Low temperatures and T's ???

[gunslinger]

Got a general question.

On Tuesday my furnace is getting replaced. My place will not have heat for around 6 hours. My question is, do you think that the temperature dropping for 6 hours will hurt my T's (and my millipedes too)? I know low temps can be bad, but will a few hours of cold kill them? I dont think the temps in my house can drop too far in 6 hours, but Im not really sure.

I have 2 A. avicularia, 1 G rosea and 1 A seemani, as well as a few tropical millipedes.

 

[spid142]

low temps

Ive experienced drops to around 60 degrees with no danger to my Ts. Theyve come thru ok. I try to not allow drops below 65, but it wont kill them if it happens occasionally. Like a lot of people, I set my furnace lower at night to conserve fuel cost, and use an oil heater in the T room thru the night.

 

[cheetah13mo]

It's around 6 degrees outside right now and I've got a female A. hentzi out in the garage. It's holding around 40 or 45 and I'm not bringing her in until spring. The G. rosea wont have a problem. The others, I have no clue. I wouldn't think there would be a problem for a short amount of time but if it gets down to 55 or lower, the tropical species would worry me.

 

[Ando55]

Took the worlds right of my mouth Jeremy, I'm more worried prone to that Avic and maybe even with a slighter amount of worrying with your seemani compared to the rest. They should pull through fine, tell us how it goes!

 

[elliot]

I promise that 6 hours at 40 deg. will have no negative effects at all on your pets. Even the tropical species could survive for longer.

I recently went back to New York for winter break and I left all my spiders in cleveland. I set heat as low as it would go, so it probably reached into the upper forties during the nights. I was gone for three week and all my spiders including the avics. were fine.

Even when I'm home the temps in my apartment are in the 50s at night and when I'm at school.

 

[metzgerzoo]

My power has gone out at least 5 times since November and, living in the mountains in NW Washington, it's pretty dang cold here. My inverts have survived temperatures in the 50s for 8+ hours and none have croaked. Bear in mind, in nature, most tarantulas (terrestrial) live in burrows, and often times, pretty deep ones. The temperature inside their burrows are *not* the same as the surface temperature...generally they are cooler in the summer and only slightly warmer in the winter.
When we keep our inverts at temperatures that average in the 70s all year round, we're *not* providing them with a natural seasonal change like they would get otherwise. To have even desert and rain forest species in *winter* time temperatures of 65 to 70 F. would be rather normal and consequently, the spider(s) would do what they normally would do in nature...burrow.
The arboreals, them I would be a bit more concerned about, however, all of my arboreals (Avics. Poecs. Psalms. etc) have *all* weathered temperature drops into the low 60s and mid to high 50s for several hours at a time.

My indoor temps right now are about 74 F. during the day and can drop as low as 65 F. over night.

Ok, enough rambling....a few hours of cool temperatures aren't going to harm your inverts any. Just feed them *before* your heater is replaced and that will help boost their metabolism and will help them sustain the drop better.