history of tarantula keeping?

[AphonopelmaTX]

How do you add cross ventilation to a Glass tank , only my custom plexiglass lid I can drill in?

Not sure if this is a serious question, but the answer is "you don't." Drilling into glass just add cross ventilation is completely unnecessary.

 

[Ultum4Spiderz]

Not sure if this is a serious question, but the answer is "you don't." Drilling into glass just add cross ventilation is completely unnecessary.

I asked it as a question but meant it literally, I have no intentions of drilling glass for any reason . Oops my bad haha ..
the cross ventilation thing gets overblown it seems .
I added “Hypothetical question” to avoid confusion about this .

 

[Introvertebrate]

"Cross-ventilation is a natural phenomena where wind, fresh air or a breeze enters upon an opening, such as a window, and flows directly through the space and exits through an opening on the opposite side of the building (where the air pressure is lower)."

Without a fan, ain't much crossin' goin' on anyway.

 

[Wolfram1]

So at the end of the day, it doesn't matter how you provide ventilation for a tarantula so long as adequate ventilation is provided. It doesn't matter what soil to use as a substrate as long as it supports a tarantula's lifestyle.

I haven't been keeping tarantulas for all that long, but i did try to make my own observations were possible and i can certainly agree with this.

the cross ventilation thing gets overblown it seems .

it never was neccessary, but one of the main dangers for our spiders is a cage were adequate ventilation is NOT provided and if you only have top ventilation it changes how an equal amount of ventilation affects the microclimate inside the cage
if you keep that in mind all is fine

 

[IntermittentSygnal]

I got my first T in the late 90's. A Rosehair, because, like others have said, that was all that was available. I kept her on vermiculite with the standard wooden half circle hide and yes, had the dreaded sponge. I also had her in completely the wrong enclosure..a tall, mesh sided reptile enclosure. I'm lucky she survived me. My info likely came from the pet store employee and maybe a book or two, I really don't remember as my memory that far back is a bit holey. A year or so later, I went to a pet store in the mall to get crickets (and a pinky mouse once, which was another huge mistake) and saw a huge arboreal enclosure with 2 Avic avics inside. Me now is aghast at that thought, but me then didn't know squat and thought it was cool. They were next on my list. Later on, that same pet store had a Goliath Birdeater. Wow, what a name and it was huge! Needless to say, that one also joined my wishlist. Unfortunately, I never got those avics and stirmi and had to give away my rosea when I moved across the country.

 

[Elytra and Antenna]

There were intermittent hobbyist magazines but mostly just pricelists from a few mailorder tarantula vendors.

 

[l4nsky]

Nah, I didn’t overlook anything. My statements on cross ventilation comes from hands-on experience as opposed to theory. My preferred method with housing arboreals is to use a large Kritter Keeper style plastic container turned on end so the plastic mesh lid is on the side. Never have I ever needed to drill holes in the opposite side of the mesh lid to produce cross ventilation. For ground-dwelling species I have no standard and proper ventilation is achieved in a variety of ways, but I have never intentionally created cross ventilation.

From how I'm reading everything, you're actually creating cross ventilation by using a vertically orientated Kritter Keeper. Cross ventilation isn't defined as strictly as saying air must travel through the enclosure in a straight line from one enclosure side to the next.

...Without a fan, ain't much crossin' goin' on anyway.

Cross ventilation also isn't defined as strictly as saying air must be mechanically forced through or be exposed to outdoor conditions like wind. It's defined exactly as you said :

"Cross-ventilation is a natural phenomena where wind, fresh air or a breeze enters upon an opening, such as a window, and flows directly through the space and exits through an opening on the opposite side of the building (where the air pressure is lower)."...

So, using this definition and applying it to the Kritter Keeper example above, we can say:

Cross-ventilation is a natural phenomena where fresh air (defined as "the air outside as opposed to that within a room or other enclosed space") enters upon an opening, such as the BOTTOM ventilation panel of the vertical Kritter Keeper lid near the substrate/water bowl, and flows directly through the space and exits through an opening on the opposite side of the Kritter Keeper (where the air pressure is lower, which in this instance, is the TOP ventilation panels of the vertical Kritter Keeper lid).

The bottom and the top are opposite sides of the same enclosure and air naturally rises from the bottom of an enclosed space to the top of an enclosed space via the stack or chimney effect. If that air can escape at the top, it creates a very small vacuum and pulls in cooler, less humid fresh air from the bottom ventilation. This is an example of cross ventilation.

Now I do concede that not all cross-ventilation patterns are created equal (ex all ventilation in the top 25% of the enclosure doesn't really produce air circulation) and full side ventilation isn't really an efficient design for it either, but I stand by my original assessment.

We can agree to disagree, that's fine. I'm not out to change anyone's mind on how to care for their tarantulas. I would like to tell you the story of how my mindset on tarantula care evolved over the years since it is relevant to your statements and this thread.

Back in the late 1980s when my parents bought me my first tarantula, a rose hair, the prevailing method of housing desert species was to use a small glass terrarium with aquarium gravel as a substrate and water provided with a sponge. My rose hair tarantula lived in that type of setup for well over 10 years. During that time it ate and molted as regularly as you would expect a rose hair tarantula to. In the year 2000-2001 I bought a copy of The Tarantula Keeper's Guide by Schultz and Schultz as well as Tarantulas and Other Arachnids by Sam Marshall and started my study of tarantula care. I also started reading all of the web sites I could find for additional tips and tricks. All of a sudden, my rose hair tarantula was apparently housed wrong and I wasn't caring for it correctly!

As a new keeper at the start of the 21st century, I took in all of the information I could find and started panicking that I was causing harm to my tarantula because it wasn't being housed correctly which resulted in me reconfiguring its housing using different containers and substrates. One year potting soil was the "in" substrate, then next it was sphagnum peat moss or vermiculite, some people said a combination of peat moss and vermiculite was best, then it was cocofiber, and some people in Europe were using compost. What was consistent however was that sponges were no good and all tarantulas need a small shallow dish of clean water. The final housing configuration for my rose hair tarantula ended up being a simple plastic shoebox container with a row of holes drilled around the top (but not in the lid), potting soil for substrate, no hide, and a small shallow water dish. That rose hair tarantula ultimately lived for well over 20 years and lived just fine in all of the different housing setups.

As the 2000s progressed, I acquired many more tarantulas of different species and essentially went through the same process of reading and changing the caging because each year it seemed, I was doing something wrong. Every tarantula keeper on the internet, or who published in a society journal, had their theories and justifications for why their way was correct. It occurred to me one day that the best teacher were the tarantulas themselves. As long as their basic needs were met, which differed by habit, they were doing well despite what everyone was saying. Even though my first tarantula lived on gravel and drank from a sponge, it acted no different from when it was housed "properly" with soil.

Now in 2023 reading Arachnoboards I'm seeing history repeat itself. Every few years it seems, someone comes up with some new way of housing tarantulas and justifying it with some overly complicated theory on why it should work. Meanwhile, all of the tarantulas I have had in my possession in the past 10 years were, and still are, being housed in a similar manner I used over 20 years ago. The only conclusion I can draw from all of this experience is that a tarantula's needs (regardless of species) never change. The only thing that does change on a regular basis, is what people believe is best for tarantulas.

So at the end of the day, it doesn't matter how you provide ventilation for a tarantula so long as adequate ventilation is provided. It doesn't matter what soil to use as a substrate as long as it supports a tarantula's lifestyle. The only aspect of tarantula care that is indisputable is that they all need a shallow water dish with clean water, but I can spend a whole thread describing the exceptions to that rule.

When I first started my own journey in this hobby, I voraciously went through any older literature I could acquire and scoured the depths of AB as questions inevitably rose through my own research. While I didn't experience this major formative period of the hobby, the records of the attempts are still there (ie keeping avics in enclosures with water as a substrate) and it doesn't take much effort to see how these husbandry practices have evolved through this trial and error and have ultimately been boiled down to the current set of loosely defined and accepted standards. I get where you're coming from. With that being said, IMHO it's naive to think we've perfected their care and there aren't further refinements to their husbandry that will take a tarantula from "just surviving" to "thriving" in captivity. I'm continually experimenting with husbandry techniques for this very reason and I've been open about both my failures and my successes. After all, where would this hobby be if the giants who's shoulders we all stand on all agreed that aquarium gravel and sponges in the water bowls was the ideal captive environment and no one ever pushed the envelope? Just some food for thought .

 

[Introvertebrate]

From how I'm reading everything, you're actually creating cross ventilation by using a vertically orientated Kritter Keeper. Cross ventilation isn't defined as strictly as saying air must travel through the enclosure in a straight line from one enclosure side to the next.


Cross ventilation also isn't defined as strictly as saying air must be mechanically forced through or be exposed to outdoor conditions like wind. It's defined exactly as you said :



So, using this definition and applying it to the Kritter Keeper example above, we can say:

Cross-ventilation is a natural phenomena where fresh air (defined as "the air outside as opposed to that within a room or other enclosed space") enters upon an opening, such as the BOTTOM ventilation panel of the vertical Kritter Keeper lid near the substrate/water bowl, and flows directly through the space and exits through an opening on the opposite side of the Kritter Keeper (where the air pressure is lower, which in this instance, is the TOP ventilation panels of the vertical Kritter Keeper lid).

The bottom and the top are opposite sides of the same enclosure and air naturally rises from the bottom of an enclosed space to the top of an enclosed space via the stack or chimney effect. If that air can escape at the top, it creates a very small vacuum and pulls in cooler, less humid fresh air from the bottom ventilation. This is an example of cross ventilation.

Now I do concede that not all cross-ventilation patterns are created equal (ex all ventilation in the top 25% of the enclosure doesn't really produce air circulation) and full side ventilation isn't really an efficient design for it either, but I stand by my original assessment.



When I first started my own journey in this hobby, I voraciously went through any older literature I could acquire and scoured the depths of AB as questions inevitably rose through my own research. While I didn't experience this major formative period of the hobby, the records of the attempts are still there (ie keeping avics in enclosures with water as a substrate) and it doesn't take much effort to see how these husbandry practices have evolved through this trial and error and have ultimately been boiled down to the current set of loosely defined and accepted standards. I get where you're coming from. With that being said, IMHO it's naive to think we've perfected their care and there aren't further refinements to their husbandry that will take a tarantula from "just surviving" to "thriving" in captivity. I'm continually experimenting with husbandry techniques for this very reason and I've been open about both my failures and my successes. After all, where would this hobby be if the giants who's shoulders we all stand on all agreed that aquarium gravel and sponges in the water bowls was the ideal captive environment and no one ever pushed the envelope? Just some food for thought .

My gripe is this naïve perception that holes on sides of enclosures somehow ensure proper air exchange. That indicates an imperfect understanding of how ventilation works.

 

[AphonopelmaTX]

The bottom and the top are opposite sides of the same enclosure and air naturally rises from the bottom of an enclosed space to the top of an enclosed space via the stack or chimney effect. If that air can escape at the top, it creates a very small vacuum and pulls in cooler, less humid fresh air from the bottom ventilation. This is an example of cross ventilation.

What you are describing here is convection, not a type of cross ventilation, which works by a difference in temperature between the inside of a container and the outside. As already mentioned, cross ventilation works by a difference in pressure. Using Kritter Keepers, or any other type of caging with a mesh lid, oriented vertically or horizontally doesn't use either convection or cross ventilation because there is a free exchange of gas between the inside of the container and the outside room which results in both temperature and pressure to equalize.

 

[Introvertebrate]

Holes on sides have one thing going for them. You can stack enclosures without blocking the holes.

 

[Ultum4Spiderz]

Holes on sides have one thing going for them. You can stack enclosures without blocking the holes.

That’s true I cannot stack glass tanks or kritter keepers and they both lack side ventilation All holes on the top . Plastic shoebox enclosures win as far as side ventilation?

What you are describing here is convection, not a type of cross ventilation, which works by a difference in temperature between the inside of a container and the outside. As already mentioned, cross ventilation works by a difference in pressure. Using Kritter Keepers, or any other type of caging with a mesh lid, oriented vertically or horizontally doesn't use either convection or cross ventilation because there is a free exchange of gas between the inside of the container and the outside room which results in both temperature and pressure to equalize.

Do any types of Ts struggle in enclosures were the lid is the only ventilation ?

 

[l4nsky]

What you are describing here is convection, not a type of cross ventilation, which works by a difference in temperature between the inside of a container and the outside. As already mentioned, cross ventilation works by a difference in pressure.

Cross ventilation works by a difference in pressure and the stack effect is caused by a pressure difference between the outside air and the air inside the enclosure caused by the difference in temperature/humidity between the outside air and the inside air. Tomato, tomato?

Using Kritter Keepers, or any other type of caging with a mesh lid, oriented vertically or horizontally doesn't use either convection or cross ventilation because there is a free exchange of gas between the inside of the container and the outside room which results in both temperature and pressure to equalize.

Free air exchange doesn't equate to efficient or sometimes even adequate air turnover. Top ventilation only is notorious for this, especially for more tropical species.

 

[TheraMygale]

Boy oh boy. Do some almost old threads need some feeding. I am liking this critical thinking on cross ventilation.

Even before i owned tarantulas, i have been trying to understand the optimal way to provide real cross ventilation. Not just evaporation.

Now, evaporation gets things moving, no doubt. Is that that all there is to it?

Is it just the evaporation that makes things move?

I am a professional horticulturist. And this is exactly how they teach it in school.

The plant, is watered. No sun: you should not be watering. Soil will remain wet. Thats when all the funky business happens.

We dont like funky business with plants.

Nor do we like it with tarantulas.

So, in a tarantula enclosure, will cross ventilation occur even if it kept dry?

I like the idea of keeping faunariums vertical. But the ventilation creates a U. From the bottom to the top. It doesnt necessarily go INTO the back middle of enclosure.

This is where my train of critical thinking needs a bump.

To demystify this whole cross ventilation thing. Im not looking to change science. Just better understand it. And adapt this so i can provide thriving settings for my tarantulas.

 

[AphonopelmaTX]

Boy oh boy. Do some almost threads need some feeding. I am liking this critical thinking on cross ventilation.

Even before i owned tarantulas, i have been trying to understand the optimal way to provide real cross ventilation. Not just evaporation.

Now, evaporation gets things moving, no doubt. Is that that all there is to it?

Is it just the evaporation that makes things move?

I am a professional horticulturist. And this is exactly how they teach it in school.

The plant, is watered. No sun: you should not be watering. Soil will remain wet. Thats when all the funky business happens.

We dont like funky business with plants.

Nor do we like it with tarantulas.

So, in a tarantula enclosure, will cross ventilation occur even if it kept dry?

I like the idea of keeping faunariums vertical. But the ventilation creates a U. From the bottom to the top. It doesnt necessarily go INTO the back middle of enclosure.

This is where my train of critical thinking needs a bump.

To demystify this whole cross ventilation thing. Im not looking to change science. Just better understand it. And adapt this so i can provide thriving settings for my tarantulas.

Cross ventilation happens when there is a difference in air pressure between the outside of an enclosed space and the inside, basically anyway. In tarantula keeping, you never get true cross ventilation because the pressure would be the same inside of a tarantula enclosure and the outside in the surrounding room. One would have to artificially create the appropriate conditions outside of a tarantula's enclosure to get the air moving across the area inside. All of which is completely unnecessary.

Convection current is the principle that hot air rises, cools, then sinks in a cycle because cool air is more dense than hot air. If you use heat mats or any other type of artificial heating of a tarantula's enclosure, then you can achieve air flow by placing ventilation at the bottom of an enclosure, heating the bottom to heat the air, and putting ventilation at the top so as the air inside of the enclosed space heats, it rises to the top out of the enclosure, cools, and falls. Like cross ventilation, it doesn't work if the temperature inside of the tarantula enclosure is the same as the outside room. In the case of using central heating and cooling, or using a space heater, to heat an entire room you won't achieve a convection current inside of the tarantula enclosure.

We can argue about the physics of both cross ventilation and convection currents when applied to tarantula housing all day long, but there is a good way to prove how both work using a house. At least I am able to prove it to myself since I live in Texas in a house that is over 100 years old. Back in the old days houses were built for cross ventilation where there are many large windows situated on opposite exterior walls. The idea is that during a hot summer, you open up the windows and an air current passes across the entire house and cools it off. That works just fine in the spring and fall when the air temperature and pressure differs from the inside, but during a hot Texas summer it does nothing but heat up the whole house. This is because the temperature and pressure equalizes and no air moves. When you scale it down to a tarantula enclosure siting in a room, the same thing happens. Convection currents are easy to experience during the summer in an old house in Texas. The first floor is cooler than the second floor (or attic) and as you move toward the top of the house (or a room) the temperature rises. Cool the top of a room, attic, or second floor the air falls back down heats up again, rises, then falls back down. It's an important principle in old house living because your air conditioning needs to cool the top of the room, not the bottom.

In any case, evaporation of the water content of a soil has nothing to do with anything. Ventilation in general just lets the water vapor escape the enclosed space so it doesn't build up and create stagnant conditions, or cools and condenses anywhere on the inside surface of an enclosure and create artificial rain fall.

While I like the comparison with fish in the context of handling, tarantula care is more like plant care. You need ventilation, and you need some moisture content in the soil; more for species from tropical rainforests and less for species adapted to desert or temperate climates. The best soils for tarantulas are ones that allow some drainage and one can go a step further by adding drainage holes to the bottom of an enclosure. How you go about ventilating an enclosure or how to provide drainage is completely irrelevant.

 

[Matt Man]

been around long enough to remember WC AF B. hamorii / smithis were $32 and Rose Hairs were cheaper. Yes, all books back in the days before the intrawebs

 

[l4nsky]

We can argue about the physics of both cross ventilation and convection currents when applied to tarantula housing all day lon

I think you're right, although you're probably going to give me an aneurysm before the setting sun........ Specifically when you say this:

Convection current is the principle that hot air rises, cools, then sinks in a cycle because cool air is more dense than hot air.

And this:

In any case, evaporation of the water content of a soil has nothing to do with anything. Ventilation in general just lets the water vapor escape the enclosed space so it doesn't build up and create stagnant conditions, or cools and condenses anywhere on the inside surface of an enclosure and create artificial rain fall.

Without realizing the self contradicting implications.

Humid air IS LESS DENSE then dry air. Just like the less dense hot air, humid air WILL RISE DUE TO IT HAVING LESS DENSITY than dry air. When that air becomes DRIER BY LOSING ITS MOISTURE VIA CONDENSATION, it will become denser and fall. How is this effect ANY different then air currents generated by temperature difference?

 

[AphonopelmaTX]

I think you're right, although you're probably going to give me an aneurysm before the setting sun........ Specifically when you say this:

And this:

Without realizing the self contradicting implications.

Humid air IS LESS DENSE then dry air. Just like the less dense hot air, humid air WILL RISE DUE TO IT HAVING LESS DENSITY than dry air. When that air becomes DRIER BY LOSING ITS MOISTURE VIA CONDENSATION, it will become denser and fall. How is this effect ANY different then air currents generated by temperature difference?

Oh no! Don't have an aneurysm, everything will be ok.

I'm having trouble connecting the dots in your line of reasoning , but I will take a stab at it anyway. By stating "How is this effect ANY different then air currents generated by temperature difference?" I am assuming you are referring to convection currents specifically. Your statements about the density of humid air are correct, but the addition or removal of water in an enclosed space doesn't move air at all. The addition and removal of heat is what moves the air therefore I fail to see the contradiction in my statements. In fact, if you are trying to achieve a feat of engineering to create cross ventilation or convection currents in your tarantula enclosures, the more water in the soil which will create a more humid environment overall will interfere with air movement because the heat released from the water vapor as it cools and condenses will cause a more uniform temperature inside of the enclosure. Then we are back to the basics of tarantula care where ventilation in general is more important than where it is placed to let water vapor escape and not condense inside of a tarantula enclosure and to allow the free movement of air.

 

[l4nsky]

Oh no! Don't have an aneurysm, everything will be ok.

I'm having trouble connecting the dots in your line of reasoning , but I will take a stab at it anyway. By stating "How is this effect ANY different then air currents generated by temperature difference?" I am assuming you are referring to convection currents specifically. Your statements about the density of humid air are correct, but the addition or removal of water in an enclosed space doesn't move air at all. The addition and removal of heat is what moves the air therefore I fail to see the contradiction in my statements. In fact, if you are trying to achieve a feat of engineering to create cross ventilation or convection currents in your tarantula enclosures, the more water in the soil which will create a more humid environment overall will interfere with air movement because the heat released from the water vapor as it cools and condenses will cause a more uniform temperature inside of the enclosure. Then we are back to the basics of tarantula care where ventilation in general is more important than where it is placed to let water vapor escape and not condense inside of a tarantula enclosure and to allow the free movement of air.

So forget about the fact that the latter half of the convection cycle (where the air cools) exists, as it's not relevent. Forget about the fact that the latter half of the water cycle (where the moisture condenses) exists because it's not relevant. Tarantula enclosures are not completely sealed and if there is any ventilation near or around the top, the air will never have the time to either cool off or condensate before it rises and escapes. What we're left with is the fact that when that less dense air (whether because of its temperature or its humidity) escapes the enclosure, it creates a small vacuum, which pulls in the more dense outside air through other ventilation.

If those other ventilation holes are on the sides of the enclosure, especially near the substrate layer, then you will have complete air circulation in the enclosure as the less dense air will always exit out the top most ventilation, pulling in the denser, fresh outside air through the bottom most ventilation.

If there is no cross ventilation and the only air exchange is single sided ventilation, specifically the top, that less dense air is still going to try to rise and escape and it's still going to create a vacuum. The problem is when that vacuum is created, the only way that the denser, outside air can enter is also through the top. This creates a push/pull effect at the top through turbulence at the ventilation boundary, which all but negates any air currents generated. This leads to stagnation at the lower levels of the enclosure, even in an screened top enclosures with "free air exchange".

I'm trying really hard here to not have to dive into the complexities of fluid dynamics as they relate to gases (ie air) lol.

 

[Brewser]

"Go with the Flow"

 

[Wolfram1]

Can we simply agree that the classic european ventilation style works great?


ventilation on opposing sides, one low, one up high?



simple experience tells me that i get minimal condensation, even if the air is cooled down quickly, especially when compared to a comparable top ventilation or any other one sided ventilation.

otherwise the two of you will likely never stop arguing , though its always a fun and informative read