ireleana
Arachnopeon
- Joined
- Nov 8, 2015
- Messages
- 43
Hi am new to boards as far as signing up but I am not new to the hobby. I recently purchased a Grammastola porteri (I am not mentioning by who as I am in email contact and working on resolving some issues with the seller and they seem to be taking it seriously so far). I usually get local from local breeders and I am upset I purchased online. I am assuming wild caught now and have not heard back if she is in fact wild caught. I know rosies can be weird and display behavior like constant roaming, long fasts etc.. I have over 30 tarantulas, all various genus/species, old world and new world. I have never seen any of my tarantulas constantly on the move and CONSTANTLY drinking and dipping it's fangs and mouth into the water dish and substrate. It is kinda skinny and will not eat. This is NOT a mature male. I can't be sure of the sex but I know it is not mature. It is more of a sub adult size, no hooks or bulbs etc.
The palps and chelicerae are not immobile although they seem different. There is no white discharge, yet anyways. But the mouth parts are constantly wet (assuming from all that dipping) and full of substrate. She is constantly dipping and laying in her water dish and pushing herself down into it, then she gets up and wanders around. Then back at it. Constantly over and over again. She also dips down into the substrate which is just dry cocohusk. I was reading the boards a while ago and listened to the advice of some members on here and tried out plain topsoil on a few T's and a scorpion ( still in the process of changing it all out again..). Biggest mistake EVER. I got so many fungus gnats and some phorid flies that are just now dwindling down as well as various mites which so far seems to be normal soil mites and not predatory to the T's. Might work for some but not for me lol. It is scaring me because although I have this rosie in a different room, I am worried of it spreading if she does have nematodes. I have been getting good results on the microfauna $%^$ storm that spread to my other enclosures, making sure everything is drying out. Except they love the water dishes lol! I take them out for a few days at a time and then put them back in and that seems to be helping. Anyways..
I put her in a little deli cup and made larger holes in it so I could get a swab and tongs into it. I managed to get some of that substrate out of her mouth and I swabbed her mouth and took it to work (microbiology, I am not a microbiologist. At least not yet lol). She managed to bite the swab a little so I know her chelicerae is still working somewhat anyways. I put it under the scope and also made a slide of the sub I took out of her mouth. Aside from various bacteria and fibers from the swab and substrate, I noticed some hook or curled looking worms. Small though and I can't be certain it isn't just normal flora or artifacts or regular little round worms or another type of nematode that is not harmful. Some were just bacteria but some caught my eye although I assumed the predatory tarantula nematodes to be larger? There was not a whole lot and I did not notice any eggs or fungi etc. The slide is not that good and I am going to take samples from her water dish when I get home and centrifuge that and check again.
Could this be nematodes or something else? Since she is not showing any white around her mouth, could this be possible to treat if it is early stage if that is what she has? I have a local vet who knows "some" stuff about tarantulas. Should I make a culture too? Should I do a gram stain? Can that help ID anything? I could probably get one of our microbiologists to help ID, although we quit doing worm and parasite ID's and send those out.
Also I wanted to sign up for the ATS site but it seems to be inactive and it wont let me register? Money is not too much of an issue because I really want to figure this out. So if there is anyplace I could send samples too for ID, or if she turns out to be infected, I could send her off for research and humane euthanasia? I am hoping it is nothing but this behavior is really odd to me. What else should I do to get confirmation? I am keeping her quarantined and am going to replace the sub and stuff again tonight or tomorrow before work. Sorry for the novel and thanks in advance for any help! I can post pics of the microscope slides tomorrow when I make more. My phone is dead and I am at work but I have some from today on my phone too.
The palps and chelicerae are not immobile although they seem different. There is no white discharge, yet anyways. But the mouth parts are constantly wet (assuming from all that dipping) and full of substrate. She is constantly dipping and laying in her water dish and pushing herself down into it, then she gets up and wanders around. Then back at it. Constantly over and over again. She also dips down into the substrate which is just dry cocohusk. I was reading the boards a while ago and listened to the advice of some members on here and tried out plain topsoil on a few T's and a scorpion ( still in the process of changing it all out again..). Biggest mistake EVER. I got so many fungus gnats and some phorid flies that are just now dwindling down as well as various mites which so far seems to be normal soil mites and not predatory to the T's. Might work for some but not for me lol. It is scaring me because although I have this rosie in a different room, I am worried of it spreading if she does have nematodes. I have been getting good results on the microfauna $%^$ storm that spread to my other enclosures, making sure everything is drying out. Except they love the water dishes lol! I take them out for a few days at a time and then put them back in and that seems to be helping. Anyways..
I put her in a little deli cup and made larger holes in it so I could get a swab and tongs into it. I managed to get some of that substrate out of her mouth and I swabbed her mouth and took it to work (microbiology, I am not a microbiologist. At least not yet lol). She managed to bite the swab a little so I know her chelicerae is still working somewhat anyways. I put it under the scope and also made a slide of the sub I took out of her mouth. Aside from various bacteria and fibers from the swab and substrate, I noticed some hook or curled looking worms. Small though and I can't be certain it isn't just normal flora or artifacts or regular little round worms or another type of nematode that is not harmful. Some were just bacteria but some caught my eye although I assumed the predatory tarantula nematodes to be larger? There was not a whole lot and I did not notice any eggs or fungi etc. The slide is not that good and I am going to take samples from her water dish when I get home and centrifuge that and check again.
Could this be nematodes or something else? Since she is not showing any white around her mouth, could this be possible to treat if it is early stage if that is what she has? I have a local vet who knows "some" stuff about tarantulas. Should I make a culture too? Should I do a gram stain? Can that help ID anything? I could probably get one of our microbiologists to help ID, although we quit doing worm and parasite ID's and send those out.
Also I wanted to sign up for the ATS site but it seems to be inactive and it wont let me register? Money is not too much of an issue because I really want to figure this out. So if there is anyplace I could send samples too for ID, or if she turns out to be infected, I could send her off for research and humane euthanasia? I am hoping it is nothing but this behavior is really odd to me. What else should I do to get confirmation? I am keeping her quarantined and am going to replace the sub and stuff again tonight or tomorrow before work. Sorry for the novel and thanks in advance for any help! I can post pics of the microscope slides tomorrow when I make more. My phone is dead and I am at work but I have some from today on my phone too.