Tarantula skin „peeling off“?

[Linn99]

Grammostola iheringi, subadult male. 30cmx30cmx30cm cross ventilated

Is this normal or fungus or anything? I’m worried since I he‘s in an enclosure with mold(fungus?) and mushrooms, and I just rehoused him into a smaller enclosure today. I noticed the mold in the old enclosure a few months ago, it wasn’t too much but on the inside of his cork bark hide, but it has almost exploded.
Sorry for this hard-to-read post, im really tired, it’s sleeping time over here and already half asleep.



Kind of looks like what theraphosa abdomens often look like, the „bald“ spot that looks like you the „golden“ skin has peeled off. My brother pointed it out last time he was over and I didn’t really know what to answer.

 

[Poonjab]

Normal

 

[Wolfram1]

the golden patch of setae is called mirror-patch and consists of urticating setae, the rehouse may even have caused him to flick more
some animals will also layer them all over their burrow or even the entire enclosure when they start going into premolt to "secure" their space.

 

[Linn99]

the golden patch of setae is called mirror-patch and consists of urticating setae, the rehouse may even have caused him to flick more
some animals will also layer them all over their burrow or even the entire enclosure when they start going into premolt to "secure" their space.

Thank you!

 

[viper69]

normal

 

[Konstantin Konstantinov]

Hi
as said above its normal.
Pics of mine when I got it below
With flash


without flash

It has moulted since and abdomen is nice and not bold atm.
Also you can keep it on dry substrate with waterdish and you will forget about mould.
Regards Konstantin

 

[Smotzer]

Yup nothing to worry about!

 

[Linn99]

Thank you guys.

konstantin, your iheringi is really pretty.

i usually keep my iheringi really dry but he’s been hugging the moist spot, so I tried to expand it. I don’t think that’s the cause of the mold but since I used excavator clay (Exo Terra) as a background and that started to mold it„infected“ the cork bark i suppose. The moisture must have come from the deeper humidity that the substrate still had when I put it into the enclosure, which wasn’t a lot but apparently enough.
Also there was a mushroom growing inside his hide which stressed me out since it probably stressed him out.
I’ve been in the hobby for about two years now, have 8 tarantulas and I still feel like I started yesterday every time there’s something to possibly worry about.

anyways, this isn’t the first time I’ve had a cork bark mold so I might try to switch to something else. Thank you guys, I’ll rehouse him back soon, remove the excavator clay, keep the enclosure a lot drier and try to add more springtails to the moist area.