Giant vinegaroons mated. Change cage now?

[Lazarus Laboratories]

Hey, all!

Just joined, so please inform if I'm not following proper posting procedure.

My giant vinegaroons mated last night. Now what? The female has 3 inches of soil in her enclosure, but someone one this forum said she typically makes a softball sized den underground, and hangs from the ceiling for months. Is this true? Should I add much more soil? Thank you for your expertise.

BTW caught the whole thing in hi def w two cameras. Will edit & post round Christmas time when I'm off work.

Thanks again!

 

[sschind]

WOW congrats, one of my goals it to breed these amazing creatures. I did have 1 WC female deliver me about 30 babies but I have never bred them myself. I had maybe 3-4 inches of substrate in my female's cage and she did fine but a second female aborted her eggs. I have no idea if that had anything to do with the soil depth or not. If am ever able to successfully mate them I think I will set her up with a little deeper substrate. If I were you I'd go with a little more, like 5 inches or so just to be safe but I also think you would be fine leaving it as is.

as far as burying herself for several months that is exactly what she will do, I'm not sure about the hanging upside down part. I could see mine through the opaque plastic of her bin and I could just make out the white egg sack but to be honest I couldn't tell her orientation. I didn't think she was hanging upside down but I could be wrong.

 

[Lazarus Laboratories]

Hey thanks, sschind! Here's the setup that led up to the romance. I slid a glass panel down the center of a 10g tank, set up environments on both sides, put the female in one, and the male in the other. I intended for them to be separate, but the glass divider was not flush against the inner sides of the tank, and the male was able to sense the female with his sensy legs. She ignored him, but for the longest time, he REALLY wanted to be with her.

Then the other night, after six weeks of being kept as described, I looked in the cage & saw the male on the female's side! He had managed to dig under the glass. I filmed the whole thing as you know, and put him back in his side, dumbly thinking that we would not cross again. He did. But this time, the female was way less receptive. I got the sense she just wanted to eat him, and I think he got that sense too. I filmed all that as well, then secured the divider, and returned him once more to his side- hopefully for good (for now).

My only hypothesis re why the mating worked is that they got to sense each other for 6 weeks prior to their encounter. Should you find yourself trying to mate vinegaroons again, you might try something similar. Or not. I have no idea why they mated. It was certainly with no help from me.

You said you had a female who aborted her eggs. What does that look like- did she dump or eat them?

Thanks for writing!

 

[Galapoheros]

That was probably my post you read about them hanging upside down. That was my first experience with them having babies over 25 years ago, I don’t know if it’s normal. Hanging upside down while laying eggs may be preferred due to what looks like the nature of it all working with gravity because the sack full of eggs come out from underneath and stick underneath the abdomen. But they may not need to hang upside down for that, it’s only what a saw the first time. I had one that had babies months ago but I couldn’t see her. 5 inches will work but you should get a big flat rock, a piece of wood, at least something for her to dig under so she can make her room.