- Joined
- Aug 23, 2015
- Messages
- 2,313
Beautiful spiders!
Yes! I have one mature female and the other is probably still a subadult since it's still smaller and not nearly as vibrantly colored. I just rehoused them after well over a year of being in the same substrate--it was starting to break down a little towards the bottom and smell slightly sour with the constant moisture. They were starting to create burrows, abandon them, and create new ones and I have a feeling the breakdown of the substrate was the reason for it.Still looking for a pairing?
She is beautiful. Can you share with me her setup here or privately? I'd like to see her trap. Your substrate looks good and you are right about the clay - hard to gauge moisture. Mine have been to clay heavy and I am still working on my substrate. How well does your substrate hold form? Do they throw out balls of it? Clay can be hard to get - if your alternative is working well that's great news.Yes! I have one mature female and the other is probably still a subadult since it's still smaller and not nearly as vibrantly colored. I just rehoused them after well over a year of being in the same substrate--it was starting to break down a little towards the bottom and smell slightly sour with the constant moisture. They were starting to create burrows, abandon them, and create new ones and I have a feeling the breakdown of the substrate was the reason for it.
I've been using a mixture of coconut fiber, sand, and peat. I used more coconut fiber this time around since peat breaks down faster when used as a component of substrate. I thought about using clay in their substrate, but it's more difficult to gauge the moisture level with clay and very easy to add too much water if there's no drainage in the enclosure.
Thanks for sharing!
Her setup is nothing fancy, just a medium-sized Kritter Keeper filled up with substrate with a slope from one corner to the other. I don't heat their enclosures directly. I keep their enclosures in a larger bin that has a water reservoir and some eggcrate and heat from below with a heat pad so that they get warm, humid air and the substrate doesn't dry out from bottom or side heat.She is beautiful. Can you share with me her setup here or privately? I'd like to see her trap. Your substrate looks good and you are right about the clay - hard to gauge moisture. Mine have been to clay heavy and I am still working on my substrate. How well does your substrate hold form? Do they throw out balls of it? Clay can be hard to get - if your alternative is working well that's great news.
Yes, mine build trip wires, but I've noticed that they do not do so until they are comfortable with their current burrow. Sometimes they'll make a burrow and never place trip wires before they move and make a new burrow shortly after. If they don't move on to a new burrow, they usually make their trip wires a day or two after they've reached the bottom of the enclosure and have run their burrow along the bottom a bit. The few times they burrow up against the plastic, I've been able to see that the burrows end in a larger chamber that they reside in when they aren't right under the door, waiting for prey.They mostly do build that way, yes, but if there is anything like a wall or a root or log in the way they may build their lines tactically around or over it. Does yours build trip wires?
The substrate looks good and it's building a happy home, trip wires, etc. I'm sure it's good to go.
I would still suggest some clay content and a steep, as these really live on steep clay banks (though please correct me if I am wrong; my information on L. ornatus comes from what little I can find and a friend who've seen them in the wild). Yours has the advantage of likely being much lighter and probably more practical overall. My substrate attempts have 100% of the time been either too high clay content or the clay has not been blended well enough with the lighter peat so I am certainly not saying mine is better. It's certainly stupid-heavy. The spiders do seem happy as can be though and I love the way the clay gets mosses and liverworts and things thriving.
I am going to be out of the country for a bit but when I return I am looking forward to setting one up right as I have always rushed it. I have decent lights and the original enclosure where the babies hatched and set up camp is crazy with moss growth - looks like the habitat shots I can find - but I'd like to do one with a few plants, a piece of wood going through the substrate (as I've been told they appear to prefer building around things like roots), and bring the slop fairly close to the glass to maximize substrate depths. My brother bought my an endoscope and I scoped one of the empty holes from where one had moved... these things really go HAM down there.
Your spider looks healthy and happy as a clam. And beautiful too. These things are amazing.
I was lucky enough to pick up a sling. Fantastic spiders.YOOOO so real update coming soon - I had been in France for a while.
I still have a bunch and, in my absence, I suspect several have matured into males. However, whether they have successfully mated or simply been consumed I do not know because I do not seem to have many very large female traps (comparable to my original female who was the brood mother, she has since passed it seems). I do currently have one alive mature male which, like the first time, is in a little retreat with a kinda weak lid. I am going to be closely monitoring him each night. It is possible that he is waiting a long time to emerge like my original male. He does appear freshly molted and healthy, so the primary concerns are whether he is indeed with a mature female and isn't consumed instead by an immature. If he leaves the burrow I will watch and, if nothing after a few days, I may introduce him into another tank with a very large female in hopes he breeds. He has built his little retreat near the largest female lid, againn similarly to my original male.
I would love if everyone could update me on their Liphistids in the mean time. Soon I will start a new thread summarizing my original breeding, what I've learned since, what I'd do differently, and how I hope to have breeding success again.
Yours in spiders,
Ambly
I was wondering if you can help me. I am picking one up and can’t find much info on it. What is the lifespan of this spiderThank you, Tony. Working on a care sheet / notes on my experience with keeping that I hope will be useful for those keeping Liphistids in the future! When weather warms I'll begin shipping some out