Communal questions

DeathsPyro12

Arachnoknight
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Are P.antinous a communal sp? I have a 40 gallon long tank and want to set it up for terrestrial communal. If the P.antinous aren't a communal sp anyone have any other opinions on large communal sp? Open to any sp really. Also would like opinions on any smaller tarantula sp that are communal. Have a 20 and 30 gallon tank open. Only communal I don't want to try is a pokie communal. Not yet atleast.
 

codykrr

Arachnoking
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OBT's are not communal.

They will tolerate each other early on, but will start to eat one another as they get older.

---------- Post added at 08:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:05 PM ----------

there is a big debate on the P. antinous/chicken spider thing.

But no, Id say P. antinous(least what we have in the hobby) is NOT communal.

True communal species, would include.

H. incei

H. villosella
 

DeathsPyro12

Arachnoknight
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The P.antinous I want to try with are the ones from Northern Peru, not the average hobby P.antinous. From what I have noticed the Northern Peruvian Antinous are more docial then your typical hobby pampo. Anyone else?
 

AbraxasComplex

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I have personally tried the P.antinous from northern Peru. My first order out of Peru, before I got the Pamphobeteus sp. chicken spider, was filled with P.antinous juveniles and adults. I tried multiple pairings with various individuals in large tanks to no avail. They are not communal.


But for more small species you can try beyond the Holothele incei and Heterothele villosella:

Heterothele gabonensis
Holothele sp. Colombia (Bumblebee)


And if you want to spend an arm and a leg, Monocentropus balfouri.
 

codykrr

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Can I please ask what was your experience of an OBT community? How long did you keep them together, in what size and styled enclosure?
25 slings from the same sac was put into a 10 gallon with plenty to hide in. all was fine and dandy untill they reached 1.5 to 2 inch mark. then they started cannibalizing. went from 25 to 19...I took out most of them leaving 10 in the "communal".

around the 3.5 inch mark I noticed even more losses. I was down to 4 when a female ate a mature male. the last 3 lived together for some time. 2 mature females and one mature male. the male was eaten about 3 months later, and I seperated the last two females.

This was over the span of a year.

They were always well fed.

Also there have been numerous attempts by members here on the boards. Most failed.

Also to add.

I did not mention H. gabononesis because we dont have a good enough stock to really throw them into communals. I only know of a handful of people with them down here. In a year or two when more slings are produced yes.

Also M. balfouri are hard to come by.

I just named off the two most common.
 

poeciN3RD

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Codykrr hit the nail on the head, I had the same experience w/ A. avicularia, which is a good species for communal, if there is a loss or two, it wont break the bank.
 

bobusboy

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OBT's are not communal.

They will tolerate each other early on, but will start to eat one another as they get older.

---------- Post added at 08:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:05 PM ----------

True communal species, would include.

H. incei





In my experience H. incei are not communal, just very very tolerant of one and other I went from 9 to 3 over one weekend after they lived with each other for about 3 months.

IMO listen to people when they tell you not to do it, but go a head and lose a few Ts.
 

codykrr

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In my experience H. incei are not communal, just very very tolerant of one and other I went from 9 to 3 over one weekend after they lived with each other for about 3 months.

IMO listen to people when they tell you not to do it, but go a head and lose a few Ts.
Hmm...?

I havent had those results...I lost one. in my communal.

Were they sac mates? had they been separated for any amount of time? did you feed enough? was their enough hides?

Those are all factors when dealing with a communal.
 

AbraxasComplex

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Hmm...?

I havent had those results...I lost one. in my communal.

Were they sac mates? had they been separated for any amount of time? did you feed enough? was their enough hides?

Those are all factors when dealing with a communal.
I second this. You will lose a couple periodically, but I have one colony of over 100 and another unrelated group in a 10 gallon that I started with 18 and still have 18.

I know we talked back and forth about your social tank, it seemed you were doing things on the right path. Although tarantula behavior is usually predictable there are some individuals that do not follow the typical pattern of the species. I have experienced this before with an H.incei adult female eating every other H.incei she came across including her own young, while the rest from the same batch were highly social, lived well together, and fed their young until a considerable size.
 

jbm150

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Are P.antinous a communal sp? I have a 40 gallon long tank and want to set it up for terrestrial communal. If the P.antinous aren't a communal sp anyone have any other opinions on large communal sp? Open to any sp really. Also would like opinions on any smaller tarantula sp that are communal. Have a 20 and 30 gallon tank open. Only communal I don't want to try is a pokie communal. Not yet atleast.
H. gigas? A big aquarium full of substrate would look like a giant ant farm with all their tunnels :D
 

Poxicator

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I think different people's experience of communities suggest its never straight forward or guaranteed and the question of maturity is always an issue.
I've kept quite a few Poecilotheria communities: subfusca (x3), ornata (3 x 4), pederseni (x4), rufilata (x3, x15, x6), striata (x20 with mum, x4, x8), regalis (x23, x2, x2, x20 with mum). Nearly all of them have been successful, the exceptions being ornata, out of the 3 attempts only 1 was successful; and out of the x15 rufilata I noticed a split in the community with the result it reduced to 9).
Ive kept OBTs together for 14 months without obvious incident, and that community is still running now (since Aug 2009) with 5 individuals in someone elses care.

Ultimately there are some decision you need to make, the most important of which is whether you're prepared to continue after you lose some. We often put our losses down to cannabilism but it could be a matter of picking off the weaker members for fearing of killing off the community.

For my own mind, I decide to split communities when maturity arrives IF it involves mix sexes with mature males. This is where territories are introduced and mated females will clear their territory of anything that might prove a threat to her intended young. Even pairing single males and females can meet with the loss of the male so keeping them together at this stage is very risky IMO.

One of the other issues that intrigues me is the "same sac" argument. I see this in a variety of forums and yet I doubt its based on much more than other peoples posts and not experience. I'm in the process of trying this with OBT slings from 2 different sacs and as yet haven't seen any issues.

Another you might consider, with a spacious enclosure is P. cambridgei. Ive had an enclosure with mum, juveniles and slings. And the male was mated with the female whilst the juveniles were in there. I pulled most of the slings because it was obvious they'd fall foul to the juveniles but I still have a handful of each in a 30x30x30 Exo.
 

bobusboy

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Hmm...?

I havent had those results...I lost one. in my communal.

Were they sac mates? had they been separated for any amount of time? did you feed enough? was their enough hides?

Those are all factors when dealing with a communal.

-all from the same sac i believe,
-only time they were separated was during shipping
-lots of places to hide 9 in a 2 gallon tank, which might have been the issue should have gone up to a 5 gallon
-fed minimum of every 3rd day.

I don't know what it was, they were all fine and then one day it was like the biggest ones wanted more space so they ate the smaller Ts around them. (They were all the same size when I got them some just grew faster)

Long story short I lost 6, and they're now separated.

I'll likely try again in the future with a larger enclosure but right now it's not in the cards; I'm going to indulge my interest in P. murinus
 

Wink

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i would love to try this, im just kinda worried about losing some :( maybe after i do a bit more research ill give it a go
 

Merfolk

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I have tried many communals, including interspecific (P pederseni and fasciata together), sacmates or not, and the downfall always came when a larger male appeared. Not only aren't they much fertile, but those giant males are responsible for most cases of cannibalism that I've heard of. I assume that removing them would diminish its incidence but since higher animals (including humans) reverted to cannibalism in extreme situations, rest assured that there will be some occuring one day or the other. It's impossible to totaly avoid it and with some species a balance will be maintained while with some others the outcome will always be one fat spider.

Saw tight knit communals of M balfouri here and don't know how long it lasted. I currently own the tank where Tarcan and the Red Queen had their big H incei communal and found no live specimen upon dismantling it. It had lasted a few years and I think that they simply failed to breed an additional inbred genreration. Thrived for a while then whitered...
 

AbraxasComplex

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-all from the same sac i believe,
-only time they were separated was during shipping
-lots of places to hide 9 in a 2 gallon tank, which might have been the issue should have gone up to a 5 gallon
-fed minimum of every 3rd day.

I don't know what it was, they were all fine and then one day it was like the biggest ones wanted more space so they ate the smaller Ts around them. (They were all the same size when I got them some just grew faster)

Long story short I lost 6, and they're now separated.

I'll likely try again in the future with a larger enclosure but right now it's not in the cards; I'm going to indulge my interest in P. murinus


Probably too small of a tank.


And Merfolk, I thought I heard from Tarcan that they believe a disease killed that colony? I still have adult females from several years back when I first started my social experiment, so even if they failed to breed in their tank there should be some females from at least one of the early generations still running about. Either way if it was inbreeding, I plan to introduce unrelated males into my colony to add some genetic diversity, hence the second colony I set up with slings from an unrelated bloodline.
 

Merfolk

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Cool. It's not because that specific communal failed that all will do. But it was historic in a way. I mean, for the first 2-3 years, the population remained pretty stable, around 60 something if I am correct. It sometimes went down to a few, then bang!: Eggsac!"
 
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