Need help

[Tomcordon]

Hi all new member here, I’ve just recently come into the hobby and I was checking my brachypelma Smithi as I know she’s in a pre-molt, so I checked her this morning and I noticed 2 small black things in her substrate so I removed them and realised they were the sheds of her fangs but that was all there was, is this a common thing and she’ll molt the rest of herself normally or is this something to worry about?

Thanks Tom

 

[jrh3]

Hi all new member here, I’ve just recently come into the hobby and I was checking my brachypelma Smithi as I know she’s in a pre-molt, so I checked her this morning and I noticed 2 small black things in her substrate so I removed them and realised they were the sheds of her fangs but that was all there was, is this a common thing and she’ll molt the rest of herself normally or is this something to worry about?

Thanks Tom

Normally they should molt entire exo. How big is this Tarantula? Are you sure it was fangs?

 

[Tomcordon]

She’s 2 and half years old and this is what I found

She’s about 4”

 

[jrh3]

Someone will chime in with more experience. Can you see if she still has her fangs? I have heard of them losing fangs due to bad molts.

 

[Tomcordon]

I can’t see if she still has her fangs as she’s led on her front and don’t want to bother her too muc as she’s in a premolt

Just checked her and yes she still has her fangs so they haven’t fallen out they have just molted

 

[chanda]

That's good that you can still see her fangs, so she has not broken them off.

I've never heard of a spider shedding just the coverings of the fangs by themselves. Shedding is usually a whole-body process, with everything coming off at once, not something that is done one body part at a time.

Has she previously molted in that enclosure? If so, possibly the fangs broke off of the old molt and were left in the substrate, and you just never noticed them until now?

 

[Tomcordon]

Nope all new substrate I changed it all last week and I she has moved onto the side of the glass so I can see her fangs and they are definitely there, do you think she will carry on to molt the rest of her exo? My albopilosum and my Lasiodora parahybana have all molted perfectly fine and as I’ve said I’m fairly new to the hobby so I really don’t know what to do, her water bowl is full and I’ve dampened her enclosure more than it was because the molt was really dry and brittle

 

[Venom1080]

She molted. Maybe ripped the molt apart and you cant recognize it. They do not molt parts of themselves.

 

[Thekla]

Do you have a picture of her? I'm kinda puzzled about those fangs as well if she hadn't moulted since you replaced the substrate, as you say.
By the way, was there a specific reason you changed out all of her substrate? This isn't necessary at all under normal circumstances.

 

[Tomcordon]

She hasn’t molted, there’s no other molt in her enclosure at all, I also know they don’t just molt parts of themselves, I’ve been keeping them for a while but not as experienced as most and never seen this before but i know she definitely hasn’t molted

Because my partner recently got her about a month or 2 from a pet shop and they said they hadn’t changed her substrate for a long time so I put fresh in there, maybe the fangs may have been from her old molt and I didn’t see them as I didn’t change all the substrate A’s was running low but I did change most of it

You can definitely see her fangs

I changed the substrate and see even if it was old molt they would have been buried not just resting on the top of the substrate surely?

 

[Vanessa]

You can definitely see her fangs

She has not moulted her fangs, because they are black. Freshly moulted fangs are transparent/white, then they eventually turn pink, then burgundy, then black. In a 4" tarantula that process of hardening can take in excess of 10 days. Her fangs are black, so she has not shed anything off them in a while. Those shed fangs are not recent.

 

[Tomcordon]

I didn’t think she had molted I just didn’t know where they had come from, sorry must of just been old and hadn’t noticed, sorry for wasting time and thank you for everyone’s input, was helpful

 

[jrh3]

I didn’t think she had molted I just didn’t know where they had come from, sorry must of just been old and hadn’t noticed, sorry for wasting time and thank you for everyone’s input, was helpful

The substrate you used, was it from a previous enclosure or was it new.

 

[cold blood]

What you found are remnants of a previous molt.