molding wood?

[P. Novak]

one of my pieces of wood decided to mold today inside my one of my tanks. There is plenty of ventelation so thats not the problem. Is there anyway to stop the molding of wood(branches, bark, etc)

 

[SpiderZone2]

Not getting it wet or having the humidity too high. Only thing I can think of......Sorry if that is no help. I don't use wood as I don't need the hassles. I use other things for them. Maybe not the coolest looking hides, but they use them and I have no ill effects from moisture on them. Other than that you might have to replace they type of wood your using.....Sorry again if no help.

 

[green_bottle_04]

one of my pieces of wood decided to mold today inside my one of my tanks. There is plenty of ventelation so thats not the problem. Is there anyway to stop the molding of wood(branches, bark, etc)

what kind of wood is it? the grape vine wood tends to mold whereas most people dont have a problem with cork bark molding.

 

[P. Novak]

Its actually wood I found from outside(I boiled it for over 30 min and then cooled off for a day before placed into enclosures though.)

 

[edie]

i have that problem with some of the wood in my cages, i have it all out in the garage because i haven't gotten around to cleaning it. can you just bake it? all my stuff is store bought but i think baking it is supposed to get rid of stuff. i'm not sure though, i might just switch all my hides to something that is easier to clean

 

[P. Novak]

Ya I was thinking of going back to ceramic pots, but I really didn't like the orange color to them. Is there any other color besides orange?

 

[Fingolfin]

I have only had wood from outside give me a problem with mold, if I use cork bark or other various wood items from the pet store I haven't had any issues.

 

[edie]

the wood i get from pet stores is usally good. the only problem i have is when i put it in a cage with a t that needs more moist soil, so just the area of the wood thats touching the soil gets mold on it, it doesn't spread but i didn't think it would be healthy to keep it in so i took it all out

 

[Amanda]

I've only ever had problems with grape vine, but I've never used wood that I picked up from outside.

 

[ErikH]

I can't think of anything you could do to the wood that wouldn't be potentially harmful to the T., like coating it with polyurethane or spar varnish.

 

[Taceas]

Novak, I believe some craft or garden centers have paint you can use on terra cotta pots. I think if its aired out enough it should be perfectly acceptable to use.

 

[green_bottle_04]

with wood that i just randomly grab from outside...first i shave all of the bark off...then i do as you already have and boil it for about 15-20 mins. then i let it cool down then wrap it in tin foil and bake it at 275 for about 45 minutes...the pop it in the freezer overnight. that should pretty much kill off anything. i do the same with my grapevine (minus the shaving the bark off) and it works great for that too.

 

[Spyder 1.0]

i had green mold growing on my cork-bark because it was sitting in moist soil.So i killed it off and i put a layer of sand around the soil area where the bark is sitting so that the moisture doesnt get through, I also have a thick layer of green moss in this tank too (for an A.versicolour) which helps aswell.

 

[edie]

i had green mold growing on my cork-bark because it was sitting in moist soil.So i killed it off and i put a layer of sand around the soil area where the bark is sitting so that the moisture doesnt get through, I also have a thick layer of green moss in this tank too (for an A.versicolour) which helps aswell.

thats a good idea, i might try that

 

[Taceas]

Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I don't see all mold as being inherently bad.

I did have a neat shaped oak stick from outside that I baked before placing in a moderately humid enclosure. Within a few days it too molded, but I left it for giggles just to see what it would do. The spider that was in the container was a wild caught specimen, so I figured it'd probably seen worse in its lifetime. The container was a very well ventilated acrylic display cube.

After a few days the mold ran its course and eventually dried up and even with recurrent mistings it never re-molded, and still hasn't over a year later.

I'm not saying everyone should test it out, but in this one instance it proved to be a harmless occurrence.

 

[x-topher]

What about white mold? I've got a tank set up for my H. lividum that has a couple patches of live moss and a piece of Malaysian drift wood that seems to be having some sort of green lichen regrowing. The rest of the bottom is cocanut hask that has a few small patches of white that keeps growing back.

 

[funnylori]

I have never had good luck with the white patches on coco fiber -- in my experience it has allways led up to the end of my tarantula... Probably because I freak out and change everything out, and some how inadvertantly do something bad to my babies... :'(

 

[titus]

In my days of keeping Dendrobates I've had lots of mold/mushrooms grow in the tanks. I just let them run their course and be done with it. I've never seen it in my T tanks to date. But I don't think it would affect the T's as I had no problems with it moving to my Dendrobates.