Paiige
Arachnobaron
- Joined
- Oct 2, 2016
- Messages
- 335
This thing does not eat. Or I'm now just being a paranoid mother.
Of course I'm telling myself it's in pre-molt. It probably is. But I just wanted to put this out there just in case. I brought it home in August, about 1.75" or so with mostly adult coloration, had the sling stripes on its bum but that's about it. It molted within 3 days of bringing it home (8/9/16 is the molt date) and has had a healthy appetite up until two months ago. So I figured pre-molt and have not really been giving it much thought - I try feeding it, it kills the crickets and leaves them right next to the water dish for me to clean out.
My only concern now is that its bum is starting to look small and a little shriveled. It has no reason to be dehydrated - I catch it wandering around the water dish from time to time and it clearly knows it's there. Aside from that, the substrate is dry and there's plenty of it, I keep the enclosure clean and dead-cricket free and it seems to be behaving normally. I've also done some reading that says at its size (2.25-2.5") it probably shouldn't have full adult coloring.
Is it possible that I just have a very tiny male? It destroyed the last molt and I had figured that it would have been too small to tell the sex anyway so I didn't try to salvage it.
I'm used to exasperatingly long pre-molt cycles thanks to my porteri (it's been 3 years since her last molt and she's been in pre-molt for more than 6 months now) but this seems like a long time for a juvenile of a "fast" growing species. Anyone have any words of wisdom or experience with their cyaneopubescens? I want another one for sure because they're beautiful but this little one is certainly stressing me out.
Of course I'm telling myself it's in pre-molt. It probably is. But I just wanted to put this out there just in case. I brought it home in August, about 1.75" or so with mostly adult coloration, had the sling stripes on its bum but that's about it. It molted within 3 days of bringing it home (8/9/16 is the molt date) and has had a healthy appetite up until two months ago. So I figured pre-molt and have not really been giving it much thought - I try feeding it, it kills the crickets and leaves them right next to the water dish for me to clean out.
My only concern now is that its bum is starting to look small and a little shriveled. It has no reason to be dehydrated - I catch it wandering around the water dish from time to time and it clearly knows it's there. Aside from that, the substrate is dry and there's plenty of it, I keep the enclosure clean and dead-cricket free and it seems to be behaving normally. I've also done some reading that says at its size (2.25-2.5") it probably shouldn't have full adult coloring.
Is it possible that I just have a very tiny male? It destroyed the last molt and I had figured that it would have been too small to tell the sex anyway so I didn't try to salvage it.
I'm used to exasperatingly long pre-molt cycles thanks to my porteri (it's been 3 years since her last molt and she's been in pre-molt for more than 6 months now) but this seems like a long time for a juvenile of a "fast" growing species. Anyone have any words of wisdom or experience with their cyaneopubescens? I want another one for sure because they're beautiful but this little one is certainly stressing me out.