told my grandparents to refill the water dish every single day, yet I forgot and thus... most probably resulted in my tarantula's demise.
Apart from humidity being the most probable cause, another possibility would have been a fall. The enclosure is as such- the substrate may not have been deep enough- but I did make sure that the height was the same as my tarantula's leg span. He did have a habit of climbing up to the blue cover, but there are no possibly sharp decorations, the only other item being the bottle cap I used as a water dish.
However, before my trip the tarantula only had a shriveled abdomen- it did not have any white fluids leaking out of it so I doubted that it suffered any injuries.
The third possibility would be a mealworm attack. Unfortunately, although I removed most of the uneaten worms, one of them remained burrowed and upon my return from my vacation, had metamorphed into its adult beetle form.I felt that it may have attacked the weakened tarantula during my absence, but I am not sure.
Dehydration, fall damage, mealworm attack- these are the three possibilities I'm looking at right now.
I am a terrible keeper and I understand that I have failed horribly. I deserve no respect or tolerance for my acts... I only hope to understand my shortcomings, and I pray that even though I deserve every bit of hate from all of you... someone will be able to tell me what I did wrong.
That is all I ask for.
I'm sorry.
