Pin Head cricket problem.

[Talkenlate04]

Ok other breeders input would be great on this issue. My Smithi as most of you know is holding a sac made last weekend........ and now I have had a major explosion of pinhead crickets in the tank, I am worried about them bothering the female to the point where she eats the sac.... should I remove her and the sac and change the substrate? Or just let them run around till they die.... but then if they die there might be spotty mold.... but maybe not...... shes being a great mom.... not being defensive just rotating the sac and sitting right by it at all times...... Anyway ill sit and wait for some responses.

 

[P. Novak]

When I get a pinhead outbreak, I just leave it be, but your smithi is holding a sac, so both things can have negative and positive outcomes. I still think its alot less stressful with the piheads rather then a giant person coming in and bothering her. I say just try to kill the ones that you can without disturbing her and leave the ones near her be. Take out the waterdish so they can't get any moisture and die off. Good luck Ryan!

 

[Hedorah99]

Just let the tank dry out and remove any water. Should kill them off fairly quickly.

 

[Talkenlate04]

Just let the tank dry out and remove any water. Should kill them off fairly quickly.

I thought about doing this, but humidity is key when you have a sac.... I dont know if letting it dry out like that will have any sort of long lasting effects, especially cause the sac is barely a week old.

 

[P. Novak]

Actually I have a better Idea, put a deep enough waterdish into the cage, the crickets seem to get attracted to it and drown. I am pretty sure that will help.

 

[Talkenlate04]

That might be an option..... if the water dish was not on the top of the coconut hide. The area below the hide is occupied by her and her sac. The tank is small thats another reason I think the crickets are going to bug her. Ill take a picture and post it here in a few minutes.

 

[Pyst]

Is there anywhere else you can set a waterdish in there ?

 

[Hedorah99]

I thought about doing this, but humidity is key when you have a sac.... I dont know if letting it dry out like that will have any sort of long lasting effects, especially cause the sac is barely a week old.

It should only take a day or so of dry conditions to kill off the pinheads. Truthfully, even if you do nothing they will probably die off before becoming a nuisance.

 

[Talkenlate04]

Here is her setup, like you can see pretty well its small.There is a flashlight in the picture for size reference.

 

[Pyst]

I agree with Hedorah. Just let it be and they should die off soon enough. That's a fat sac. GL with it.

 

[Talkenlate04]

It is a big sac.... I have had a few in the past but this one takes the cake. (fingers crossed)

There is going to be a bunch of moving going on here soon anyway. So I might be doing the manual incubation soon. So its going to get stressful for a little while but I hope all will go well.

 

[KJE]

Wow, that is a big sac! Looks great!

Do all Brachy's make their eggsacs out of their hides? I have a B. vagans that I thought for sure would use her hide to web up and make the sac, but she is on the opposite side of her enclosure with it.

As far as the pinheads go, I would make sure the water dish stays full and don't add anymore water to the substrate. It looks like the substrate is pretty moist so it might take a while to dry out.

Crossing my fingers that everything goes well with the sac!

 

[P. Novak]

Wow Ryan, that sac looks even bigger then before. There must be like 1,000,000 slings there. If only huh?;P

 

[Amanda]

I've never seen a sac that huge! It's bigger than she is. How much did her abdomen decrease in size after dropping it?

 

[Talkenlate04]

Her butt looked like a rasin after it was kinda gross looking...... I have had some in the past have a deflated look but hers was really bad..... I wanted to feed her right away lol.

Oh and she did not make the sac outside the hide she made it inside but has brought it out now for rotation.

 

[tarantulas.com]

Lucky

Ryan,

You've been pretty lucky thus far. You moved her at a critical period and she still has the sac. Do you really want to push it by messing with her? I'd have been more concerned with the pinhead infecting the sac w/ mites. If you do try to take some action, I would just fill that water dish w/o opening the lid, that should drown a bunch of them.