New to spider keeping, have a juvenile p. audax and have a few questions

[ikewulf]

Hello! So a juvenile p audax jumped into my life yesterday. I had nearly purchased one the day prior, and then out of nowhere yesterday morning a juvenile p audax just appeared on my desk! I've set it up in a large, tall, plastic deli container for the moment until I can get it a nicer set up. Unsure of sex right now, it is only about 5mm-6mm right now. I went out and bought flightless fruit flies yesterday and it ate 3 of them immediately, and then decided to get cozy in it's new home and chose its favorite spot to hide.

How often should I be offering food at this age? Any idea from size how many more molts until adulthood? I'm unsure on sex at this point, but I think it may be male? Might have to wait for more molts to tell. What about light? I know to keep the enclosure out of direct sunlight, but what type of lighting is best/acceptable? Any other good tips? This is my first spider. I'll try to get better pictures when I'm able to get a macro lens.

 

[LordAnon]

Hello! So a juvenile p audax jumped into my life yesterday. I had nearly purchased one the day prior, and then out of nowhere yesterday morning a juvenile p audax just appeared on my desk! I've set it up in a large, tall, plastic deli container for the moment until I can get it a nicer set up. Unsure of sex right now, it is only about 5mm-6mm right now. I went out and bought flightless fruit flies yesterday and it ate 3 of them immediately, and then decided to get cozy in it's new home and chose its favorite spot to hide.

How often should I be offering food at this age? Any idea from size how many more molts until adulthood? I'm unsure on sex at this point, but I think it may be male? Might have to wait for more molts to tell. What about light? I know to keep the enclosure out of direct sunlight, but what type of lighting is best/acceptable? Any other good tips? This is my first spider. I'll try to get better pictures when I'm able to get a macro lens.

View attachment 289906

I feed about every 3 days. How many molts until adulthood is kind of a crapshoot. Even size isn't a good indicator because some spiders will mature smaller than others. If he's on the younger side, you're going to notice that he molts a little faster, and then as he gets older the time between molts gets a little longer. Take this next part with a grain of salt, because I seen evidence otherwise. If it's a P. audax they say that when the orange spots on his back turned white he's mature. However, I have a male that I'm pretty sure is mature but he matured smaller than I expected, and he still seems to have an orange tint to his spots.

They love light, so really your only concern should be that they're not in direct sunlight (they might cook). However you can't really go wrong having them next to a window or something.

Also, VENTILATION VENTILATION VENTILATION. They need mad ventilation. I keep my favorite in a tall acrylic enclosure with three separate large vent holes covered in mesh. My other two are in short pickle jars with no lid, only some cloth banded to the top.

 

[ikewulf]

I feed about every 3 days. How many molts until adulthood is kind of a crapshoot. Even size isn't a good indicator because some spiders will mature smaller than others. If he's on the younger side, you're going to notice that he molts a little faster, and then as he gets older the time between molts gets a little longer. Take this next part with a grain of salt, because I seen evidence otherwise. If it's a P. audax they say that when the orange spots on his back turned white he's mature. However, I have a male that I'm pretty sure is mature but he matured smaller than I expected, and he still seems to have an orange tint to his spots.

They love light, so really your only concern should be that they're not in direct sunlight (they might cook). However you can't really go wrong having them next to a window or something.

Also, VENTILATION VENTILATION VENTILATION. They need mad ventilation. I keep my favorite in a tall acrylic enclosure with three separate large vent holes covered in mesh. My other two are in short pickle jars with no lid, only some cloth banded to the top.

Hey, thanks for the reply! It has orange and green on the abdomen still, not much white at all. The chelicerae are on the greener side. I think it may be a male because a pair of those front legs are looking a bit bigger than the others, but I don't think it is mature yet so we'll see if they get larger.

At the moment I have it in one of those larger tall plastic food service containers. I've used a thumb tack to poke holes all around it, but maybe I'll poke some more. When I next get paid in about a week and a half I plan to buy one of those jumper enclosures with the big circular vents like you see on bigphatphids or a bunch of other places.

 

[LordAnon]

When I next get paid in about a week and a half I plan to buy one of those jumper enclosures with the big circular vents like you see on bigphatphids or a bunch of other places.

I got mine at bigphatphids. Can't recommend more.

 

[pandabacon]

Hello! So a juvenile p audax jumped into my life yesterday. I had nearly purchased one the day prior, and then out of nowhere yesterday morning a juvenile p audax just appeared on my desk! I've set it up in a large, tall, plastic deli container for the moment until I can get it a nicer set up. Unsure of sex right now, it is only about 5mm-6mm right now. I went out and bought flightless fruit flies yesterday and it ate 3 of them immediately, and then decided to get cozy in it's new home and chose its favorite spot to hide.

How often should I be offering food at this age? Any idea from size how many more molts until adulthood? I'm unsure on sex at this point, but I think it may be male? Might have to wait for more molts to tell. What about light? I know to keep the enclosure out of direct sunlight, but what type of lighting is best/acceptable? Any other good tips? This is my first spider. I'll try to get better pictures when I'm able to get a macro lens.

View attachment 289906

Lucky! Similar thing happened to me. Was looking for a Phidippus even possibly going to purchase a Regius as I couldn't find any Audax in the last few months. Then out of nowhere within minutes of each other, I found a mature female that has been hanging around my porch that I thought disappeared and a sub adult possibly 4th instar. As for food I feed them every day until they get that chubby look and then cut back to every 2 or 3 days. My adult gets a blue bottle every 2 or 3 days and the sub adult ate a fly every day until it created a molting chamber and has been hiding out for the past 2 days. The sub adult did this before its last molt as well. Ate a fly a day until it webbed itself up and it didn't come out for a few days in new clothes.

Most you will find right now are sub adults that are getting ready to hunker down for winter but that's still a little while away. Most adults at this point will be getting old and dying as they should have all mated and reared by now. Also thanks for the bigphatphids recommend! Always looking for another place to pick up a Phidippus.

 

[ikewulf]

Lucky! Similar thing happened to me. Was looking for a Phidippus even possibly going to purchase a Regius as I couldn't find any Audax in the last few months. Then out of nowhere within minutes of each other, I found a mature female that has been hanging around my porch that I thought disappeared and a sub adult possibly 4th instar. As for food I feed them every day until they get that chubby look and then cut back to every 2 or 3 days. My adult gets a blue bottle every 2 or 3 days and the sub adult ate a fly every day until it created a molting chamber and has been hiding out for the past 2 days. The sub adult did this before its last molt as well. Ate a fly a day until it webbed itself up and it didn't come out for a few days in new clothes.

Most you will find right now are sub adults that are getting ready to hunker down for winter but that's still a little while away. Most adults at this point will be getting old and dying as they should have all mated and reared by now. Also thanks for the bigphatphids recommend! Always looking for another place to pick up a Phidippus.

Right now I've got fruit flies for the little fella, but I'm probably gonna need to move to something bigger once it molts. The one pet store near me that I visited doesn't have blue bottles unfortunately. The do have crickets and meal worms, but I read a lot of warnings about those being potentially dangerous. I'm pretty sure there are wax worms too. I may check around at another store to see if there are blue bottles there, and what else they have.

 

[pandabacon]

Right now I've got fruit flies for the little fella, but I'm probably gonna need to move to something bigger once it molts. The one pet store near me that I visited doesn't have blue bottles unfortunately. The do have crickets and meal worms, but I read a lot of warnings about those being potentially dangerous. I'm pretty sure there are wax worms too. I may check around at another store to see if there are blue bottles there, and what else they have.

I catch my flies and then buy crickets from the pet store every now and then. Flies are abundant and super easy to catch even throughout the winter in my area. I have blue bottles and house flies in my yard and I just cup them and put them in the freezer for 4 minutes which puts them to sleep. You then get 2 minutes where you can clip their wings and put them near your spider before it slowly wakes up. Also any flies that get in the house I will cup instead of swatting and either let them go back outside or feed them to my spiders if they look hungry. These little guys are incredibly cost effective little pets. Literally costs nothing and you get so much interaction and interesting behaviour.

 

[ikewulf]

I catch my flies and then buy crickets from the pet store every now and then. Flies are abundant and super easy to catch even throughout the winter in my area. I have blue bottles and house flies in my yard and I just cup them and put them in the freezer for 4 minutes which puts them to sleep. You then get 2 minutes where you can clip their wings and put them near your spider before it slowly wakes up. Also any flies that get in the house I will cup instead of swatting and either let them go back outside or feed them to my spiders if they look hungry. These little guys are incredibly cost effective little pets. Literally costs nothing and you get so much interaction and interesting behaviour.

I'm unlikely to see flies around here until spring, but I'm sure the feeder bugs available from stores here will work out alright. They really are inexpensive to keep. They also don't take up much space. If this one goes well for me I may get a few more. I just love jumpers.