Please help me troubleshoot C. Sculpturatus tank

[CritterKeeper21]

I've had these scorpions for a few years and I keep having problems with spontaneous deaths and other complications. Notable incedents include one of my scorpions giving birth to a litter of one, I've had scorpions convulse and die at the slightest provocation, and I have never been able to keep a baby alive. The birth problem raised some concerns for me. If conditions were ideal she would, as far as I know, have given birth to a full litter. I'm mostly looking for a more experienced keeper to help me figure out where I might be going wrong. Any ideas?

 

[GordoOldman]

It is hard to trouble shoot or offer suggestions without information, temperatures, size of enclosure, etc..

How are they set up? What type of enclosure? How do you heat them, what are hot spot temps, what are coolest temps. How often are they fed, what do you feed them? How do you provide water? Is their plenty if humid hides for babies to be in?

 

[CritterKeeper21]

It is hard to trouble shoot or offer suggestions without information, temperatures, size of enclosure, etc..

How are they set up? What type of enclosure? How do you heat them, what are hot spot temps, what are coolest temps. How often are they fed, what do you feed them? How do you provide water? Is their plenty if humid hides for babies to be in?

Thank you so much. They are in this 10 gallon tank. I heat them with a white daylight halogen on a dimmer. Central hot spot tends to stay about 95 degrees f. I haven't recorded the temps on the sides when the light is on. My room is about 75 degrees f at night so it doesn't get colder than that but I haven't noted the temp before the light turns on in the morning. I feed them as many crickets as there are scorpions when they eat all the crickets. I don't have a set feeding schedule but it seems to be about every other day. I put water on a rock, the wood in the back, or in one of the bottlecaps in the foreground but I don't do that too often, maybe once a week. Rarely, if it is storming a lot where I live, I'll spray down the whole tank (I try not to get the scorpions) to scrub the poo with a toothbrush. I don't know of a good way to measure if an area is humid or not. The whole tank is pretty arid and I can't think of a way to measure caves or to keep humidity in select areas.

I removed the baby from the tank and put it in a smaller tank which is a problem on its own I think, but maybe one problem at a time. Are these scorpions sensitive to stress?

 

[GordoOldman]

They require much more moisture than many people realize.

Placing an area in one corner or one side with a soil mix and placing rocks will help create a hide area with higher relative humidity than the rest of the tank. If you put a lot

If you place some flat slate or sandstone slabs over cholla pieces laid on top if the moistened soil areas it will also offer much better hiding zones.

 

[GordoOldman]

Weird...part of one sentence vanished...

If you put a lot of crickets in at ine time and wait until they are all eaten without removing them...any baby scorps larger crickets find in such a dry enclosure are eaten by the crickets.

 

[CritterKeeper21]

They require much more moisture than many people realize.

Placing an area in one corner or one side with a soil mix and placing rocks will help create a hide area with higher relative humidity than the rest of the tank. If you put a lot

If you place some flat slate or sandstone slabs over cholla pieces laid on top if the moistened soil areas it will also offer much better hiding zones.

Ooh okay good idea. For soil I have bonsai jack gritty mix, miracle grow, and a coconut fiber/sand mixture I use for my snail. Which do you think would work best?

 

[CritterKeeper21]

Weird...part of one sentence vanished...

If you put a lot of crickets in at ine time and wait until they are all eaten without removing them...any baby scorps larger crickets find in such a dry enclosure are eaten by the crickets.

I also put cricket food in the tank. Do they prefer to hunt or are they just opportunistic?

 

[GordoOldman]

Mix some bonzai with the coco sand mix. And then create a cornwr where that mix is the saturated base and byild up good hiding and climbing layers over it.
In something that dry, the crickets will munch on the babies for their moisture content...
If all the adults have fantastic body weight, give them a week without food...so that when you do put crickets in they immediately hunt.

If the next day you have live roaming crickets...remove them. Also try putting in fewer crickets than the number of scorps...

 

[ignithium]

Yeah man this seems way too dry for centruroides, also if you are located actually in arizona you may not really need additional heating, just the room temperature is probably good unless u blast the AC

 

[CritterKeeper21]

Yeah man this seems way too dry for centruroides, also if you are located actually in arizona you may not really need additional heating, just the room temperature is probably good unless u blast the AC

I mean my house is usually in the mid 70's so not really comperable to natural conditions. The scorpions also seem to like basking under the light and the most popular cave is also under the light so I think they like it.

 

[CritterKeeper21]

Mix some bonzai with the coco sand mix. And then create a cornwr where that mix is the saturated base and byild up good hiding and climbing layers over it.
In something that dry, the crickets will munch on the babies for their moisture content...
If all the adults have fantastic body weight, give them a week without food...so that when you do put crickets in they immediately hunt.

If the next day you have live roaming crickets...remove them. Also try putting in fewer crickets than the number of scorps...

Okay cool thanks. Should I just use rocks for the pile or do you think throwing in some wood as well would be good? I have some wood shims they seem to be ignoring.

Do you think I'm over feeding them? I do feed them less in the winter when I turn the heat down and reduce the hours, but they are all pretty hefty from what I can tell. I'm not sure how to catch crickets in this tank though. There's a lot of places to hide and it's hard for me to be faster than them without jostling the rest of the tank.

 

[GordoOldman]

I would try to find some good cholla skeletal pieces..the woody skeletal pieces not only help hold some minor moisture content, but allow air circulation as well as give hiding places (especially for little ones).

As far as feeding, they are continuous eating machines...but they also have amazing digestive systems...by taking a week off here and there (even in Summer) it just keeps them leaner hunting machines...avoiding complacency and helping prevent uneaten roaming food when offered.

 

[CritterKeeper21]

I would try to find some good cholla skeletal pieces..the woody skeletal pieces not only help hold some minor moisture content, but allow air circulation as well as give hiding places (especially for little ones).

As far as feeding, they are continuous eating machines...but they also have amazing digestive systems...by taking a week off here and there (even in Summer) it just keeps them leaner hunting machines...avoiding complacency and helping prevent uneaten roaming food when offered.

Neat! Thanks! I'll have to see if I can find some

 

[pannaking22]

The Miracle Grow soil may not be helping either. Most of the time that stuff has various additives, some of which aren't very arthropod friendly.

 

[RTTB]

I agree it looks too dry.