I suck at this....

Evil Juggalo

Arachnopeon
Joined
Aug 28, 2006
Messages
28
Seriously.. Ive been in the hobby for 1 year and have killed 3 emps so far..

1) Syzygy - Died because I accidentally introduced pesticide covered wood chips into the terrarium
2) Inferi - Escaped cage somehow, spent 3 days missing, found her ont he other side of the room, curled up under my back right surround speaker to my home theater, dead..
3) Antares - Died 3 days ago, No idea why.. She had been hiding in her hole for over 2 months, not eating.. She just randomly came out, was being very active all day, looked to be in great shape, and I get home form work and shes dead

I only Have 1 Left, and Im wanting to probbably give it to someone cause he's a Biggun.. I have a like 20 Gal Terrarium, Kept at 80-95F, 50-90% humidity.. 50 When the lights on, 90 when its off.. I have live plants in the terratium, tons of place to hide, heat mat under tank, fairly big water dish (Shallow but wide), 3" of Soil...

I feed them Superworms and Crickettes, change the soil regularly, keep the ground moist'ish...

Seriously.. I have no idea what im doing wrong.. I know the humidity can be a little low but it should be killing the lil buggers left and right..
I give up.. Unless someone can figure out what im doing wrong..
 

brandontmyers

Arachnoangel
Old Timer
Joined
Dec 29, 2006
Messages
841
i would say keep the heat mat on the bottom...they burrow to escape the heat...another thing is, i keep mine at a humidity level of 85-90 all the time...what substrate are you using??? and maybe the tank is too big?? just a guess
 

Brian S

ArachnoGod
Old Timer
Joined
May 29, 2004
Messages
6,526
You are getting adult wild caught scorpions that you have no idea how old they are. I would venture to guess old age
 

brandontmyers

Arachnoangel
Old Timer
Joined
Dec 29, 2006
Messages
841
You are getting adult wild caught scorpions that you have no idea how old they are. I would venture to guess old age
yeah, i would say try getting them from a breeder or a person on this site...that way if you get a 3rd-4th instar of higher, you know how old it is...
 

Thaedion

Arachnoangel
Old Timer
Joined
Nov 20, 2006
Messages
894
Seriously.. Ive been in the hobby for 1 year and have killed 3 emps so far...I only Have 1 Left, and Im wanting to probbably give it to someone cause he's a Biggun.. I have a like 20 Gal Terrarium, Kept at 80-95F, 50-90% humidity.. 50 When the lights on, 90 when its off.. I have live plants in the terratium, tons of place to hide, heat mat under tank, fairly big water dish (Shallow but wide), 3" of Soil...

I feed them Superworms and Crickettes, change the soil regularly, keep the ground moist'ish...

Seriously.. I have no idea what im doing wrong.. I know the humidity can be a little low but it should be killing the lil buggers left and right..
I give up.. Unless someone can figure out what im doing wrong..
I'd agree with Brian on old age, but they can live up to around 8 - 10 years (all my petstore emps are over a year old, some coming on to 2). I wouldn't put to much thought in the big tank theory... the tank size should not be a problem (I have a single scorp in a 20L). Do you have any way of uploading some pics, give us an idea of what it looks like.

But if you really want to get rid of him I'd trade/take him...:D I have 7 emps +7 babies (trade you a babe, once it gets to trading size), 1 cavimanus, 5 heteros.

Thaedion
 

juggalo69

Arachnobaron
Old Timer
Joined
Mar 20, 2005
Messages
448
I had an emp escape in my room for a month and a half once. My wife and kids found it in the middle of the floor one morning. Other then a severe case of dehydration the scorp was fine, after it took a hour long bath in its water dish. It is alive and healthy a year and a half later.
 

Mark Newton

Arachnobaron
Old Timer
Joined
Mar 9, 2007
Messages
400
I had an emp escape in my room for a month and a half once. My wife and kids found it in the middle of the floor one morning. Other then a severe case of dehydration the scorp was fine, after it took a hour long bath in its water dish. It is alive and healthy a year and a half later.

A very good example of how a different house, a different location will have different absolute and relative humidities to each give a different probability of survival for a given species. Aint that different! :rolleyes: Anything gets out here where I live and the dry air sucks the living life out of it pronto....:(
 

brandontmyers

Arachnoangel
Old Timer
Joined
Dec 29, 2006
Messages
841
I had an emp escape in my room for a month and a half once. My wife and kids found it in the middle of the floor one morning. Other then a severe case of dehydration the scorp was fine, after it took a hour long bath in its water dish. It is alive and healthy a year and a half later.

how did it escape, what were you housing it in???
 

juggalo69

Arachnobaron
Old Timer
Joined
Mar 20, 2005
Messages
448
how did it escape, what were you housing it in???
My own stupidity. I had it in a ten gallon tank but I had the substrate angled so the high side was only a few inches from the top of the tank and I left the lid off one night.:wall:
Lesson learned, one scorps can climb, two ALWAYS make sure lids are on.
 

Evil Juggalo

Arachnopeon
Joined
Aug 28, 2006
Messages
28
This is how it was for a while..



This is the most recent one to die.. She looks like she was SOO close to popping.... Almost wanna disect her to find out





Here is the part that worries me... Just the other day when Antares died I got TyranaScorpious to come out of his hole.. Well, He walked over to one of the Little wood hut things and started doing this wierd Jitter/Vibrate/Shake thing while he was walking around.. The only other time I had ever seen this is when Syzygy died from Pesticide poisioning.. I saw him shaking like that before I went to work, and when I got home he was dead.. Here is a video of TyranaScorpious doing the wierd twitch..


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vH6TJzPU8_Y
 

Mark Newton

Arachnobaron
Old Timer
Joined
Mar 9, 2007
Messages
400
I'd have a knife to her in a flash. Cant learn anything unless you look. I hope someone helps you, seems you are doing things the way people suggest for this species. It amazes me they like conditions to be so darn wet. High humidity is one thing, but a soppy environment! Then again I have found Liocheles waigiensis in a log that was laying in a water soaked area in rainforest. Even the scorpion was muddy.

GOOD LUCK!
 
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Bayushi

Arachnoprince
Old Timer
Joined
Mar 26, 2005
Messages
1,236
I've noticed, over the years, that whenever one of my emps was close to death it would start what i call the "Death shakes". They'd become dis-coordinated getting worse the closer it came to the end for them. In all the cases this has happened to me, the specimen was of an unknown adult age and had been in my care for anywheres from 1 year and up.

I don't think you are doing anything wrong, accidents not withstanding. No one is perfect and to be honest defecation occurs. From the pic you posted your set up isn't to much different than mine, with the exception of mine having a false bottom and no live plants anymore.

I think you're just having a run of bad luck and getting older specimens, it happens to me as well. best bet is to not give up and , as you already said, learn from your mistakes...
 

dazbuzz

Arachnosquire
Old Timer
Joined
Jan 14, 2007
Messages
140
erm....from your vid you were shining a light on them, right? arnt scorpions sensitive to light? my emp seems "shake" abit but i realise she is( what looks like) cleaning her little claw thingys in her mouth area.
 

dazbuzz

Arachnosquire
Old Timer
Joined
Jan 14, 2007
Messages
140
command and conquer generals zero hour

off topic- luv the C&C generals-zero hour raining men vid LOL:worship:
 

Thaedion

Arachnoangel
Old Timer
Joined
Nov 20, 2006
Messages
894
Okay the video with the 'shaking' going on looks like normal 'ticked off' type of stuff, one of my females would do that to it's tank mate it would shake then charge it, retreat shake and charge again. The tank that is in the video seems too dry to me. The other tanks look damp enough.

If you want a scalpel I can send you one for your dissection if you want it. PM me with an address.

Thaedion
 

EAD063

Arachnoprince
Old Timer
Joined
Oct 3, 2006
Messages
1,415
Was the male just juddering? Remember one of the functions of the pectines is to detect vibrations and movement, scorps judder to make they're presence known to other scorps.
 

Andre2

Arachnosquire
Old Timer
Joined
May 17, 2006
Messages
117
I don't think pectines are used for detecting vibrations, but function in a similiar way as smell. The male on the video shows typical behavior when detecting the "smell" of a female. In this case the burrow is empty but he can still detect her from the soil.

I agree that scorpions can shake a little when they die, but this specimen seems a lively male to me.. Also Pandinus can shake agressively and may even stridulate lightly when doing this, but this behavior is much more violent than what you see on the video.
 

Mark Newton

Arachnobaron
Old Timer
Joined
Mar 9, 2007
Messages
400
The male on the video shows typical behavior when detecting the "smell" of a female. In this case the burrow is empty but he can still detect her from the soil.

They were exactly my thoughts....:)
 

EAD063

Arachnoprince
Old Timer
Joined
Oct 3, 2006
Messages
1,415
Also Pandinus can shake agressively and may even stridulate lightly when doing this, but this behavior is much more violent than what you see on the video.
I didn't watch the video, :(, I was refering just to the post. I belive the pectines are used to detect other scorpions through whatever chemicals they produce, to inspect soil composition and to detect ground vibration. I belive also this is summed up in Polis' book but I haven't read that in a while.
 
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