Heat=my T's are all out!

W

Wompous

Arachnopeon
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Dec 27, 2024
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13
I have 18 T's all housed in my shop/office. Central hvac and insulated and very clean!

I keep the furnace at 57 and air at 84 so we never get below or above that.
All my tanks have 100w bulbs and modulating controllers with probes. Seamless and works amazing! I keep all the tanks at 70 degrees except for my ho chi mein is at 66. The T's have ability to burrow or climb wall and everything in between to achieve hotter or cooler. All of my T's are rocking under this setup. No issues of any kind so the point of this thread is not for feedback on my setup. Just giving current conditions. I have to pay attention to moisture for sure but I got that down. It gets dry!

So I bought and installed a wood burning stove this fall. Half way through winter and I confirmed that the warmer the shop is ( I usually heat the shop to 76-82 and keep it there all day as my office is there). Love it! Free heat and super toasty!

My T's once the shop hits 75 or higher all come out of their burrows in some way shape or form consistently! Some fully some just their legs sticking out.

So my question and what I can't figure out!!!! Do they like the heat or they're all out above grd because they hate it and are to hot?
I'm confident they like it even love it but wanted to post on here for opinions. I know high 80s and 90s are not good for them but 80 degrees I bet their loving life.

Thoughts?

A few pics of what I'm talking about once shop is 80.
 

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cold blood

cold blood

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Tarantulas are drawn to heat.

Upper 80s and even 90 isn't at all detrimental to the vast majority of tarantulas.....cold is far worse
 
Introvertebrate

Introvertebrate

Arachnoprince
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Wompous said:
I have 18 T's all housed in my shop/office. Central hvac and insulated and very clean!

I keep the furnace at 57 and air at 84 so we never get below or above that.
All my tanks have 100w bulbs and modulating controllers with probes. Seamless and works amazing! I keep all the tanks at 70 degrees except for my ho chi mein is at 66. The T's have ability to burrow or climb wall and everything in between to achieve hotter or cooler. All of my T's are rocking under this setup. No issues of any kind so the point of this thread is not for feedback on my setup. Just giving current conditions. I have to pay attention to moisture for sure but I got that down. It gets dry!

So I bought and installed a wood burning stove this fall. Half way through winter and I confirmed that the warmer the shop is ( I usually heat the shop to 76-82 and keep it there all day as my office is there). Love it! Free heat and super toasty!

My T's once the shop hits 75 or higher all come out of their burrows in some way shape or form consistently! Some fully some just their legs sticking out.

So my question and what I can't figure out!!!! Do they like the heat or they're all out above grd because they hate it and are to hot?
I'm confident they like it even love it but wanted to post on here for opinions. I know high 80s and 90s are not good for them but 80 degrees I bet their loving life.

Thoughts?

A few pics of what I'm talking about once shop is 80.
Click to expand...
What kinds of enclosures are you using?
 
F

fcat

Arachnoangel
Arachnosupporter +
Joined
Jan 1, 2023
Messages
884
At 57 I would expect lethargy, poor feeding responses, delayed growth, closed burrows to trap heat, molting complications and death for tropical species. Pure luck for sustained low temps for a species that might experience them in the wild...BUT...they are equipped with deep burrows where the ground temp stays pretty constant despite surface conditions, several feet of dirt for them though, nothing you can provide...best case I would expect they tolerate it but not thrive.

Changing that one parameter and I'd expect to see tarantulas tarantuling.

You've been lucky so far but you aren't out of the clear until everyone successfully molts.

While wood burning might be free for you...it is consuming oxygen, producing smoke and dangerous gas as a byproduct, drying out the air, burning off and circulating any naturally occurring oils in the wood...cedar, pine, being toxic to Ts... This would be the least safe method I could think of, next to placing them in a sunny window. I wouldn't recommend a heating pad to anyone unless they already proved they researched. So get a space heater.

There was a post in the last few months...someone lost their entire collection in a matter of days and the heat source was the only difference. I'll give you a hint...it wasn't a space heater.

You can also find old posts where people lost most/all of their collection after one cold snap.

But many more where the most likely culprit was the T was kept below 70....

The simple advice "if you are comfortable, they are too," is not just an exercise in empathy, it saves lives and allows them to thrive.

A safe way of determining a safe temperature range is looking up their natural habitat and the temperature trends...historical low temperatures would be an outlier, and if they survived it, it's because of stable ground temps.

Money matters to you...so do the math...the first month I turned on an oil radiator style heater, might be $30 a month in electricity.... but I'd lose 4 digits across one species if I kept them like you do. That's only 7/200 Ts for me. I find the cheapest plastic boxes for my Ts...even at $5 ea that's a hefty investment. What would I do with $1000 in plastic if they all died. It's insane to think I've spent that on plastic...but I also filled them with Reptisoil and cork bark. Even $5 in materials (dirt cheap for a pet if you ask me) doubles my invesment. I WISH I could find $5 tarantulas. My partner would pre-divorce me if he knew how much I've got in this hobby 😂 But for the sake of easy math
...Just about the same as buying 18 fancy enclosures and that's not including unnecessary and offensive lighting. If they all die what are you going to do with the equipment. Protect your investment if money is your priority.

I don't mean to sound righteous but research is the best way to protect your investment...I am going to make a huge assumption by the temperatures and the lighting that you at least skipped over some basics about them as animals, but in this case its probably warming the enclosures enough to offset the cold temps enough to not kill them, their behaviors are both instinct and a life saving measure trapping the heat the best they can, and maybe buying you time until morning when you arrive and decide you are too cold to be comfortable. The lighting is for you, not them, and may be another separate reason why they are burrowing. How do tarantulas survive in the wild? How do they detect predators with horrifically bad eyesight? Did you know they don't see well? How many degrees is the lighting warming their enclosures above ambient? What does that do when the ambient temps increase drastically? You will absolutely find the answers here on this site.
 
l4nsky

l4nsky

Aspiring Mad Genius
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Joined
Jan 3, 2019
Messages
1,196
Wompous said:
I always read the ho chi is a highland speices very damp and cool.
Click to expand...
I've made similar observations on their care, namely I noticed a WC female who would cone out of her burrow and climb the walls when supplemental and indirect heating was used to increase her burrow temperature into the high 70's - low 80's. I was also passed a nugget of information about a supposed successful eggsack in Europe where the female was kept at 66°F, however I've never completely verified this myself nor have I attempted to breed them yet.

Just be observant and adjust if necessary ;).
 
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