Question concerning housing

Pyrdacor

Arachnoknight
Old Timer
Joined
Dec 23, 2002
Messages
194
Hi folks,

I finally found a material that was totally new for me. In Germany it is called Xaxim, I don't know if you call it the same, anyway, it is made of some pressed exotic fern. They get pressed into flat plates. The good thing with these is that they over and over filled with seeds of different tropical plants and ferns. Kepping the plate moist in a rainforest cage leads to their germination. And voila after a few month the cagewalls are green.

Has any of you had experience with Xaxim in a taratula cage?

A sideeffect would be, thats what I think, that humidity could be kept much higher without great effort.
What do you think?

Cheers,

Chris
 

Pyrdacor

Arachnoknight
Old Timer
Joined
Dec 23, 2002
Messages
194
Its more than expensive. A plate of 30x20x2,5 cm (sorry, i don't know that one in inches) is between 8 and 12 € which is almost the same in dollars.
The high pricing comes from the protection status of the fern used to make to plates. It is very limited and the export is highly supervised and limited. It is allowed, as far as I know to use the fern the company grows just for the purpose to manufacture the plates but even tough it is supervised.

It is too expensive to fill a 30x30x40 cm with 6 plates. So what i did is buy three and cut it in the middle. So I have 6 plates about 1,2 cm thick and this size fits in the cage even better.

I just wanted to know if somebody already has experience using that stuff. I didn't bring in the plates in the cage yet but I'll do that in the next two days...
Your opinion??

Cheers,
Chris
 

sunnymarcie

Celestial Spider
Old Timer
Joined
Feb 13, 2003
Messages
1,294
That's tree fern fiber, we have it here to. I use it to line baskets
for my orchids. It retains a good amount of moisture that's for sure. You say yours has the ability to green up? That would be nice for some of my other pets (frogs), but I think it may be too wet for our T's:?


Experts..........? What do you think?:p
 

Pyrdacor

Arachnoknight
Old Timer
Joined
Dec 23, 2002
Messages
194
You are right, it is indeed made for frog cages (dendrobatidae for example). There is of course a much higher humidity.
But as I hear that P. cambridgei needs a relativly high humidity I thought I could try the stuff out with that one. Some sources recommend a humidity above 85% other say, between 80 and 90%. Of course I wouldn't use it for aphonopelma spec for example. But if the plates really work the cage then will be looking like a real little rainforest of my own :)
 

RugbyDave

Arachnoprince
Old Timer
Joined
Apr 5, 2003
Messages
1,428
I'd say it might be ok for some humid humid species (you know what i mean), and since it's not going to sprout into 30 foot tall trees, i'd say its ok, keep it pruned --


but for frogs and the like, hell yes!

even just a little terrarium of rainforest too, with some lizards :)

peace,
dave
 
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