Red Knee.. pics of tank and questions!

[Alice]

maybe you can safe your plants by putting them in closed pots (those usually used for decoration, without holes in the bottom. otherwise, too much water will leak into the substrate.

also, be careful with dehumidifiers - as far as i know, most of them work with chemicals and are quite toxic! tarantulas don't do well with toxic substances near them, they're relatively easy to poison.

two words about the substrate: DO IT. an adult ephebopus murinus female died on me after a fall from a smaller height! and those are lighter bodies than smithis, so you run an unneccessary risk.
sometimes she will climb, even if humidity is perfect, and a grave injury usually means death. if she injures herself and you're not there, she will simply leak out and die - ts do not have clotting agents and just bleed drie from injuries that might not seem too bad at first. it's just not worth the risk.

 

[luna]

Your tank looks lovely now but I know I have had a difficult time maintaining both live plants and a happy tarantula when they do not have the same requirements. It was something I tried to do in the past but other than a little moss, I have stopped using real plants and switched to really nice fakes.

Zilla, a reptile supply company has a desert series that is extremely lifelike. I have their plant replicas in all of my brachypelma tanks and if you didn't look really close you probably wouldn't know the difference. They are also fairly soft... no sharp spines to rupture delicate exoskeltons. That way you don't have to worry about the health of the plant but get the look.

I have gone to Zilla's website and their tropical line is even more beautiful but my petstore doesn't carry it. It has plants like pitcher and venus fly traps (not that any T's are roaming the Carolina's but still very cool)

I've also found that the better flower and gift shops around here have more realistic (but more expensive) fakes than the Michaels & A.C. Moores but they look so much better.

Cheri

 

[Mushroom Spore]

i might not consider putting extra substrate just yet..(it would be really tedous and i would need like 10 bags full to do that!!!) ..i'll see if this problem is solved with the lower humidity..

No, you have to do this. If you can't do it with the enclosure you have now, then it isn't a suitable enclosure and you need to get a smaller, simpler one. A tarantula really only needs maybe 5-6 times its legspan in floor space, a water dish, and something to hide in. And, of course, the height rule that so many of us have previously mentioned.

 

[dukegarda]

Nice enclosure. Wonder how long that took to set up? An hour or more probably.
That is my favorite part of the hobby, well, that's a lie, it all is! ;P

Real plants are great, they add that real, natural look. however, as some people have mentioned, too much moisture for something that's from the desert and a drier part of the world.

Watering twice daily is not good. So, this is what I recommend.

Use plastic plants. They seem fake, but I personally go with the plastic one's, they have that sheen to them that makes them seem real in most light. They are also, VERY customizable, you just need a hot glue gun, some scissors, a utility knife. Let you're creative mind soar.

Also, if you want to use real plants. Use desert species. Succulents and Cacti.

HOWEVER! AVOID NEEDLES. NO NEEDLES!

My buddy has had Jade plants in his B. vagans enclosure. Waters them once every two weeks.

 

[Thrasher]

welcome

welcome =) My first T was a smithi, and she is still kicking hard after many years =)

You said you went out and caught crickets? I don't think that would be a good idea =/ wild preys contain unknown perasites that you certainly wouldn't want in ur Ts =/ ANd the first tank for my first smithi was only a 2.5g and it is still the same tank after all these years =) And she seems fine in a small tank, i think the tank you have is a little too big even if you fill the whole thing with soil/sand. The tank you have looks like a fish tank and I am not sure if the tank would break after u stuff that much soil in it, it is designed for holding water after all.

 

[verry_sweet]

Wow that’s a really nice tank.

All the advice given is from people who have figured it out the hard way. I myself was one that didn’t listen to any of it and did things my way for a while. Ultimately though I learned that they were right

That tank is way to big. Especially when you start getting more T you’ll run out of room very quickly using tanks that size. Also once your girl settles in she pretty much wont move from one spot so that’ll get boring and frustrating. Crickets aren’t quite as dumb as people might think (hmmm no they probably are lol) They will hide on the other side of the tank where you T wont get them and then you’ll just have a bunch of dead crickets which is a recipe for mites and a hungry T giving you dirty looks

Live plants are a pain…. how ever I myself used them for a long time but eventually I realized that they just weren’t worth the trouble. A lot of people use them though with really good results.

Here is TheNatural’s picture thread his tanks are amazing……

http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/showthread.php?t=54776

Your tank looks great for a T. blondi though. They live in a much more humid atmosphere and get large enough to use the room.


Congratulations on you new B. smithi :clap: and welcome to the AB


Steph

 

[Drachenjager]

btw..the rocks in the dish is not wrong right? if i continue to leave it there would it post a problem?

there is no need to have rocks in there. also anythign in the water dish could be a media for bacterial propogation. we cant have unauthorized reproduction in our water dishes.

 

[Drachenjager]

Don't use sand... it can get stuck in their booklungs and cause damage.

its a bloody miracle that they survive in the wild with all that sand in thier booklungs isnt it.

 

[Drachenjager]

to fill up all that space in the bottom of the tank here is my suggestion for keeping it light and also saving a buck. Get some polystyrene blocks that will fit and put enough in to fill the space you need filled . leave a gap around the edges so the substrate will go between it and the glass to hide it from view

 

[Mushroom Spore]

its a bloody miracle that they survive in the wild with all that sand in thier booklungs isnt it.

As far as I know, no tarantula lives on sand in the wild. "Desert" in the case of things like Ts and leopard geckos tends to mean "extremely dry grasslands," not "endless sand dunes." :8o

 

[ronald might]

welcome =) My first T was a smithi, and she is still kicking hard after many years =)

You said you went out and caught crickets? I don't think that would be a good idea =/ wild preys contain unknown perasites that you certainly wouldn't want in ur Ts =/ ANd the first tank for my first smithi was only a 2.5g and it is still the same tank after all these years =) And she seems fine in a small tank, i think the tank you have is a little too big even if you fill the whole thing with soil/sand. The tank you have looks like a fish tank and I am not sure if the tank would break after u stuff that much soil in it, it is designed for holding water after all.

lol..catch the cricket from my tank dude..not from the wild! ..

btw..no worries bout the breaking tank..its design to hold large amounts of water..and water is heavy..im quite sure the tank wont break.

 

[tacoma0680]

That is a great setup I love that cage Great job

 

[ronald might]

hey guys..i tried looking for a humidity level today! i when every where! its not found from where i live..i suppose its because where i live..tarantulas and reptiles are not common..

BUT..

my T keeps hanging out at the flowers ( i can still see the moist water at where he lays)! many of you say that humidity might be too high..but why does he still hang out there?

im going to stop my watering and misting and see how things goes..but will any thing happen if the humidity is too low?

 

[verry_sweet]

As far as I know, no tarantula lives on sand in the wild. "Desert" in the case of things like Ts and leopard geckos tends to mean "extremely dry grasslands," not "endless sand dunes." :8o

I use sand in most of my set ups…it’s mixed in with peat and topsoil. I have never had a problem yet and it really holds a burrow well. Much better than pure peat moss, which I can’t stand.

I also sprinkle some straight sand in an enclosure if I’m worried about a T’s health…. that way I can see foot prints to tell me if the T has been moving around or not. After which I just mix it in to the sub.

 

[Moltar]

to fill up all that space in the bottom of the tank here is my suggestion for keeping it light and also saving a buck. Get some polystyrene blocks that will fit and put enough in to fill the space you need filled . leave a gap around the edges so the substrate will go between it and the glass to hide it from view

I've thought about this approach. You could also use an inverted styrene tub (rubbermaid or whatever) on the bottom of the tank. Either way, make sure there's room all around for burrowing (if you have a burrower, Smithi's don't dig all that much IME) that way they're forced to burrow against the glass where you can see them!

 

[IdahoBiteyThing]

hygrometer

B. smithi is one of my favorite T's; good choice! I'm going to go out on a limb here and say, "skip the hygrometer". If you're giving the T a choice between dry and less-dry areas, it's a non-issue. Probably simpler to skip the live plants. If you've got water available, overflow the dish a little every once in a while, you're not going to have humidity problems. For B. smithi, drier is better. If you have wet substrate, your T will be roaming the sides. And yes, you need more substrate to decrease the distance your T can fall. Also, you mentioned dividing the tank to make room for another T. Big chance that T(a) or T(b) will eventually figure out how to get from one side to the other and make lunch out of the other T.

 

[TheDarkFinder]

This is probably why the tarantula is climbing; I think Brachys are dry-loving species.

I keep asking this question and no one answer it. SAYS WHO. How do you know that brachypelma smithi is a dry loving species? Have you seen them in the wild?

Please just answer the question.

 

[SugrSean]

With a couple more raised hides, and it sounds like it's got pretty high humidity, I think you've got yourself a sweet arboreal setup (although I can't tell how tall it is!)

If it were me, and it's not, I'd find a cheap critter keeper or something for your smithi, and set up a p. regalis or formosa community. Sorry, I saw your nice setup and started dreaming again...

 

[Mushroom Spore]

I keep asking this question and no one answer it. SAYS WHO. How do you know that brachypelma smithi is a dry loving species? Have you seen them in the wild?

Please just answer the question.

Says "I've been hanging around the boards a while and that's just one of those things I picked up, no I'm not going to dig up quoted evidence threads because some random other board member demanded it of me, thanks." ;P

 

[IguanaMama]

Says "I've been hanging around the boards a while and that's just one of those things I picked up, no I'm not going to dig up quoted evidence threads because some random other board member demanded it of me, thanks." ;P

However, Darkfinder brings up a good point. Sometimes people just repeat what they read, not really taking into account who or what the original source was. I see a lot of bad information getting repeated over and over and over again, like the game telephone. Very few people bother doing their own original research. One person reads somewhere that they come from the desert and then says keep the dry and it gets repeated over and over again. Smithis will live a long time in your home in bone dry conditions with a water dish, but as I said, in nature, they dig deep burrows to escape the heat and bone dry conditions. They seek humidity and cooler temperatures by burrowing. So while they will live a long time kept dry, they will live longer with some humidity. Thank you Darkfinder for pointing this out!