My Ts are dying! Help!

[Venom1080]

Now that I have stolen your attention with the stupid title, begrudge me my tale of misery...

I've kept tarantulas for well over 10 years now. Over half my life. I've raised dozens upon dozens of species from 2nd instar slings to mature adults and currently maintain 116 specimens across perhaps 2 dozen genera. Ive read many english books on tarantula care and watched dozens of hours of husbandry discussion from knowledgable hobbyists. I've bred spiders a handful of times and have been active in the hobby for 7 years, answering questions and tracking new husbandry methods and taxonomic changes.

I have never had issues like this with any other genera. I've lost spiders out of stupidity many times, but these are different.

Specifically Lampropelma, Omothymus, Phormingochilus. Basically every OW Asian arboreal (Poecilotheria aren't asian). I've bought probably a dozen specimens that have died for no reason I understand. Over half of these are females over 4" and well past the age of <edit> happened sling deaths.

The specific deaths include:

0.1 3.5" O sp hatihati
0.4 5"-7" Omo. violaceopes
0.1 5.5" Omo. schioedtei
0.3 1"-4.5" L nigerrimum
0.2 3" Phormingochilus arboricola

This is beyond frustrating and has led me to completely avoid purchasing what were many of my favorite species and genera. I want to go over my personal care for the animals for you to examine and find flaws in as well as pictures of the set ups. I don't have photos of all the dead animals, but I'll include the ones I have.
This is one of the 3 large female violaceopes
4.5" female nigerrimum

How one of the violaceopes was found. They were all in normal positions like this.
Here are the enclosures I use. Fairly deep substrate, moist, well vented, with bark leaned in a corner.

Diet is mostly mealworms and superworms. With crickets thrown in a few times a year. Fed heavily as slings and a few times a month as larger adults.

Temperatures are what i suspect most. My room drops to low 60s in the winter pretty often. I've fixed this recently (timer on space heater). With highs in the winter (heater on plus space heater makes winter the warmest season) reaching high 80s. Average range is 73-77.

 

[Edan bandoot]

(Poecilotheria aren't asian).

no idea whats goin on with your spiders, but im curious what you meant by this.

Maybe you're buying sickly adults?

 

[Venom1080]

no idea whats goin on with your spiders, but im curious what you meant by this.

Maybe you're buying sickly adults?

Well, not Ornithoctoninae I mean.

I only buy slings. I save money where I can. Only asian slings I've struggled with are L nigerrimum

 

[BoyFromLA]

Oh wow, personally, I’ve never seen dead tarantulas looking that normal. I’ve seen so far are all curled up when dead.

 

[DomGom TheFather]

That's really weird.
I haven't owned these species, so i can't really be of much help. I don't see anything that would lead me to suspect husbandry error but maybe someone will chime in. Possibly a change in temperature/conditions?
Sorry, dude.
Good luck with your search for answers.

 

[l4nsky]

Specifically Lampropelma, Omothymus, Phormingochilus. Basically every OW Asian arboreal (Poecilotheria aren't asian).

An argument could be made that Poecilotheria are an Asian arboreal species as India is in South Asia to the best of my knowledge lol. What the hobby usually considers Asian arboreals are the moisture dependent, arboreal "earth tigers" from South East Asia. Honestly, these tend to be some of my favorite species to work with. Couple of questions that I can't ascertain the answers to from the pictures.

• What substrate are you using and what's the depth? If it's a mix, whats the mix by volume?
• How large is the enclosure (LxWxH)?
• What's the ventilation like? If you're using both top ventilation and cross ventilation, which do you have more of?
• Were all these animals raised by you from slings?
• Were they eating prior to death or how long had they been without food to the best of your knowledge? Also, did you find any uneaten feeders in their enclosures?
• Has this happened suddenly or is this over the course of say a year?

EDIT: Ah, you added more pictures. I can take a guess at a few, but others I can't. I can see one potential issue with ventilation, but the answers to all these questions should be good enough for some diagnostics.

 

[Kibosh]

I don't know, but you definitely need more ventilation.

Here is an example of one of mine.

Two double rows not including all the ones in the lid. Every...time...

 

[YungRasputin]

this may be completely irrelevant however the question that comes to my mind is - what is the ambient humidity within your arachnid room/locale?

i’m wondering here if between the ambient humidity and the struggle to meet their requirements within the enclosure might’ve combined to produce too much humidity and this led to their untimely passing

again, could be irrelevant or stupid but am genuinely curious

 

[cold blood]

Well, best I could guess were the low winter temps prior to the space heater. I say this because these all require damp substrate, and damp substrate will exacerbate the effects of cold temps... colder the temps, the more you want to avoid moisture.... a fine line dealing with moisture dependents, which is why it's best not to let temps drop below 70.

If an enclosure is full of damp sub, and the temps drop into the low or even mid-60's, it can have disastrous results. I learned this the hard way through shipping and now when I ship in colder temps, i ship them using dry paper towels because even a little moisture can mean the end of the ts if temps drop...but if they are dry, the low temps aren't very likely to harm them.

That's my best guess anyway as all the ts look otherwise well cared for, well fed and adequately housed.

 

[Venom1080]

An argument could be made that Poecilotheria are an Asian arboreal species as India is in South Asia to the best of my knowledge lol. What the hobby usually considers Asian arboreals are the moisture dependent, arboreal "earth tigers" from South East Asia. Honestly, these tend to be some of my favorite species to work with. Couple of questions that I can't ascertain the answers to from the pictures.

• What substrate are you using and what's the depth? If it's a mix, whats the mix by volume?
• How large is the enclosure (LxWxH)?
• What's the ventilation like? If you're using both top ventilation and cross ventilation, which do you have more of?
• Were all these animals raised by you from slings?
• Were they eating prior to death or how long had they been without food to the best of your knowledge? Also, did you find any uneaten feeders in their enclosures?
• Has this happened suddenly or is this over the course of say a year?

EDIT: Ah, you added more pictures. I can take a guess at a few, but others I can't. I can see one potential issue with ventilation, but the answers to all these questions should be good enough for some diagnostics.

Peat moss. Varying brands. No issues with other animals.

I don't think enclosure size is relevant.. I don't want to go measure them all. 32 Oz deli cups, 5 gallon tanks, 1 gallon plastic Walmart jars, are commonly used.

All raised from slings by me, all ate well till death. No uneaten food.

Over the course of perhaps 5 years. Since I started keeping the genera.

@Kibosh No.

@YungRasputin No idea. Not relevant I believe as enclosures create a sort of micro habitat with far different ranges.

Well, best I could guess were the low winter temps prior to the space heater. I say this because these all require damp substrate, and damp substrate will exacerbate the effects of cold temps... colder the temps, the more you want to avoid moisture.... a fine line dealing with moisture dependents, which is why it's best not to let temps drop below 70.

If an enclosure is full of damp sub, and the temps drop into the low or even mid-60's, it can have disastrous results. I learned this the hard way through shipping and now when I ship in colder temps, i ship them using dry paper towels because even a little moisture can mean the end of the ts if temps drop...but if they are dry, the low temps aren't very likely to harm them.

That's my best guess anyway as all the ts look otherwise well cared for, well fed and adequately housed.

I raise Theraphosa, Pamphobeteus, Poecilotheria, Hysterocrates, etc. In the same room and sometimes the same cages.

I do think the problem is the temperature. Darn, such a stupid thing to lose so many animals over. Hard to narrow down with not having problems with anything else..

 

[viper69]

India is in Asia.

I’ve raised Ov’s, all were male. I never let the temps drop that low, I was always careful about their temps after I had done some research on where they were from etc

I know from a senior member OW breeder that Ov’s are sensitive to moisture, meaning can’t be “too dry”. More sensitive than people are actually aware. Too dry they diet

The odd part is they all look normal.

Based on the limited data I really feel it was the low temps.

If not temps—
Do all the dead ones have any commonalities, like from the same seller during the same time period? Perhaps the root cause is there?

I lean with temps

along with that some exotics, ie reptiles, have a lower tolerance for temp fluctuations or temps they did not evolve with compared to other animals that have similar environments.

 

[The Grym Reaper]

I'd say the temps are most likely the issue, I generally try not to let my temps drop below 68°F.

I'm pretty sure it's not the ventilation as I've used similar amounts and never run into any issues in the few years I've been keeping arboreal Ornithoctoninae, most enclosures have one row of holes just above sub level on 3 sides and some holes in the lid, my O. schioedtei enclosure has a single row on 2 sides near the top and some holes in the lid.

 

[Smotzer]

It really seems like the only possible thing is the temperature and dampness together.

 

[jrh3]

@Venom1080 do you have data on when they each died? Was it all during the winter months? This could help clarify temps being an issue.

 

[Wolfram1]

(Poecilotheria aren't asian)

??? what are they then? As far as i understood india and sri lanka are part of asia?


Anyway not sure how accurate this is but i recently came across a german youtuber that is fairly knowlegable and in one of the videos he commented in passing that spiders that die from suffocating in high humidity tend to die without deathcurl and in normal positions.

if you used hot water to water the enclosures for example that can lead to extreme humidity spikes too.

the warmer temperatures may have exasperated the situation, seems you had less problems prior to raising temps? or did i misunderstand?

anyway good luck

 

[l4nsky]

Peat moss. Varying brands. No issues with other animals.

I don't think enclosure size is relevant.. I don't want to go measure them all. 32 Oz deli cups, 5 gallon tanks, 1 gallon plastic Walmart jars, are commonly used.

All raised from slings by me, all ate well till death. No uneaten food.

Over the course of perhaps 5 years. Since I started keeping the genera.

@Kibosh No.

@YungRasputin No idea. Not relevant I believe as enclosures create a sort of micro habitat with far different ranges.

I was asking about dimensions so I could get a better idea of the ventilation and air turnover in the enclosures. I got a good enough idea from the pictures to work with, but I'd still like to know about top ventilation .

I raise Theraphosa, Pamphobeteus, Poecilotheria, Hysterocrates, etc. In the same room and sometimes the same cages.

I do think the problem is the temperature. Darn, such a stupid thing to lose so many animals over. Hard to narrow down with not having problems with anything else..

I think the temperature was the final nail in the coffin (especially if you can tie deaths to known temperature drops), but I'm going to digress a little bit. I believe the main problem is a bit more hidden and is due to some issues with ventilation. In 3 of the 4 enclosure you have pictured, I see some cross ventilation, but it's at the very top of the enclosure. I also can't ascertain what kind of top ventilation you have, if any (I'm going to guess that you do and it's at least less than or equal to the amount of cross ventilation).

So I'm going to break this down a little bit because I know some people are going to nitpick at it (which is fine, I'm just trying to eliminate some of the back and forth). IMO, temperature can't be the only variable. Yes, these are rainforest animals that never really have to deal with low temperatures or low humidity (or moisture if you prefer) and as such have a relatively low tolerance for both. However, if temperature was the only variable, you would see losses in the other rainforest tarantulas in your care like the Theraphosa etc. Instead, the only losses are with the Ornithoctoninae, specifically the arboreal species. Your terrestrial/fossorial species seem to be no worse for wear, so what's the difference? Well, obviously it's the habitat type they prefer and the characteristics of each. So, what is distinctly different about an arboreal habitat than a terrestrial/fossorial one? I'm sure we can list several superficial differences, but the most important one and the one I'm going to focus on is air turnover and general lack of air stagnation. In comparison to being on the ground or in the ground, a tarantula that makes it's home above the forest floor is exposed to a lot more air turnover and will almost never be exposed to stagnant air. As such, they really don't have a large tolerance for it. Consequently, a tarantula that is living on the forest floor will from time to time be exposed to less than optimal air turnover due to the thickness of the undergrowth restricting air movement and living in a burrow/hide that isn't well ventilated. I believe this explains what we're seeing in your collection, but you have ventilation in your enclosures, what's the deal?

So, it has to do with the amount and placement of ventilation IMO. You're not using a lot of ventilation (which I'm guessing is to try and retain some of the moisture/humidity) which is fine, but when you use less, you have to be more precise and strategic with it's placement to achieve the proper turnover rate and prevent stagnation. So, I'm going to refer to this picture below to explain better:
This is kind of a crude picture to explain air movement. Basically, hot air (and/or humid air) rises and escapes from the top of the enclosure as it's less dense then cold/dry air. As this hot/moist air exits, it creates a small vacuum and pulls in air from the outside of the enclosure via the ventilation. This incoming air mixes with the enclosure air, preventing stagnation and ensuring air turnover. On my enclosures, you can see I opt for a lot of cross ventilation. This lets me mix the incoming air with the entire internal air volume. This ensures I have a large turnover rate in the whole enclosure and I trade the problem of potential air stagnation for the problem of increased evaporation rate (which is easily mitigated by a deep, well compacted substrate with moisture retaining additives ). Now, the ventilation I see in the majority of your pictures is focused entirely at the top of the enclosures. This means that instead of using the whole internal air volume of the enclosure to mix the incoming air, you're only mixing and turning over about the top third of the enclosure. The bottom two thirds of the enclosure are getting little to no turnover and as such become stagnant. I've dealt with this problem in two other hobbies, that being aquarium keeping and fungiculture.

• In aquarium keeping, it's a well known issue that a "tall" aquarium can hold less fish than a "wide" aquarium of the same size. This is because a tall aquarium has less surface area for air turnover, resulting in lower O2 levels in the aquarium, especially the deeper in the water you go (for those of you who like math, a standard 150g is 72"L x 18"W x 27"H while a tall 150g is 48"L x 24"W x 30"H. This means a standard 150g without any water movement has 1,296 square inches of surface area for gas exchange and only 27" of depth that gas has to diffuse into, whereas a 150g tall has 1,152 square inches of surface area and 30" of depth. Now that doesn't seem like much of a difference, but that's without any water movement at the surface. Add water movement via aeration or filter output and that extra ~140 square inches of surface area exponentially grows).
• In fungiculture, excess CO2 levels due to lack of air turnover results in some skinny, narrow fruiting bodies (mushrooms). In some species, this is actually desirable (look at the difference between wild enoki mushrooms and cultured enoki mushrooms) and is accomplished by adding a cone to the top of the culture bottle to trap and hold CO2 near the fruiting surface of the mycelium. This is accomplished because CO2 is heavier than air and if the air turnover rate is reduced (by adding the cone to the top of the jar), CO2 will naturally accumulate in the cone from the fungi's respiration. I've even had CO2 issues in the small greenhouses I use for fruiting chambers and have resorted to leaving the bottom 4 inches of the doors open to allow the CO2 to "fall" out of the enclosure when the air circulation systems (which are on a timer) are off and not circulating the air in the fruiting chamber.

I see the same problems with your current ventilation. There's no turnover in the very bottom of the enclosure, resulting in a large pocket of stagnant air that slowly results in the weakening of the tarantula. I see three ways of moving forward and addressing this issue for the future.

1. One, which isn't the most practical option, is to use plants. They'll prevent stagnation by turning the pooled CO2 into O2. I'd suggest a different, easier option unless you really want to go the planted/bioactive route.
2. The second option is to drastically increase your ventilation. This is my preferred method. I use at least a 4:1 cross ventilation to top ventilation ratio in all of my enclosures and I run the cross ventilation on two sides from the substrate level (or even below the substrate level) to a decent way up the side. In the pictured mainstay, there are 9 ventilation holes in the lid, but 56 ventilation holes in the sides (a little over a 6:1 ratio). As stated earlier, with increased ventilation, I trade the problem of potential air stagnation for the problem of increased evaporation rate. This is easily mitigated by a deep, well compacted, moisture retaining substrate (not 100% mitigated mind you, you'll still be adding water). In addition, since there is a higher turnover rate and evaporation rate, I can err more on the side of too much water added instead of too little for my moisture dependent species.
3. The last option is probably your best bet as I imagine being in Canada using central heat, you have a rather dry house and that's why you have a smaller amount of ventilation to slow the evaporation rate. Instead of placing your cross ventilation up high in the enclosure, place it at substrate level. This ensures that the entire internal air volume of the enclosure receives some amount of air turnover, it's never completely still, and won't become stagnant. If your only going to be using one or two rows, make sure the tarantula doesn't block them with burrow spoil.

I hope you'll give Ornithoctoninae sp another go here in the future. They're not the easiest to keep for sure, but IMO and IME the more advanced care and attention that they require is soooo worth it when you can walk into the T room and you see a beautiful animal like Omothymus violaceopes or Phormingochilus sp. Sabah Blue out and about, on vibrant display.

Thanks,
--Matt

 

[Wolfram1]

yea, ventilation and humidity walk hand in hand, great visualisation I4nsky

 

[Tarantulafeets]

Just an observation, but both of the dead specimens shown seem to have clouded white eyes, not sure if that's just what happens when a t dies but it doesn't look normal.

 

[Dorifto]

Looking to their body position, not curled, so hydration is not the issue, I'd say it's something related to their metabolism. Like is something has slowed down it to a point of no return.

So my guesses, temp or/and CO², maybe more towards CO² buildup, as @l4nsky commented, it gets trapped down low due to it being more denser than air.

 

[8 legged]

Are the feed animals ok? Did you clean the enclosures and use additives? Do you have any new substance (humus, wood, cork, etc.) in the enclosure? Do you have a "room perfume"? Or the temperature, although that shouldn't be the case in your experience. Otherwise I can't think of anything.