- Joined
- Apr 27, 2008
- Messages
- 381
I love keeping arachnids. More than that, I love keeping arachnids in beautiful habitats with real live plants. The problem with keeping plants is that plants require a significant amount of light to keep alive which is the opposite of what most spiders need to be happy.
Traditional live plant enclosures have been limited to using plants that require very little light in order to remain healthy. By using shade tolerant house plants in the enclosure the tarantula keeper is able to maintain the plants by simply placing the enclosure in a well lit room. This, however, both limits the types of plants and types of spiders that can be kept in these enclosures: any plant that requires high light conditions or any spider that is stressed by bright light becomes unpractical.
There is a solution to this dilemma: spiders can't see red light at all. You can use all the red light that you could possibly want without stressing your pet. Furthermore, red light is one of the frequencies of light which promote photosynthesis. In other words, red light will keep your plants alive without hurting your arachnid and you can use as much of it as your plants require.
There is another perk to using artificial red light to incubate the plants, too. Photosynthesis actually works under two frequencies: red and blue. In hydroponics blue light is used to germinate seedlings and grow young plants wile red light is used to maintain existing vegetation and produce fruit. If my hypothesis is correct, using only red light will impart the additional benefit of slowing or even stunting live plant growth while still maintaining plant health; this means less tank maintenance for the keeper.
To test the merits of this approach I have built a test vivarium containing two succulents which need high light conditions. The spider is a Zoropsis spinimana which is a simi-arboreal, non-burrowing, true spider. Both the plants and the spider are very hardy so a small mistake with the vivarium shouldn't spell instant disaster.
The lighting will consist of a panel of red LED lights. The exact wattage of these lights I have yet to settle on but it should be in the range of 1.5W to 3W. I have chosen LED lights because, while they are expensive to obtain at first, they are cheap to operate, even off of batteries. LED lights are also extremely efficient and therefore heat generation, and thus desiccation risk should will be kept at a minimum.
In order to insure that the plant health isn't due to any household or sunlight contaminating the experiment I will be keeping the vivarium in a darkened cabinet with only the grow lights and one or two green LEDs on a timer to keep the spider's circadian rhythm balanced.
Success in the artificial light vivarium experiment will be declared if, after two months, both plants are alive and the spider has been spotted regularly in an exposed location while the lamps are on full intensity.
Throughout the experiment I will be posting updates on how well the plants and the animal are doing and any modifications I have made to the setup.
Traditional live plant enclosures have been limited to using plants that require very little light in order to remain healthy. By using shade tolerant house plants in the enclosure the tarantula keeper is able to maintain the plants by simply placing the enclosure in a well lit room. This, however, both limits the types of plants and types of spiders that can be kept in these enclosures: any plant that requires high light conditions or any spider that is stressed by bright light becomes unpractical.
There is a solution to this dilemma: spiders can't see red light at all. You can use all the red light that you could possibly want without stressing your pet. Furthermore, red light is one of the frequencies of light which promote photosynthesis. In other words, red light will keep your plants alive without hurting your arachnid and you can use as much of it as your plants require.
There is another perk to using artificial red light to incubate the plants, too. Photosynthesis actually works under two frequencies: red and blue. In hydroponics blue light is used to germinate seedlings and grow young plants wile red light is used to maintain existing vegetation and produce fruit. If my hypothesis is correct, using only red light will impart the additional benefit of slowing or even stunting live plant growth while still maintaining plant health; this means less tank maintenance for the keeper.
To test the merits of this approach I have built a test vivarium containing two succulents which need high light conditions. The spider is a Zoropsis spinimana which is a simi-arboreal, non-burrowing, true spider. Both the plants and the spider are very hardy so a small mistake with the vivarium shouldn't spell instant disaster.
The lighting will consist of a panel of red LED lights. The exact wattage of these lights I have yet to settle on but it should be in the range of 1.5W to 3W. I have chosen LED lights because, while they are expensive to obtain at first, they are cheap to operate, even off of batteries. LED lights are also extremely efficient and therefore heat generation, and thus desiccation risk should will be kept at a minimum.
In order to insure that the plant health isn't due to any household or sunlight contaminating the experiment I will be keeping the vivarium in a darkened cabinet with only the grow lights and one or two green LEDs on a timer to keep the spider's circadian rhythm balanced.
Success in the artificial light vivarium experiment will be declared if, after two months, both plants are alive and the spider has been spotted regularly in an exposed location while the lamps are on full intensity.
Throughout the experiment I will be posting updates on how well the plants and the animal are doing and any modifications I have made to the setup.