Today in the Spider Room?

[Rigor Mortis]

For the past week in the spider room my B. hamorii has continued her excavation. Her end goal is to seal up her hide entirely and make a dirt ramp sloping down to the front of her enclosure. Every time I catch her with legs full of dirt she freezes until I leave.

 

[fishboyuk]

3.5cm Brachypelma vagans has dug itself a tunnel underneath it's bottle cap water bowl. Such a busy little thing always carrying chunks of coir around. New additions from Saturday all ate Sunday night. The 2 new A. versicolour are due a rehouse because they have definitely outgrown the little pots they were in when i collected them so more 32oz deli cups ordered for this week.

 

[WolfSoon]

I caught two of my versicolor slings grooming in unison. Watching spiders groom is always a treat, but this was just cuteness overload.
My G. actaeon female who I feared had had a bad molt seems to be doing pretty well a few days later. Two of her legs appear to be duds, but I’m hopeful the rest of her is fine!

 

[Ungoliant]

I "downgraded" my new Pterinopelma sazimai sling to a 1 oz. condiment cup (because the deli cups I normally use for larger slings dwarfed her).

Itty Bitty sazimai Committee (0.4")

• Ungoliant
• Oct 14, 2019
• 3
• brazilian blue tarantula osmosis pterinopelma pterinopelma sazimai sazima's tarantula sazimai sling

So tiny! So cute!

I also rehoused my Caribena versicolor sling, because the enclosure she came in needed more ventilation and a cork slab. She was not happy about it.

 

[Hoxter]

Went through my first OW sling escape during attempt of feeding. Loki (C. marshallli) decided he'd rather get out than grab his first mealworm after molt. He liked to stop in places where cupping him was practically impossible but I managed to get him back in.

He's got rehouse waiting for him later today. Hopefully he behaves that time.

edit: my smallest sling H. pulchripes decided to take its chances for a run during rehouse. Seeing little fella running as much as it could was pretty fun. To think it used to be pretty chill till now. I guess it didn't have chance.

 

[Himotas]

In T room happend so much in last 7 days. Seven Poecilotheria slings molt in same week

 

[Brachyfan]

Today I found out that my new Brachypelma Hamorii 2-3" is scared of food! Or maybe premolt. I put a reasonable sized cricket in the enclosure to see it eat for the first time and every time the cricket went anywhere near the t it was kicking hairs. Then it climbed the wall when that didn't work. Made it kind of difficult to grab the cricket while Mr grumpy would kick hairs at everything. I did manage to get the feeder out eventually. On second thought maybe I should have waited more than 3 days for it to settle in!

I also did my G pulchripes a favor and changed it's mud dish!

 

[WolfSoon]

Today is the first time I’ve caught my Sandinista lanceolatum female exploring above ground (I got her over a year ago, at which time she immediately burrowed and sealed herself off ). She was tentatively tapping all over the enclosure walls. She’s a beautiful T!
Since she’s no longer a pet tub of dirt, I’ll have to move her to a higher shelf, out from my cats’ line of sight.

 

[Chaos4eva]

My "spider room" is the living in my apt . The new thing that happened was got a new Striped Knee T and realized I didn't have an enclosure for her...

 

[scooter1685]

Went to feed my slings the other day and my Nhandu chromatus was sitting on top of the little silk leaf on his cork bark, inside a little web cocoon. I didn't realize the webbing was attached to the lid of the enclosure until I pulled it off. Poor little guy ran down to the bottom of his cork bark, and the next morning I found a little molt in the same spot. The sling was lying on his webbing in front of his burrow, with his legs looking floppy and weak. I didn't mess with him at all, but I laughed a bit. Looked like he tried to make it back to his burrow and just exhausted himself. I felt really bad for pulling apart his webbing. He was clearly preparing to molt, but this giant stupid human ruined things. He looks much bigger now, and he's walking around webbing a little more near his burrow.

I had to rehouse one of my Pterinopelma sazimai slings too. I had noticed a little bit of mold on top of the substrate, but with all the posts about mold I didn't worry too much about it. Then he left about half of a tiny mealworm down in his burrow. I didn't realize it was there until some mold began to sprout from the entrance to his burrow. Thankfully it was only a couple of days. I didn't realize until then that he had burrowed quite a bit under his cork bark. Took a bit to rehouse him because of that. The morning after his rehousing, I found the entrance to his starter burrow completely sealed off with webbing and substrate. Little Jerry is nowhere to be seen. I guess he was pretty offended at the rehousing. He's probably also molting, he was looking pretty plump and shiny when I rehoused him.

So far, these slings are amazing. I look in on them 4-5 times per day. No touching of the enclosures or anything, hopefully they don't know I'm there at all, just looking to see what they're doing. I was super nervous about buying slings. I'm kind of an anxious person and I kept reading stories about babies arriving dead, or dying for no apparent reason, and lots of other issues. Haven't had them even a month yet, but so far this is the most fun and interesting experience I've ever had keeping Ts. I will absolutely be getting more, but not too soon. Definitely in the spring.

 

[SteveIDDQD]

One of "The Horde!" (our balfouri communal) moulted right on top of the web castle, and to my relief, wasn't eaten by it's brothers/sisters.

The biggest of the 5 was sat only about a cm away the whole time and didn't react at all.

 

[SteveIDDQD]

One of "The Horde!" (our balfouri communal) moulted right on top of the web castle, and to my relief, wasn't eaten by it's brothers/sisters.

The biggest of the 5 was sat only about a cm away the whole time and didn't react at all.

Aw. I'd noticed one of the guys had been sat in one spot outside the web castle for quite a few days without moving.
On closer inspection just now, the little guy is dead
On much closer inspection it has a leak or abscess on the base of the abdomen, to small to really tell as its so small. Now I'm not ruling out one of the others doing this, but its not been fed on and looks healthy except for the one mark. It even looks healthy and alive, but its clearly dead when poked.
Guess I need to keep a closer eye on them and make a decision, because I said one instance of it going bad and they would be split up.

Edit: after removing it from the enclosure, its not an abscess, was just a bit of dirt. Sling looks fully intact and fat enough to survive, so no idea what happened to it. It was the smallest of the 5 so maybe its was just not growing right... RIP little guy.

 

[Ungoliant]

I put a roach in this LED lightbulb cover and placed that in Dozer's enclosure to see how she would solve the puzzle. I got impatient after about 15 minutes, but when I checked later, I found her in there eating the roach.

Thunderdome (♀ Grammostola pulchra 3.5") [1/3]

• Ungoliant
• Oct 20, 2019
• brazilian black tarantula bulldozer female grammostola grammostola pulchra juvenile juvenile female pulchra

I put a roach in this LED lightbulb cover and placed that in Dozer's enclosure to see how she...

Thunderdome (♀ Grammostola pulchra 3.5") [2/3]

• Ungoliant
• Oct 20, 2019
• 2
• brazilian black tarantula bulldozer female grammostola grammostola pulchra juvenile juvenile female pulchra

I put a roach in this LED lightbulb cover and placed that in Dozer's enclosure to see how she...

Dozer got tired of me snapping photos and took her ball home.

Thunderdome (♀ Grammostola pulchra 3.5") [3/3]

• Ungoliant
• Oct 20, 2019
• 3
• brazilian black tarantula bulldozer female grammostola grammostola pulchra juvenile juvenile female pulchra

I put a roach in this LED lightbulb cover and placed that in Dozer's enclosure to see how she...

 

[corydalis]

Last week I’ve decided to separate my two subadult male balfouris since the bigger one just literally kicked out his sack mate from the burrow they used together so far. The smaller one roamed around nervously for days, attempted to return to the burrow time to time, but all he received from his former companion was threat posture. So he got another enclosure. After the rehouse he settled down real quickly.

 

[Hannahs Herps]

Today I did a major rehousing. 15 to be exact. Picked up quite a few slings over the past couple of months and was putting off rehousing. I bought locally and they came in foggy deli cups that I hate.

3x B. Emilia
3x N. Incie (these gave me the run around)
3x P. regalis (got smarter by the time I rehoused these guys.)
4x I. mira
1x P. cambridgei
1x N. carapoensis (not a new pick up but needed a rehousing anyways.)

 

[Brachyfan]

I put a roach in this LED lightbulb cover and placed that in Dozer's enclosure to see how she would solve the puzzle. I got impatient after about 15 minutes, but when I checked later, I found her in there eating the roach.

Thunderdome (♀ Grammostola pulchra 3.5") [1/3]

• Ungoliant
• Oct 20, 2019
• brazilian black tarantula bulldozer female grammostola grammostola pulchra juvenile juvenile female pulchra

I put a roach in this LED lightbulb cover and placed that in Dozer's enclosure to see how she...

Thunderdome (♀ Grammostola pulchra 3.5") [2/3]

• Ungoliant
• Oct 20, 2019
• 2
• brazilian black tarantula bulldozer female grammostola grammostola pulchra juvenile juvenile female pulchra

I put a roach in this LED lightbulb cover and placed that in Dozer's enclosure to see how she...

Dozer got tired of me snapping photos and took her ball home.

Thunderdome (♀ Grammostola pulchra 3.5") [3/3]

• Ungoliant
• Oct 20, 2019
• 3
• brazilian black tarantula bulldozer female grammostola grammostola pulchra juvenile juvenile female pulchra

I put a roach in this LED lightbulb cover and placed that in Dozer's enclosure to see how she...

That's awesome!

I went to water my G pulchripes today and it clearly wants water because it is standing on the water dish with its forelegs sticking out of the vents. I will usually move the enclosure and the t will get down. Not this time. Waited 6 hours!

 

[lostbrane]

Well, the P. pulcher mm finally passed. I have no idea how it lasted so long given the state it was in.

On the plus side, looks like my P. cambridgei will be getting it’s new home soon.

 

[Hoxter]

My E. murinus has spent whole night working on renovation of his old burrow and its entrance. It looks more impressive now despite not so much webbing yet... but he messed up his water dish and I cleaned it just yesterday anyways, maybe now he actually decides to molt, I'll be getting him a new home after that.

edit: 2 new and one old pic to compare.

 

[Thekla]

I rehoused my C. versicolor a month ago into her forever home and she never started webbing... until now. I've been away for the weekend and just came home... and yes, she finally started webbing...

View attachment 323254

... right at the front door! Seriously, girl? You have such nice foliage and a great slab of cork bark... just why? Why would you do that to me?

Okay, after destroying her web at the front door almost every day for two weeks I went on another week-long holiday and now look who finally learned her lesson!

Front entrance:


And her web castle from the side and back:

 

[scooter1685]

Only bought these 5 slings about 6 weeks ago now, and Jerry (P. sazimai) had his burrow sealed for almost 3 weeks. My wife thought he had passed away trying to molt or something, and she asked a few times if we should carefully dig him up to make sure he was alright. I was pretty reluctant to do that and figured I'd let him go for at least a month unless I saw or smelled something amiss. Kept putting pre-killed prey in his enclosure and removing it the next day, and changing the water.

Last night I was watering my Ts. As I carried Jerry's little enclosure to my work station, examining the substrate and cork bark to see if anything had changed, I saw a flash of movement. Took a closer look, and saw a tiny hole under his cork bark. He has cleared away the entrance to his burrow again, and I scared him back down the burrow when I was moving the cup.

Can't tell you what a relief that is. I was starting to think Emily was right. Glad to see he's doing alright, even if it was only a quick flash of legs. Today is feeding day. I'll be sure to give him a nice one, since he was hiding for the last couple feeding days.