Do you feel husbandry standards have stagnated/stopped improving?

[Dry Desert]

i take exception to the point of guesses with respect to me insomuch as when i’m doing research and building a terrarium, i’m directly copying the specimen’s natural environment - i spend hours pouring over all available media pertaining to places like the Ghats mountain ranges, Usambara mountain ranges, and other various places where these animals are found

sometimes i even use direct recordings when available eg: my mountain slope enclosure for my OBT-UMV was modeled directly after footage of OBT’s in the natural environment in the Usambara mountains

now, with this being said - here is some self-criticism: my enclosures at present aren’t a perfect expression of the ideal that i am aspiring too - that’s what i think is so great about this discourse - you and ATX and others have given me a lot to think about and a lot of goals still yet to reach (perfect timing as i begin to prepare for the big Rufilata enclosure build)

now with that being said i have some thoughts on the point of native plants, native substrate, etc (which i think are really good ideas which i want to figure out but to play “devil’s advocate” here) - let’s take my Rufilata project as an example and explore this

which would be a better enclosure or let’s to, a more naturalist enclosure

a) i use soil straight from the Ghats mountain ranges, i throw in plants and so on native to the specific area of the Ghats in which Red-Slates are found *however* everything is just thrown in there and no other consideration is had per it’s design other than what is native and what is pleasing aesthetically

b) while i have not obtain native species of plants or native dirt - i have directly modeled the layout, design, etc of the enclosure to mirror the specific places in the Ghats mountains that the Red-Slate is found in - at the base of trees, in the trees, in the leaves, etc - so in this case that layout’s function is to provide the specificity conditions that the Red-Slates are found in

now which is truly natural? which would truly be naturalism? I would argue enclosure B - why? because to me and what I’m saying it’s not just *what* is in the enclosure but how every piece within that enclosure is placed, how it functions by itself and in conjunction with the whole, etc because i don’t think naturalism, in this context, is negated by using non-native materials

another consideration is making sure the substrate is going to provide the exact environmental parameters for the species - so again, using my Red-Slate example: i could get soil straight from the Ghats but who’s to say that soil is going produce the aforementioned environmental parameters? i could v easily throw it in the enclosure and it just turns to useless mud or some such thing

whereas i use natural substrates (top soil, sands, moss, etc), exploit their natural physical properties and produce the environmental parameters or conditions the Red-Slate naturally lives in eg: i created a mix of substrates where a) that hold a lot of moisture - top soil, moss, peat, etc and b) prevent mold formation - sand takes up space in between substrates and separates particles within that substrate and prevents mold - in this way i can produce the elevated humidity that’s part of the species environmental parameters

to me substrate is a tool, it has certain physical properties, it produces specific conditions and knowing this, you can exploit this - which ultimately goes back to my point of *function* and *conditions* - tho i am open to the point about native plants, how species may interact with those plants, what is their relationship, and so on

As you say, correct substrate is all important.
Take the case of Millipedes, substrate is their life, they eat it, live in it, and rear young in it.
Some Millipedes require specialised substrate, get it wrong and they won't survive.
It's essential to try and replicate the substrate as close as possible to their natural environment.

 

[Dorifto]

This is what I mean with a more natural behaviour. A simple enclosure with a good parameters can change completely the perspective we have of a certain species. A lot of pet rock, pet hole Ts (behaviours) are caused by our poor husbandry. And for me poor is to keep them way out of their range.

View attachment pulchra 2.5_1.mp4





Do a T close their burrow in the nature for several months? For sure. But they "don't" unless the environmental conditions are not ideal, seasons etc. They will close their burrows eventually of course. But what happens in under our care. A lot of them are kept too dry, not because the species is dry, but because our convenience, less moisture, less maintenance, less problems overall... but then we naturalize that those species close their burrows for so long time, instead of thinking it's a direct cause of our "incorrect" husbandry. And this imho is way less natural than the exposed above.

For me this is a natural behaviour, a T keeping her surroundings clean and arranged, rather than a pet hole of the same species.




Ps: sorry for the music, but it is way better than my gf watching Grey's anatomy

I couldn't upload the other video sorry, too big.

 

[YungRasputin]

if i’m not mistaken A. seemanni was mentioned as an example and in this example it was mentioned that in the wilds of Costa Rica and elsewhere in Central America, they live in deep, moist burrows which protects them from both the heat and, also, the cold (as well as predators and so forth)

we should go on to mention that they are found in open scrublands, specifically in large aggregations where there is scrub vegetation, logs, rocks and other natural debris congregated together - so this is the surrounding area in which their immediate area, the burrow den, is within

additionally, per Smotzer’s comments about native soil, native plants, etc i have thought of another example to explore naturalism with - so let’s take the Zebra up as an example:

enclosure A: i have obtained soil from Costa Rica, and I’ve obtained a whole series of flowers native to Costa Rica because i love flowers and so I fill the enclosure up with this - i don’t provide a hide, and I follow the maxim “if you’re comfortable, they’re comfortable” so I also don’t provide a median temperature range that is natural, just what is conducive to the flowers and this it

i have provided just enough soil to grow the flowers and an enclosure only big enough to technically house it

enclosure B: i have not used native soil, i use a mixture of top soil, peat, moss and sands to provide a substrate which can produce tropical humidity levels, can stay real moist but is also mold proof - additionally, it’s a sturdy substrate conducive to burrow building

i replicate the median temp ranges of its natural locale - i have provided scrub like vegetation and a log hide partially burrowed into the substrate, with a pre-made starter burrow - i have provided ample, deep substrate in a big enclosure

now from both of these example enclosures, which do you think is going to facilitate and elicit the aforementioned wild behaviors of the Zebra? Enclosure A or Enclosure B? why or why not?

my answer is obviously Enclosure B - why? why Enclosure B when Enclosure A had all the right ingredients straight from Costa Rica itself and Enclosure B did not? because Enclosure A isn’t providing the natural conditions which produce those natural lifeways/behaviors

in this respect, i think it could be said it’s not so so much *what* the materials are but rather *how* they function, the effects they produce, and so on

you know it’s like without natural heat what would be the cue for the T to start burrowing? without scrub vegetation and logs and the like, what is going to prompt the specimen to pick a specific spot it feels is safe to start burrowing in? if you don’t allow live feeders to be drop fed into the enclosure and roam, what would prompt the spider to ambush hunt from the burrow like it might in the wild?

you really could go on and on with that line of inquiry but the point is that natural behavior is dictated by the specific conditions of it’s natural environment therefore if you’re not producing those natural conditions, is it any wonder why you would see adaptive, captive behavior which runs contrary of how it lives and behaves in the wild?

which is ultimately what i personally want and would argue is the best mindset for arachnid keeping in general and can be summed up as “wild conditions for wild animals”

 

[Dorifto]

Another pair of vids of the pulchra keeping her enclosure tidy
View attachment VID_20220107_180703~2.mp4

View attachment VID_20220107_181233~2.mp4

 

[RezonantVoid]

I know it's been over a year since I made this thread but an experience yesterday immediately reminded me of the topics discussed here.

On an invertebrate discord server I moderate, someone posted an enclosure for a small Theraphosa specimen (looked to be an inch or 2 diagonally) with wood chips on the surface of and presumably mixed into the substrate.

Now I'd like to imagine every keeper and their dog on this site knows why in most enclosures, wood chips are not recommendeded; the tarantula may wander up the glass, fall, and rupture it's abdomen on the sharp edges. I've also read cases, I'm pretty sure on this site too, of specimens molting outside their burrow, rolling off their web mat and fatally cutting themself on the edges as well. This is not 100% of cases with wood chip use (in fact, I use crunched wild bark pieces in some of my spider tanks, although not for T's), but for most of us it is enough of risk that it's just not worth using them, especially when mixing enough of them into substrate considerably lowers the structural integrity and moisture retention so vital to burrowers.

I mentioned this to the person who uploaded the pictures, giving the logic behind why in this situation wood chip use could be potentially detrimental to the T particularly in the long run as it grows larger and heavier, including that I'd seen first hand the dire consequences it's use can result in.

They staunchly defended it's use saying they'd kept T's for a few years and knew what they were doing, and had consulted with members of the (I'm assuming Facebook) tarantula community. I had my way of keeping things, and they had their own, and they refused to debate the topic at all.

Regardless of your stance on the topic of this thread, at the very least, I'm glad that the majority of keepers I meet are open minded to the thought of pushing the hobby's husbandry further, as is reflected by this threads poll votes. Even though you sometimes see people like I met yesterday, I'm optimistic for the direction this hobby might travel in the future.

Happy enclosure building guys, and even though this thread was made a while ago, thank you very much for the input on this topic

 

[campj]

I'm late to the discussion but will throw in my opinion. Many terrestrial tarantulas found in the wild are basically found in dirt. I don't just mean inside the burrow, but surrounding it too. This is definitely the case with SW US Aphonopelma a lot of the time, literally a hole with a web veil surrounded by... several meters of dirt and pebbles. I've also found them in grassland, but can't ever remember seeing them extensively incorporate the grass into their burrows. When I owned Aphonopelma, I used dirt harvested in the wild, wetted and dried, with a pre-dug burrow and no accouterments, which resulted in very similar behavior to what I was seeing in the wild.

I've watched a lot of videos of tarantulas in their natural habitat and many of them from around the world are basically found in their nests with pretty barren immediate surroundings. Not all, but many. Burrows dug into dirt embankments with almost no plant life around, arboreal spiders webbed into crevices in the trees with no plants to be found in the video shot, spiders using natural hollows under tree roots with very little plant life nearby. Taking all this in tells me that they do fine living like that in the wild (do they actually choose to?), and I've found that most of them do equally fine when kept similarly in captivity.

To me, the main thing is to use queues from the spiders' behavior to determine if something seems off. If I've got a species that is normally known to burrow or make hides under rocks in the wild webbing up the entire enclosure, I need to make adjustments because I'm doing something wrong. Out of the many P murinus specimens I've kept I've never had one web up the entire enclosure, and they are usually out every night... I attribute this to giving them a secure hollow for them to reside in, similar to what I've gathered they live in naturally. https://www.tarantupedia.com/harpactirinae/pterinochilus/pterinochilus-murinus

All that being said, sprucing up the enclosure can be fun and there are occasional surprises that come from it. Spartan enclosures aren't necessarily bad though if needs are being met and the spiders are thriving.

 

[RezonantVoid]

I'm late to the discussion but will throw in my opinion. Many terrestrial tarantulas found in the wild are basically found in dirt. I don't just mean inside the burrow, but surrounding it too. This is definitely the case with SW US Aphonopelma a lot of the time, literally a hole with a web veil surrounded by... several meters of dirt and pebbles. I've also found them in grassland, but can't ever remember seeing them extensively incorporate the grass into their burrows. When I owned Aphonopelma, I used dirt harvested in the wild, wetted and dried, with a pre-dug burrow and no accouterments, which resulted in very similar behavior to what I was seeing in the wild.

I've watched a lot of videos of tarantulas in their natural habitat and many of them from around the world are basically found in their nests with pretty barren immediate surroundings. Not all, but many. Burrows dug into dirt embankments with almost no plant life around, arboreal spiders webbed into crevices in the trees with no plants to be found in the video shot, spiders using natural hollows under tree roots with very little plant life nearby. Taking all this in tells me that they do fine living like that in the wild (do they actually choose to?), and I've found that most of them do equally fine when kept similarly in captivity.

To me, the main thing is to use queues from the spiders' behavior to determine if something seems off. If I've got a species that is normally known to burrow or make hides under rocks in the wild webbing up the entire enclosure, I need to make adjustments because I'm doing something wrong. Out of the many P murinus specimens I've kept I've never had one web up the entire enclosure, and they are usually out every night... I attribute this to giving them a secure hollow for them to reside in, similar to what I've gathered they live in naturally. https://www.tarantupedia.com/harpactirinae/pterinochilus/pterinochilus-murinus

All that being said, sprucing up the enclosure can be fun and there are occasional surprises that come from it. Spartan enclosures aren't necessarily bad though if needs are being met and the spiders are thriving.

But even in those cases, what I enjoy doing is finding what type of dirt suits them best.

Down here we have a family called Anamidae, IMO some of the nicest looking spiders in the country. If they were comparable in size to tarantulas, I reckon they'd be the envy of the world.


These are primarily found in nothing but arid sandy habitats. Very standard as far as spiders go.

You put these in the standard peat/coir setup, you will kill them in usually 6 months or much less, they will refuse food and starve themselves while constantly pacing the surface. This exact family was one of the primary motivators for me to advance my husbandry, and giving them excavator clay and desert sand ended up being the best solution after a year or so of experimentation.

The biggest lesson I learnt from keeping these is even species from the most bland habitats we can imagine may be much more complicated than we think

 

[campj]

But even in those cases, what I enjoy doing is finding what type of dirt suits them best.

Totally agree, especially when it comes to species that have specific substrate requirements (moisture retention, ability to hold a burrow, scenarios like you describe, etc). Ideally, collecting dirt from where the spiders are endemic to is best. I've got a S. crassipes, mail me some dirt dude!

 

[curtisgiganteus]

I’m late to this topic but I think we need an overhaul. If you look at genus like Birupes and Typhoclaena you get reports of apathetic feeding responses, however I feel as though it isn’t so much the species in captivity but the way we house them. Replicating their natural environment as closely as possible is what we should aim for. The if it’s not broke don’t fix it mentality is why the American hobby is years behind the European hobby. And that’s just our approach to husbandry. Dont get me started on how we interact with each other on here. Sometimes I’m ashamed of being associated…

Totally agree, especially when it comes to species that have specific substrate requirements (moisture retention, ability to hold a burrow, scenarios like you describe, etc). Ideally, collecting dirt from where the spiders are endemic to is best. I've got a S. crassipes, mail me some dirt dude!

I think that’s the advanced part of husbandry that is the most fun for me. Asking myself “what qualities does dirt from X have and how can I replicate that in captivity. Diving even further
, what plants can I find endemic to this species country of origin that can live in substrate with X, y, and Z qualities I’ve been able to replicate

 

[RezonantVoid]

Totally agree, especially when it comes to species that have specific substrate requirements (moisture retention, ability to hold a burrow, scenarios like you describe, etc). Ideally, collecting dirt from where the spiders are endemic to is best. I've got a S. crassipes, mail me some dirt dude!

I kid you not I've paid people to ship me over small containers of local sub sometimes or at the very least a small bag I can use as consistency reference. Depending on the species, I also like to get moss, leaf litter and springtails local to them sent as well, I did this recently to kick-start bioactivity in a setup for massive rainforest harvestmen and I the springtail populations established faster than I thought possible.

Give me some tank dimensions and I'll see what I can do!!

 

[campj]

I’m late to this topic but I think we need an overhaul. If you look at genus like Birupes and Typhoclaena you get reports of apathetic feeding responses, however I feel as though it isn’t so much the species in captivity but the way we house them. Replicating their natural environment as closely as possible is what we should aim for. The if it’s not broke don’t fix it mentality is why the American hobby is years behind the European hobby. And that’s just our approach to husbandry. Dont get me started on how we interact with each other on here. Sometimes I’m ashamed of being associated…

Not sure I agree. In America we tailor care requirements based on species (thinking about it, may have to say genus actually) fairly well for the most part (folks who are passionate and serious keepers anyway), and have fairly long established techniques that legitimately work. Using examples that are relatively new and scarce in the US hobby but a bit more established and understood in Europe as an indicator that we need a major overhaul is a bit unfair. Give it some time and if the spiders you mention become well established here, I'm sure we'll find lots of specialized care tips that lead to healthy spiders.

I do admire the European approach, gotta say they're pretty darn good at this. There are a LOT of very skilled keepers, breeders, and vendors in the US though.

I kid you not I've paid people to ship me over small containers of local sub sometimes or at the very least a small bag I can use as consistency reference. Depending on the species, I also like to get moss, leaf litter and springtails local to them sent as well, I did this recently to kick-start bioactivity in a setup for massive rainforest harvestmen and I the springtail populations established faster than I thought possible.

Give me some tank dimensions and I'll see what I can do!!

That's awesome, you're going above and beyond.

Ah, my crassipes is just a little tike right now. Hoping it's a female, and if so I might seriously take you up on this. Thanks!

 

[RezonantVoid]

That's awesome, you're going above and beyond.

Ah, my crassipes is just a little tike right now. Hoping it's a female, and if so I might seriously take you up on this. Thanks!

If you power feed it and keep it in warm temperatures (between 26°c and 35°c), and its not a mature male by 18 months old and 4-5" DLS, it's safe to say you've got a female. Phlogius are very fast growers in the right conditions and males speedrun maturity in like 14 months from sling to adulthood sometimes

 

[Dorifto]

I'm late to the discussion but will throw in my opinion. Many terrestrial tarantulas found in the wild are basically found in dirt. I don't just mean inside the burrow, but surrounding it too. This is definitely the case with SW US Aphonopelma a lot of the time, literally a hole with a web veil surrounded by... several meters of dirt and pebbles. I've also found them in grassland, but can't ever remember seeing them extensively incorporate the grass into their burrows. When I owned Aphonopelma, I used dirt harvested in the wild, wetted and dried, with a pre-dug burrow and no accouterments, which resulted in very similar behavior to what I was seeing in the wild.

I've watched a lot of videos of tarantulas in their natural habitat and many of them from around the world are basically found in their nests with pretty barren immediate surroundings. Not all, but many. Burrows dug into dirt embankments with almost no plant life around, arboreal spiders webbed into crevices in the trees with no plants to be found in the video shot, spiders using natural hollows under tree roots with very little plant life nearby. Taking all this in tells me that they do fine living like that in the wild (do they actually choose to?), and I've found that most of them do equally fine when kept similarly in captivity.

To me, the main thing is to use queues from the spiders' behavior to determine if something seems off. If I've got a species that is normally known to burrow or make hides under rocks in the wild webbing up the entire enclosure, I need to make adjustments because I'm doing something wrong. Out of the many P murinus specimens I've kept I've never had one web up the entire enclosure, and they are usually out every night... I attribute this to giving them a secure hollow for them to reside in, similar to what I've gathered they live in naturally. https://www.tarantupedia.com/harpactirinae/pterinochilus/pterinochilus-murinus

All that being said, sprucing up the enclosure can be fun and there are occasional surprises that come from it. Spartan enclosures aren't necessarily bad though if needs are being met and the spiders are thriving.

They are found where their requeriments are met. If a bare rock/crevice meets it, then they will choose it over anything else, if a burrow beneath a plant provides those requeriments too, the same.

Under out care, basically what most people do it's to provide an enclosure with no options to choose from. So if the enclosure does not meet their requeriments, regardless if it's a plain dirt box or a fully planted one, it is forcing the T to actuate in order to protect itself.

Solution? Providing gradients. Then adjust your husbandry based on your T's prefference, but still keeping a variety of temp and moisture ranges.

This will work for in a simple or a more elavorated setup.

 

[RezonantVoid]

Under out care, basically what most people do it's to provide an enclosure with no options to choose from. So if the enclosure does not meet their requeriments, regardless if it's a plain dirt box or a fully planted one, it is forcing the T to actuate in order to protect itself.

This is exactly what I see for pretty much every single trapdoor enclosure on social media, this site is no exception. People will give a max sized Liphistius for example 4" of flat slightly damp coir, and because the spider has literally nowhere else to burrow, it makes do after a week and the keepers take this as a sign of success.

If we look at Liphistius naturally, a quick google of their wild habitats brings up excellent YT footage and several google images showing their true preferences; steep, almost vertical clay-loam slopes, as the huge majority of other trapdoors globally will also prefer. Now I challenge you to search "Liphistius trapdoor enclosure" and find a captive setup that actually recreates this. I've mentioned their example on this site before and had replies along the lines of "they only live like that in the wild for water drainage, which isn't an issue in captivity and is therefore not important". Yet, the spider will still if given option just about always choose to burrow exactly as they do in the wild. Such a mentality dumbfounds me because one is full well knowingly bottlenecking a spider's behaviour just because they don't feel the spider needs to do it. To me it's moreso saying "I can't be bothered to setup an ideal enclosure, so the spider will have to just put up with it."

I don't want to derail any further from tarantulas, but I think this attitude towards keeping other mygs still goes hand in hand with the way we house vastly larger and more popular tarantulas. If we give them basically the bare minimum, see them appearing to make do and mentally view this as successful keeping, we could be ignoring potential behavioural preferences that are prevented from how we do things. This is exactly what I myself used to do when starting out.

On that note, something that was mentioned a few times in previous responses back in 2021 which I don't think I really addressed was that it makes more sense to give new keepers simple advice to get them going on the right track, "advanced" setups can be saved for later when the keepers are more comfortable. While I do see the reasoning behind this point, my biggest eternal regret as a spider keeper of 5 years and an arachnid keeper of 11 is not aiming for naturalistic housing right from the outset. There were so many fragile species that would still be with me today if I had been encouraged to take this approach from the get go, even if it made starting out a little harder.

 

[Smotzer]

On that note, something that was mentioned a few times in previous responses back in 2021 which I don't think I really addressed was that it makes more sense to give new keepers simple advice to get them going on the right track, "advanced" setups can be saved for later when the keepers are more comfortable. While I do see the reasoning behind this point, my biggest eternal regret as a spider keeper of 5 years and an arachnid keeper of 11 is not aiming for naturalistic housing right from the outset. There were so many fragile species that would still be with me today if I had been encouraged to take this approach from the get go, even if it made starting out a little harder.

I am still guilty of making this recommendation as well and that is mainly because for most people successfully keeping the plants alive can be a challenge because there is definitely a learning curve but there is something to be said that there are huge benefits for starting out understanding environmental characteristics that can be very important for some species that offer tangible benefits to the animal in question. How do you suggest we mitigate the learning curve but also recommend higher levels of keeping to people who are new?

 

[l4nsky]

I am still guilty of making this recommendation as well and that is mainly because for most people successfully keeping the plants alive can be a challenge because there is definitely a learning curve but there is something to be said that there are huge benefits for starting out understanding environmental characteristics that can be very important for some species that offer tangible benefits to the animal in question. How do you suggest we mitigate the learning curve but also recommend higher levels of keeping to people who are new?

IMHO, a comprehensive understanding of the stack effect and how to setup an enclosure to take full advantage of it. It's a very simple concept to grasp and should be required knowledge for anyone keeping flora or fauna in an enclosed environment. If you don't have to worry about air stagnation or water-logged substrate and the complications that come with both, then the learning curve is much shallower and more forgiving for bioactive/naturalistic setups.

 

[Smotzer]

IMHO, a comprehensive understanding of the stack effect and how to setup an enclosure to take full advantage of it. It's a very simple concept to grasp and should be required knowledge for anyone keeping flora or fauna in an enclosed environment. If you don't have to worry about air stagnation or water-logged substrate and the complications that come with both, then the learning curve is much shallower and more forgiving for bioactive/naturalistic setups.

Valid point, in reality it is not that complicated but often times I see that the basics of it are done wrong or are borrowed from sensationalized "bioactive" marketing terms which just miss the point of creating natural set ups that serve a purpose beyond just "bioactive" which is just a useless concept. I suppose the issue is misinformation surround what the point of naturalistic enviornments are and how to do them correctly. Thoughts?

 

[RezonantVoid]

I am still guilty of making this recommendation as well and that is mainly because for most people successfully keeping the plants alive can be a challenge because there is definitely a learning curve but there is something to be said that there are huge benefits for starting out understanding environmental characteristics that can be very important for some species that offer tangible benefits to the animal in question. How do you suggest we mitigate the learning curve but also recommend higher levels of keeping to people who are new?

I think the most important thing to begin with is simply an appreciation for how a species lives and behaves in the wild. If one takes these things into account, any extra effort required to make an ideal setup doesn't feel annoying at all and simply becomes part of the normal enclosure making process. I feel that's where many of us (early me was no exception) have begun to fall short, find the quickest and cheapest methods that seem to work and apply them to literally every species we own without any extra thought.

To aid with helping keepers gain such insights, I think collectors globally need to be much more informative to buyers about habitat factors, such as the things I've mentioned previously (soil type/texture, moisture levels, types of plants, burrow depth, any possible interactions between wild spiders and their surroundings). This doesn't even require them to give away exact coordinates or locations and I don't think would really increase the number of poached specimens. More transparency for stuff like that gives keepers new and old an exponentially greater foundation for an enclosure than just "here is a new terrestrial tarantula/trapdoor/whatever, it's comes from <insert country here>". In turn, i think it's a keepers responsibility to ask as many questions as necessary to collectors instead of just accepting the immediate information provided (again, I was no exception to this, I used to place alot of trust in whatever I saw in bug shop website descriptions without asking any further questions).

Finally, I feel people view setting up natural enclosures as much more intimidating than it actually is. No fancy $300+ lighting is needed, a cheap white LED unit with around 4000 lumens output or higher is easily sufficient to grow many types of moss, ferns, liverworts, spike moss/Selaginella even with glass or plastic lids on the setups, and I'd assume other popular tank plants overseas would also do fine under the same thing. Depending on the type required, small amounts of soil/clay can be easily acquired from either outside or online. Consistency seems to be the biggest factor IME, I don't recommend going to the point of matching the exact mineral composition of wild substrate (far too complicated). For example excavator clay, red desert sand and water in varying ratios can suit many different trapdoors (and at least Australian tarantulas seem to love it as well).

I could go on and on, but the watered down summary of it is to inform others, investigate and experiment