Today in the Spider Room?

[Teal]

We got this new hopefully-girl set up in an enclosure! Yeah, the legs are a bit wompy... but she enjoyed a huge dubia and has made herself right at home!

 

[Bree24]

No surprise that my 3/4” G. porteri is the first T to give me a threat posture. Go ahead, attack my paintbrush! You’re so tough! Oooooo! I wish I’d gotten a picture.

 

[Ungoliant]

I just had a very lucky break.

I opened the condiment cup to feed my Phormictopus sling. It got spooked and climbed out onto the rim of the container. I tried to nudge it back into the container, but it bolted across the little side-desk where I keep my tarantulas and fell.

I thought it was lost for sure, as this area of the floor is kind of cluttered and has heavy shelves and bins behind which an escaped sling could run. Fortunately, it landed on a crumpled paper towel that was down there, and when I opened it, the sling had crawled into the folds of the paper towel. I quickly closed it back up, placed the paper towel in my rehousing bin, and managed to get the sling back into its condiment cup.

 

[Dovey]

Ants! Ants attacking my upstairs dubia bin! Thousands of them! This is the one thing I hate about monsoon season in Arizona. The ants come into the houses just desperate for food and water or maybe just to escape the heat. I don't know, but ants everywhere and this is in my bedroom! I don't dare spray, because this is also my spider room. Thank God they haven't attacked any of my babies.

I was able to save some of the mature females and a few of the smaller nymphs, but the attack was well under way and it was like something from an Animal Planet nature special or a movie with Charlton Heston. God, did I get bitten. My hands are just covered with little bites. I'm meeting a friend at a pub in a little bit, and I'm really glad. Frankly, I could use a drink.

I think the ants were initially attracted by the scent of some porridge I was feeding the dubias and then couldn't believe their luck at discovering a captive supply of livestock. I won't be feeding wet delicious foods anymore, that's for durned sure!

My hands are still shaking. Jeez Louise, I do need a drink....

 

[Teal]

Ants! Ants attacking my upstairs dubia bin! Thousands of them! This is the one thing I hate about monsoon season in Arizona. The ants come into the houses just desperate for food and water or maybe just to escape the heat. I don't know, but ants everywhere and this is in my bedroom! I don't dare spray, because this is also my spider room. Thank God they haven't attacked any of my babies.

I was able to save some of the mature females and a few of the smaller nymphs, but the attack was well under way and it was like something from an Animal Planet nature special or a movie with Charlton Heston. God, did I get bitten. My hands are just covered with little bites. I'm meeting a friend at a pub in a little bit, and I'm really glad. Frankly, I could use a drink.

I think the ants were initially attracted by the scent of some porridge I was feeding the dubias and then couldn't believe their luck at discovering a captive supply of livestock. I won't be feeding wet delicious foods anymore, that's for durned sure!

My hands are still shaking. Jeez Louise, I do need a drink....

Oh shoot, I'm so sorry! I love ants, but they can be seriously harmful when they get into places they shouldn't be

You can put your dubia enclosure in a pan of water to deter invasions, or apply a rim of petroleum jelly around the outside to prevent them from climbing (if they are getting in through ventilation at the top).

 

[Dovey]

Do you all think baby oil would do the same thing in terms of keeping ants out of habitats? Buy baby oil, I mean regular mineral oil.

 

[Teal]

Do you all think baby oil would do the same thing in terms of keeping ants out of habitats? Buy baby oil, I mean regular mineral oil.

I honestly don't know. And I don't know how thick it is... would it maintain a layer on the side of an enclosure like petroleum jelly?

 

[Dovey]

Can I admit just among y'all that I have been fighting tooth & nail against depression and an anxiety disorder for a while now, and today was just especially bad. Today I skipped church and hardly left my bedroom except for a quick trip to the kitchen for lunch and a few minutes watching the sunset this evening.

Today in the spider room, I mostly just hugged my spiders to me and hunkered down to get through this bad patch. Well okay, I didn't actually hug the spiders...that wouldn't end well. But I dithere'd and poked over every single habitat and sat in wonder at some of the growth my slings have experienced lately.

Days like this are really grim. I didn't even get jobs done that I needed to do for the spiders like poke holes in some new Sterilite containers and mix up some substrate. Everything just seemed so overwhelming. I probably didn't have the chutzpah necessary for rehousing, anyway. But I did see to all my spiders--and that's not nothing, is it?

Tomorrow will be better.

 

[Razzledazzy]

Caught my chalcodes sitting in her water dish and taking a bath like a bird. It was adorable. Wish I'd gotten video of it.

 

[dangerforceidle]

Tomorrow will be better.

Yes, it will.

 

[Dovey]

Caught my chalcodes sitting in her water dish and taking a bath like a bird. It was adorable. Wish I'd gotten video of it.

Well it's monsoon season here in chalcodes central, the Sonora Desert, so that makes perfect sense to me!

 

[weibkreux]

Tomorrow will be better.

Definitely will. Unmotivated days come and go. Feeling like that sometimes. Good thing we have our Ts to keep us occupied.

 

[draconisj4]

I swear these tarantulas mess with us on purpose. I have cleaned and refilled my C. marshalli's water dish 3 times since last Friday. First he pooped in it, then he put a bolus in it, then he webbed it and the water wicked out. Yesterday I noticed he had flipped it over and buried it and I thought that I would wait until today( feeding day) to take care of it. I no sooner cleaned and refilled it when he came running out and started drinking like he hadn't been offered water for days

So now I'm the one who feels guilty...when he's the jerk.

 

[Dovey]

I swear these tarantulas mess with us on purpose. I have cleaned and refilled my C. marshalli's water dish 3 times since last Friday. First he pooped in it, then he put a bolus in it, then he webbed it and the water wicked out. Yesterday I noticed he had flipped it over and buried it and I thought that I would wait until today( feeding day) to take care of it. I no sooner cleaned and refilled it when he came running out and started drinking like he hadn't been offered water for days

So now I'm the one who feels guilty...when he's the jerk.

Maybe he was just turning over his water dish all those times to indicate to you that he'd drunk it all up and finished, sort of like a pint of beer. Okay, maybe not.

 

[Razzledazzy]

My auratum won't stop getting substrate in his water dish. Out of my three he's the only one who does this. Please sir, have some decorum.

 

[Dovey]

I was complaining vociferously yesterday that I had the only shy geniculata sling on the planet, a serial non eater and slow grower. Happily, she was out and about today and took a nice fat dubia Like A Champion. Yea team!

I also ran one pass my Neoholothele incei, who was all over that action as always. I love that species! So olive green and shiny, and so fierce!

 

[Dovey]

Okay, shy genic is making a complete fool of me. I was removing an uneaten dubia from a different habitat, and since she was sitting right there, I popped it into the geniculata's bin. She jumped on it like she was starving to death even having just eaten two days ago. This is a pretty sizable dubia, too, probably the size of her abdomen. She almost took the tongs away from me, and this spider is maybe two inches on a good day! I think we have a cure here. I think the girl has found her inner nature and is well on her way to full geniculata-hood!

 

[antinous]

Got some enclosures ready for the new T’s I bought that should all be coming on Tuesday

 

[draconisj4]

Okay, shy genic is making a complete fool of me. I was removing an uneaten dubia from a different habitat, and since she was sitting right there, I popped it into the geniculata's bin. She jumped on it like she was starving to death even having just eaten two days ago. This is a pretty sizable dubia, too, probably the size of her abdomen. She almost took the tongs away from me, and this spider is maybe two inches on a good day! I think we have a cure here. I think the girl has found her inner nature and is well on her way to full geniculata-hood!

Mine tried to eat her water dish today, I'm sure she has tipped it over by now. I couldn't feed her to distract her either, she's way too fat. I wish she was still shy, lol.

 

[PanzoN88]

Feeding day today

Tomorrow and monday I will be preparing enclosures for several new additions.