Find the Feeders

kristal_kaos

Arachnoknight
Old Timer
Joined
Mar 10, 2007
Messages
200
Ok, I have a few Ts and when they are done eating, and I go in to retrieve the carcasses to avoid mold and stuff, I cant find the feeder bugs anywhere in the tank!! And Im not comfy going into her hide to look, lol....what do I do? Should I routinely clean out the tank every few months to avoid grossies?
 

green_bottle_04

Arachnobaron
Old Timer
Joined
Dec 4, 2006
Messages
437
Ok, I have a few Ts and when they are done eating, and I go in to retrieve the carcasses to avoid mold and stuff, I cant find the feeder bugs anywhere in the tank!! And Im not comfy going into her hide to look, lol....what do I do? Should I routinely clean out the tank every few months to avoid grossies?
i wouldnt really worry too much about it. just, as you said, clean out the tank every couple of months (3-4)and you should be fine. i never worry with the carcasses as there is very rarely anything left thats visable.
 
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monitormonster

Arachnoknight
Old Timer
Joined
Mar 12, 2007
Messages
196
Yeah, my T's seem to eat most of the crickets they get, I rarely see any left-overs.

From what I have heard, unless the tank is smelly or something, it only needs to be cleaned out a few times a year
 

Cirith Ungol

Ministry of Fluffy Bunnies
Old Timer
Joined
Dec 22, 2004
Messages
3,886
If you are keeping the tank moist you'll eventually end up with some local mould. If you are keeping the tank moist and warm you might end up with bigger mould patches and possibly mites (of which some are good and some ar very bad).

If you can, find some springtails, introduce them to the tank. I absolutely love the guys! I have about 100K in a little box I keep some oothecas in and I'm keeping that box moist and warm all the time and I don't have any mould at all, they're leaving the eggsacs alone and I've never seen one crawl on a roach baby. But what I've seen is that they have eaten roaches that didn't make it. So they're the perfect cleanup crew, even too small to eat for slings (contrary to many pillbugs which people prefer as cleaners).
 

Cirith Ungol

Ministry of Fluffy Bunnies
Old Timer
Joined
Dec 22, 2004
Messages
3,886
where do I get those, what are they called?
I'd guess you'll find 'em everywhere in slightly to very moist soil all arround the world. But the safest way of getting some would proberbly be by looking for them in the wild (they shun the light so you might have to turn some leaves or sticks or stones) and collecting them one by one.

Another method would be to check in bought plant soil - moisten some of it and put it into some kind of small container. Put that warm and then look after 2 weeks.

Now you'd only want springtails, not mites, so just going out into the wild, digging up a spoon of soil and tossing that into a T tank wouldn't be a good idea.

A little more info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springtail

The ones I have are 1mm long and look whitish. The only thing I guess you can really do to see if the ones you'll find are ok to keep with inverts is to put them with a cricket or roach and see if they start crawling allover that insect (in bunches! Some individual doing that won't matter). If not then they're harmless.

One characteristic is that they can hop if disturbed and one easy way to collect them could be to pour some water into a little dent on the ground and if you see something move on the water to suck it up with a syringe. But then you'd have to make sure what you have there are springtails and separate some individuals.

If you can collect a handful (well, not a handfull, that would mean a few million :D ) just put them in a box with moist soil and put it warm. After a month you'll have more than you know what to do with.

Found more info:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alan.cann/articles/springtails.html
 

Lover of 8 legs

Arachnoknight
Old Timer
Joined
Oct 19, 2005
Messages
209
I keep my tanks dry except for water dish. If I see remains I remove it. When an exuvium is left accessible, I remove it. I don't want people knocking on my door so I don't knock on theirs.;)
 

mcy

Arachnoknight
Old Timer
Joined
Jul 21, 2006
Messages
180
i always pull the back legs off of crickets before i feed that prevents about 98% of mold
 

NixHexDude

Arachnoknight
Old Timer
Joined
Apr 20, 2006
Messages
298
Many T's won't eat the hindlegs/wings of crickets. My B. vagans for example likes to make a little pile in the corner of its enclosure of its leftovers.
 
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