Has anyone her ever provided TOO GOOD of a habitat for your Tarantula?

Great Basin Ben

Arachnosquire
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Oct 2, 2010
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Hey everybody,

I was curious, have any of you done SUCH a good job on your T's enclosure, that they essentially create a naturalistic type of burrow, and RARELy show their pretty little faces.

I just recently aquired an Aphonopelma sp. "Sonoma?" and after a day of settling in, she's dug a very healthy burrow, and only pokes her front pedipalps out in the evening, and to get the cricket that I put in there every few days. Aside from that, she seems MOSt content in her burrow, just like she was in the Southwest Desert.

How many of you NEVER see your T? And for those of you that rarely do, how do you go about cleaning the enclosure, or do you just dismantle everything, and let them build it all back over after it's been cleaned?
 

CodeWilster

Arachnobaron
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Aug 13, 2008
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Tank I had a couple years ago for a massive T. sp "Burgandy". There were so many springtails and isopods in there I never had to clean the tank, just mist here and there. She still lives in this tank but it's been redone since (experimenting with different live plants, and cut the substrate volume in half). I would only see her legs at the burrow entrance, if I was lucky.







A few weeks later without any pruning:





 

BigJ999

Arachnoknight
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Sep 1, 2010
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Dang wow that is really a pretty enclosure :D its realistic to say the least great job :D
 

CodeWilster

Arachnobaron
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Thanks, it was fun but I am trying to modify it to where the plants are easier to control and the T is more visible. Currently waiting for the new plants to grow and spread a bit before I post pics somewhere of the current tank.

I think for those that want to set up a tropical planted tank, be sure to free some isopods and springtails in there before the molds/fungi grow, it makes a huge difference.
 

pouchedrat

Arachnolord
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Aug 17, 2008
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pics of that enclosure is why I purchased my T. sp. burgundy sling last year, lol.

I have a blue fang I NEVER see, ever.. she's also torn off leaves and debris from the plants growing in her tank to create a massive web funnel up from the ground to the very top of the enclosure. it's only a 5 1/2 gallon tank and she's not full grown yet (close), but dang, I wonder how tall that funnel will go if she was in a much taller enclosure?
 

LV-426

Arachnobaron
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Sep 26, 2010
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497
I think it has to do with a Ts behavior more than an enclosure. They like to hide thats their nature. Like in the book Tarantulas and other Arachnids says, u gotta get inside of the mind of a T:D
 

Lorum

Arachnosquire
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Jun 10, 2010
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I was curious, have any of you done SUCH a good job on your T's enclosure, that they essentially create a naturalistic type of burrow, and RARELy show their pretty little faces.
I like naturalistic enclosures, but I also think that not always a "happy" (I just can't find the accurate words in english, so I use "happy" knowing that a tarantula can't be happy) T is a hidden T.

I have seen a lot of T's that "feel very comfortable" in their enclosures and stay all the day out of their burrows. If they get disturbed by any movement, they run and get hide, but they "prefer" to stay out of their burrow (or "showing" their legs) in order to have a wider range of sensitivity to feel prey's motion, I think. So, I think it depends mostly on the spider, not on the enclosure (always that it provides conditions such as enough substrate to allow burrowing, hiding places, etc.).

Don't want to start an argument, those are just my thoughts.:D
 

Great Basin Ben

Arachnosquire
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Oct 2, 2010
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Perhaps "happy" was more of a human choice of words. What I could have said would have been that they feel in equilibrium with their environment, much like they would likely exibit, in the wild.

From ALL that I've observed, and read, female, adult Aphonopelma species, are most at equilibrium, down in their burrows, rarely leaving, with the exception to eat, or briefly to mate.

So I feel happy, knowing that she's exibiting the same behavior that a healthy, wild counterpart of hers would, but I doubt I'll get to see her much, if all she want to do is hang her legs out of the front door. HAHA!
 

Morris23352

Arachnopeon
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Oct 5, 2010
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Thats a really nice enclousure. I like hoe the live plants are real 6ushy and the hide is also good
 

AbraxasComplex

Arachnoprince
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Oct 23, 2007
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Beautifully done. I've done several enclosures that are fully planted and sometimes the result is not seeing the tarantula for months on end.
 

AmbushArachnids

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Thats a wonderful enclosure! But like he said, the isopods make a big difference. Enclosures with live plants are very hard to maintain. They can be a host for parasites and a world of troublesome pests. It looks beautiful though! :worship:
 

Bill S

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I like naturalistic enclosures, but I also think that not always a "happy" (I just can't find the accurate words in english, so I use "happy" knowing that a tarantula can't be happy) T is a hidden T.

I have seen a lot of T's that "feel very comfortable" in their enclosures and stay all the day out of their burrows. If they get disturbed by any movement, they run and get hide, but they "prefer" to stay out of their burrow (or "showing" their legs) in order to have a wider range of sensitivity to feel prey's motion, I think. So, I think it depends mostly on the spider, not on the enclosure (always that it provides conditions such as enough substrate to allow burrowing, hiding places, etc.).

Don't want to start an argument, those are just my thoughts.:D
That's an interesting perspective. It makes sense that a tarantula might come out further from its burrow if it feels more secure (¿seguridad en lugar de felizidad?), and insecurity may make it hide more. Lots of things might make it feel insecure, but human interaction/attention might be top of the list in captivity.
 

curiousme

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Thats a wonderful enclosure! But like he said, the isopods make a big difference. Enclosures with live plants are very hard to maintain. They can be a host for parasites and a world of troublesome pests. It looks beautiful though! :worship:
They can be as hard or easy as you want them to be, but IMO they are pretty easy. All of our adult enclosures are planted and we have never had parasites, or troublesome pests. If you consider pruning and watering to be hard, then yes I guess you could call them hard....... We hope to have more variety of plants once we get some more youngins grown up and then perhaps we will have to worry over humidity and misters, but I wouldn't call that hard either. :?


Code~ that is a beautiful enclosure, absolutely spectacular. Too bad we never want to own a T of that genus or species, or we could landscape something like that in a few years! It truly is a marvelous enclosure though!:clap:

Ben~ The only cleaning you need to do on an enclosure is removing of boluses(food waste) and cleaning and filling the water dish. Unless you have a MAJOR infestation of something harmful that you can't get under control in any other way, there is no reason to change out substrate. It is stressful to do so, especially when the T has been settled into its enclosure for weeks/ months/ years.

We have a couple enclosures that we have put together for Ts that we rarely see. One being our P. murinus, which we did not anticipate becoming reclusive when placed in a 15 gallon tank. The other is our Haplopelma sp.Vietnam, which is an obligate burrower; so we knew we wouldn't see much of her. Since our goal is to provide an environment that is better than what they would have in the wild, it can be seen as a compliment to have a T settle in so well.;) Yes, we would love to see them, but more importantly we want them to feel safe and 'content'. Adding plants to the enclosure will make it so you always have something pretty to look at!

Here are pics of our H. sp.Vietnam's enclosure:

the first night, before we put her in it



6 or so months later



another 6 months or so later and lusher



 

Ictinike

Arachnobaron
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@Curious

Is that Potho's or some of the wandering Jew you've used in the past I've seen? I've been working to grow a bit of pothos here just in a pot and it's getting to the point I could snip a few starters off and place inside my avics enclosures.
 

curiousme

Arachnoprince
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@Curious

Is that Potho's or some of the wandering Jew you've used in the past I've seen? I've been working to grow a bit of pothos here just in a pot and it's getting to the point I could snip a few starters off and place inside my avics enclosures.
That's pothos that you mainly see. It was one long strand clipped from a larger plant, that looped itself over and over and grew like crazy. There is an unknown plant in there as well that was purchased at Walmart on clearance and some moss that we brought back from a trip, but it has since died off. :( We found out that it would need a dormant period that we couldn't really provide it with.:(
 

micheldied

Arachnoprince
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My H. Lividum's pretty much disappeared... Oh wait, or is that normal?
 

Great Basin Ben

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Oct 2, 2010
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How do I go about removing the boluses from the burrow, or when there's enough, will she push them out? I watched her OM NOM NOM on the crickets, so I know she ate them, but I do not see any food waste anywhere outside of her newly created burrow...
 
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