What, they make good food for T.blondis? :?Well, they are like kittens you know....![]()
What, they make good food for T.blondis? :?Well, they are like kittens you know....![]()
This will depend on the species being kept, and the general climate where the keeper lives. I think at one end of the spectrum we have animals like Rosies that will do well in a wide array of conditions. For these guys, Fran's approach may well be superfluous. At the other end - I've got an undescribed species of cave scorpion that has a very narrow range of acceptable conditions. In its native habitat it has a constant temperature of75 degrees F and a permanently humid environment. In captivity if temperature varies more than a very few degrees from the optimum, the scorpion dies. If the humidity drops, immature scorpions fail to thrive and eventually die. But if we keep them too moist we have problems too. In a situation like this, Fran's approach would be not only helpful, but necessary.I've spoken to one of the top breeders in the country. It was back in June I think at a reptile show. I was asking him about all of the humidity issues and he put it very simply. He said you can use them if you want, but it's really a waste of time and money.
He wasn't meaning to not keep the humidity up for species that require it. He was merely saying that you don't have to be OCD accurate about it either.
Try spraying it with Black Flag insecticide. If that doesn't work - boiling water should help.Fran, my ballsack has mites should I reduce the humidity??????????
No Ron, didn't you read what he said? Get a hygrometer!Fran, my ballsack has mites should I reduce the humidity??????????
"Is that a hygrometer in your pants, or are you just happy to see me?"No Ron, didn't you read what he said? Get a hygrometer!![]()
Not only because you support my point of view Bill S, but honestly I find your point of view very reasonable and based on a valid argument,so I respect it. (rather than just say "thats silly".)
Uhhh...he said a hygrometer might be useful for a particularly sensitive species of cave scorpion.
Perhaps Fran, you can post the wild humidity readings for the various species you keep, at various barometric pressures, at various depths of those wild burrows, at various times of the year.
Since you're doing such a good job of replicating those exact conditions and all, and the rest of us apparently have spiders that are suffering in silence due to our crappy conditions.
Edit...Oh yeah, don't forget the above readings for 25' up in a tree in India, both in a valley and up on a hillside. I won't even specify an exact locale...pick one. Sri Lanka will do in a pinch. We'll need the readings for a deep tree hollow at given location as well...since you replicate it so well and all...
Holding your feet to the fire with regard to your assertions is not "negative" - I haven't responded to a single post of yours with inane smilies. You haven't provided a single bit of credible data Fran, only implications that anyone not using a hygrometer has tarantulas that are living, but not thriving. Including I might add very successful breeders such as K. Swift.I dont keep Arboreal T's, I kept some in the pass, but they dont interest me as much, so be my guest to do those readings,it would be really helpull.
By the way, im currently working in those readings, for your own info.
As I said before, I have family currently doing some field work in the jungle of de Amazonas, in Venezuela.(Including Temistocles R., main head of the Geography departament of the UCV, Universidad Central de Venezuela)
They have collegues that work in deep on Theraphosids of the area so I have access to those readings as they come along.
(Not a really fast communication process though)
I can provide scientific supported data, but all you provide is a rather negative opinion.
It has. Either you dont read the posts or you just plain dont make sense. :?Holding your feet to the fire with regard to your assertions is not "negative" - I haven't responded to a single post of yours with inane smilies. You haven't provided a single bit of credible data Fran, only implications that anyone not using a hygrometer has tarantulas that are living, but not thriving. Including I might add very successful breeders such as K. Swift.
Yet you yourself admittedly don't have all info, yet somehow you're replicating "wild" conditions.
Further, you don't seem to assimilate or concede any valid points made here by myself or others. Even a statement by K. Swift is dismissed by you as just another random opinion. You seem more concerned with being the guy keeping tarantulas the "correct" way, then having a useful debate.
I think this horse had died a few times over...I'm out.
True, ground temperature buffering would have more of an effect in the wild because there is more dirt and therefor more mass to act as insulation. That slipped my mind for a moment.The problem with the burrows in captivity is that, either you have an extremely large tank, or they are not gonna be quite like in the wild.
In the burrows temps might change a bit,(despiting the geothermal gradient )
Fran lives in New England by the way.......I think we can sum this whole thread up by accepting the fact that we can never reproduce the exact conditions that tarantulas will experience in the wild. Even the greatest of zoos cannot duplicate nature. Most responsible T keepers know this and accept it.
Fran, you are very lucky to live in Venezuela and observe these animals in the wild, and, as such, I imagine it is easier to get closer to natural heat and humidity requirements when you live in similar heat and humidity. But the push to use hygrometres is simply a marketing ploy by the makers of such devices as they are completely unneccessary.