should i rehouse on a premolt?

[Tindalos]

i got an avicularia avicularia who's
been on premolt for three weeks
i rehoused her about two weeks ago
due molding problems. she webbed her previous enclosure
moderately then i rehoused her.
i took the risk because if didnt surely the amount the mold would of killed
her. so i rehoused her. now she webbed just a little
in this cleaned enclosure. now there is even more mold
too much to just pick at. i figured the source of the mold is the
grapevine i got in thier. I bought it used at reptile expo.
dont ever do that again. so i want to remove it but
she has been on heavy premolt with so i dont
screw up her molt.

the Question is remove or not to
remove it?

the gtrapevine

and put her in a new enclosure?

 

[Ariel]

I've been kind of wondering this myself, I had to take out my P. cambridgei and clean his enclosure do to mold. I was amazed at how little attitude he was giving me, but thought nothing of it until feeding day and he didn't eat. He still hasn't eaten so I've concluded premolt, but he hasn't done ANY webbing since his enclosure was cleaned when before he had a real nice system of web going.

 

[Teal]

I would say, do it as gently as possible.
My B. smithi was put into a box, moved to one house, then on a 10 hour drive full of jostling and traffic... and molted just fine in the middle of it.

 

[Bill S]

Even if the grapevine is the source of the mold - mold can't grow without an abundance of moisture. For it to be growing as fast and heavily as you describe suggests to me that your cage is much too wet. After your earlier re-caging it might have helped to decrease the water and increase the ventilation. At this stage - I'm not sure. You should avoid bothering the tarantula, as you already know - but without seeing the mold situation first hand it's hard for me to make recommendations as to how you could best handle it.

How cluttered is the cage with grapevine? If there's open room available - clean and dry that open space. That at least would give the tarantula a place to retreat to of it's own accord. Depending on the size and design of your cage you might be able to place it within another cage with the lid off so that once again the tarantula can move away from the moldy area on its own. If either of these scenarios is feasible, and the tarantula moves voluntarily to a better location, you may be able to then remove the moldy grapevine without disturbing the tarantula.

 

[Tindalos]

yeah it is an abundance of moisture
for the first time i used
vermiculite
and the mold sprang up fast
ive mostly dealt with
terrestrials
so im still trying to figure this
whole balance of moisture and ventilation.
i thought about removing the grapvine
and placing a pothos in there
but....
im not sure, is their a link to video
about humidity/ventilation?
i dont have much money so i dont have access to those
fancy tarantula cages

why is ventilation so important?
i provide much as i can
but i dont understand the purpose
in it.

 

[Ariel]

Even if the grapevine is the source of the mold - mold can't grow without an abundance of moisture. For it to be growing as fast and heavily as you describe suggests to me that your cage is much too wet. After your earlier re-caging it might have helped to decrease the water and increase the ventilation.

This is what i did. My problem was the waterdish I was using, it kept spilling over and the substrate ended up just crazy wet, but I couldn't just STOP giving my T water. (luckily i had plenty of ventilation, so it didn't mold very fast, or all that much, I only did the cage cleaning to get all of the saturated substrate out and fix the waterbowl so it wouldn't spill so much, I also added a good handful of isopods, and so far, its worked great, no mold so far, no more super saturated substrate.

I really hope I didn't stress my little guy/girl out to much, I had NO idea he was in premolt.

 

[Tindalos]

how does mold affect a
T anyways?
i know its bad but why?

 

[Hobo]

yeah it is an abundance of moisture
for the first time i used
vermiculite
and the mold sprang up fast
ive mostly dealt with
terrestrials
so im still trying to figure this
whole balance of moisture and ventilation.
i thought about removing the grapvine
and placing a pothos in there
but....
im not sure, is their a link to video
about humidity/ventilation?
i dont have much money so i dont have access to those
fancy tarantula cages

why is ventilation so important?
i provide much as i can
but i dont understand the purpose
in it.

Now with avics, it's apparently a bit tricky to keep the humidity up while at the same time giving them lots of ventilation that they need. I've read that it is best accomplished by providing as large a waterdish as you can to increase humidity in the cage, while at the same time covering less of the ventilation than you would for other Ts. The substrate should be kept dry (so I think you should scrap that pothos idea). You shouldn't have to moisten the substrate ever using this method, which lowers the risk of having fungal growths or mite infestations, as well as fungal infections on your T itself (mold typically needs something moist/wet to start growing on, so even if you are humid, no wet substrate/decorations = no mold).
Ventilation is important for several reasons, but the reason you should be concerned with is mold control. With more ventilation, it will be less humid, less chance of the sub/whatever else being wet for too long, and there will be less mold.

My advice for you (as far as mold is concerned) is to keep a bigger water dish in your enclosure, while at first keeping a lot of ventilation until the substrate and whatever else dries up. Then, start retarding ventilation using saran wrap until you reach the optimal humidity, ensuring you are leaving as much open ventilation as possible. Also, be sure to sanitize(bake, nuke, boil, whatever the method!) whatever you put in your enclosure to get rid of any spores/mites/other nasties that might be hitching a ride... especially on organic things like bark and grapevine!

As for your premolt situation, I'd follow Bill S's advice!

Some shots of your girls enclosure should help out a bit too. Either way, good luck!

 

[Mattyb]

Remove the grapevine. Do not remove her until after she molts.

 

[WARPIG]

How wet are your enclosures???

I mist my avis every so often, their strate is allowed to dry out in between mistings, and the olny real source of water is a dish that is always filled.

I ran an experiment where I raised an A versi with no strate and little ventilation with no Ill efects and she is now about 3" (beautiful gal), her two siblings had peat and cross ventilation and they are roughly the same size as her.

Here she is, no strate, no vents, just about 8 small holes in the lid.
She was here for over a year, the only source of moisture was a water cap.

You have way too much water in your enclosures.

Let it dry out and don't move that T.

PIG-

 

[xhexdx]

Pig,

How do you refill the dish? Water through the holes in top?

 

[WARPIG]

Pig,

How do you refill the dish? Water through the holes in top?

I would crack the lid, cut some webbing, and squirt water in:}

She is in a much larger home now, but for a year I ran the experiment, IMO avis are much hardier than the rep some folks try to attach to them.

She is in this pic b4 re-house, you can see her two siblings had strate and she did not.

PIG-

 

[ksac3]

you may be putting in damp substrate that gets moldy fast right after rehousing.i had the same problem and switched to cocofiber substrate.
i had the same problem with mold but fixed it

 

[Mack&Cass]

That's a good idea, Pig. We don't mist ours either, we used to and then our versi had a terrible molt (we think she was too wet), so all we do now is squirt water onto the top of her lid, which has a couple of holes and the water will slowly drip down into her enclosure (she also has a waterdish) and she's done great since we started doing that. We don't have a waterdish for our amazonica yet (still a small sling), but we do squirt on the top of its enclosure, and it just molted for the first time with us, and its looking fantastic. I think a lot of people think that they need to be wet, but I think the biggest thing is to have good ventilation, some occasional moisture (or waterdish) and they're fine. As for whether or not you should rehouse, it's tricky. We've cut it close a few times (not knowing they were in premolt). How heavy in premolt is it?

Cass

 

[natebugman]

I stopped using grapevine completely. That stuff molds if you look at it funny.

I don't think I'd rehouse your spider. The stress might be worse than the mold. If you can get the grapevine out without disturbing her or her web too much, I'd probably do that.