Hack my Hobby

[aprilmayjunebugs]

to suck up large fruit flies

Like, with your own face???

We just take them outside when we dump FFs in, but they still end up on me somehow.

 

[CommanderBacon]

Like, with your own face???

We just take them outside when we dump FFs in, but they still end up on me somehow.

Yeah, with your facehole!


I slam the fly container down on the counter a few times, open it up, dump a few flies into a bowl, and suck them up. The pantyhose part goes in your mouth, the flies go up the tube. You can put your finger over the end to keep them in there.

It's just important to not BLOW the flies into an enclosure or you can send a sling flying. They don't like that so much. They're not very aerodynamic.

 

[aprilmayjunebugs]

Invest in a pair of 15" hemostats. These are my go to choice when removing corkbark from enclosures during rehouses. Grabbing the cork with tongs, especially long tongs, isnt ideal as the cork can slip and injure the T or spook it. Hemostats offer much better control.

I like this one, I definitely need to get some of these. Which also reminds me of a tip I'd give myself if I could go back in time, don't splurge on the fake rock water dishes that you can't grab with tongs!

 

[Frogdaddy]

I would say, keeping several gallons of distilled water in your emergency preparedness kit is not only a good idea, but you can rotate fresh ones in as you use the ones you have on hand to hydrate your spiders.

I would not use distilled water. It is devoid of essential minerals lost in the distillation process. Spring water or drinking water is better.

 

[Frogdaddy]

I would say, keeping several gallons of distilled water in your emergency preparedness kit is not only a good idea, but you can rotate fresh ones in as you use the ones you have on hand to hydrate your spiders.

I would not use distilled water. It is devoid of essential minerals lost in the distillation process. Spring water or drinking water is better.

Straw with pantyhose over the end to suck up large fruit flies for the tiniest inverts, like baby jumpers and baby mantids.

Interesting. I've kept dart frogs for years, never tried this. I make about 15 cultures per week, I just put the entire culture in the freezer for about 2 minutes. The FF's slow down and almost become inactive. Easy to shake them into another cup and they remain inactive for a few minutes so it's easy to shake a few into an enclosure. Just a tip.

 

[aprilmayjunebugs]

I slam the fly container down on the counter a few times, open it up, dump a few flies into a bowl, and suck them up. The pantyhose part goes in your mouth, the flies go up the tube. You can put your finger over the end to keep them in there.

It's just important to not BLOW the flies into an enclosure or you can send a sling flying. They don't like that so much. They're no

Duh, put 'em in a bowl first, that makes sense. Thanks, I'll have to give that one a try.

 

[CommanderBacon]

I would not use distilled water. It is devoid of essential minerals lost in the distillation process. Spring water or drinking water is better.

Interesting. I've kept dart frogs for years, never tried this. I make about 15 cultures per week, I just put the entire culture in the freezer for about 2 minutes. The FF's slow down and almost become inactive. Easy to shake them into another cup and they remain inactive for a few minutes so it's easy to shake a few into an enclosure. Just a tip.

I don't need to shake a bunch into anything if I am feeding one very tiny animal. I'm also easily distracted. I would probably forget I put them in there

 

[Frogdaddy]

True dat. I've never fed FF's to a T.
I'm used to trying to feed 30 enclosures full of frogs before the flies wake up.

 

[CommanderBacon]

I would not use distilled water. It is devoid of essential minerals lost in the distillation process. Spring water or drinking water is better.

hmm HMM I gotta think about this. Thanks for bringing that up. Hmm.

Duh, put 'em in a bowl first, that makes sense. Thanks, I'll have to give that one a try.

If you shake the bowl, they can't climb up the side while you suck them up.

It sounds gross at first to suck up fruit flies but it's nbd. I find it lets me deliver a precise amount of fruit flies, especially for very tiny spiders who can only eat one large one.

 

[Jess S]

Christmas tree looking a bit dull?
Liven it up by hanging all your saved molts on it. Just like baubles, only better!!

 

[Hardus nameous]

When making lids for aquarium and Exo-Terra enclosures I prefer to use polyethylene plastic sheeting rather than plexiglass. The stuff drills like butter and doesn't crack.
As a bonus if I ever screw it up I can always weld it back together.
I guess technically you could recycle plastic grocery bags by melting them down and casting your own sheets; most grocery bags are HDPE.

 

[Frogdaddy]

If you shake the bowl, they can't climb up the side while you suck them up.

So is that called the shake 'n suck?

 

[viper69]

Something I learned from viper today:

Heating pads underneat T's will kill all of the animals in your house simultaneously. Quick euthanization method!

I found my words. You may read my response there. Clearly I underestimated some of the AB membership in their ability to understand context.

And, by your misunderstanding you would die too.

 

[viper69]

Forgot about that “well ventilated area” a couple of times so I had an angry wife asking me why the kitchen smelled like buttcrack.

Not a great hack, still a work in progress, but the best method I’ve found so far:
When you drill vent holes in plastic, you get those little sharp/spindly plastic tags on the inside of the container. Rather than sand or file them off, since it can destroy the viewing window aspect of the container, I use a wand lighter and get them hot, then use some tweezers and pull them off. Makes it nice and smooth.

I used a small file, never damaged viewing.

But a wand, interesting

 

[EnigmaNyx]

I found my words. You may read my response there. Clearly I underestimated some of the AB membership in their ability to understand context.

And, by your misunderstanding you would die too.

Quick Euthanizing!

 

[scurry]

You can add a lot of functionality to things with like $10 worth of electronic parts from Alibaba and a sautering iron (and sometimes a little bit of coding, depending on what you want to do). I keep a ton of the stuff around for unrelated purposes, but it comes in super handy. I have an enclosure that has a door that likes to pretend it's closed, and then randomly pop open. $10 and 20 minutes worth of soldering later, and it now lights up an LED in that room and sets off a buzzer if the door is open (the buzzer might be coming out, it's annoying when I'm working on the enclosure). Also adding humidity and temperature controlled fans to my dubia roach and cricket colonies today to go with their temp-controlled heaters. And when I get some time, I'm going to add pumps so they get misted automatically (and the fans will click on to clear humidity if the misters get too excited). It'll probably only cost me $50 per enclosure once I'm done, including the heat mat, pump, fan, etc and I basically won't have to do anything but put food in. Although I got some piezo-electric coolers, if they can stay cool enough I can put a little "food box" up top and have a motor kick out a couple blocks of food a day, so I might not even have to do that.

Some of my T cages have LEDs that I put in that change color depending on the time of day (usually something to accent their natural colors during the day, and then red at night). It's not particularly "useful", but the aesthetic is nice, and if you buy and solder your own LEDs, they're very, very cheap. Like a few pennies per LED. Eventually I'll get around to putting temp/humidity monitors in them to let me know when to mist. I don't intend on trying to maintain a particular humidity, just a yellow LED to let me know "hey, it's pretty dry in here, it might be time for a misting". I want to build out a bioactive enclosure, and I think that will require more proactive humidity control than that.

 

[ConstantSorrow]

If you're poor thrifty to buy a soldering iron, a basic woodburning set is a few bucks cheaper at the Home Depot and melts plastic just as well.

 

[l4nsky]

I would not use distilled water. It is devoid of essential minerals lost in the distillation process. Spring water or drinking water is better.

Tarantulas get these micro nutrients and the majority of their water from there prey. Some people dont even keep water dishes with their T's, choosing to have the prey be the only water source and they seem to manage. R/O and distilled water are fine.

 

[Frogdaddy]

Tarantulas get these micro nutrients and the majority of their water from there prey. Some people dont even keep water dishes with their T's, choosing to have the prey be the only water source and they seem to manage. R/O and distilled water are fine.

Feel free to post the study that says T's get those minerals from their prey.

 

[Tarantulafeets]

Christmas tree looking a bit dull?
Liven it up by hanging all your saved molts on it. Just like baubles, only better!!

The molt that I would reccommend is the Poecilotheria "ornamentals"