Today in the Spider Room?

tamra

Arachnopeon
Joined
Jun 22, 2021
Messages
8
So ... using a nestcam to spy on my T is one of my better decisions as a novice keeper. She finally opened a small entrance to her hide the other day and started peeking out. This morning she was halfway out so I dropped in a cricket but she ducked back into her hide and the cricket vanished behind the plants.

I was worried I fed her too soon after a potential molt and figured I'd spend my evening looking for the cricket, possibly having to pull the enclosure apart if it got down into her truly expansive cavern network.

But while I was out the camera picked up the cricket, an hour later, calmly crawling around the water dish in the foreground and in the background, Kuku's hairy legs sloooowly stretching out from the darkness of her darkened cave. Seriously. It was like a horror movie for crickets. Or arachnophobes.

She calmly stalked the cricket for about 10 minutes, pounced, then gently carried it back underground. She's so dainty for a T.

My footage is really blurry but it saved me a ton of worry and potentially digging up my T's home. I'm going to work on a better camera setup because it's so worth it.

Also, my T is alive and eating so yay! Unfortunately, the grainy footage hasn't revealed if she's molted. I'm hoping to see her booty because she had a little bald patch from kicking hairs when I rehoused her. Patience ...
 

DonT

Arachnopeon
Joined
Sep 7, 2021
Messages
0
Picked up a sexed female P.irminia last month and it laid a sac a week later. Pulled it today to find it was a phantom. She casually followed the sac out and hung out on the side of the enclosure for some pictures, after which I gave her a slight nudge and she calmly walked on back in! As far as I'm concerned she has proven herself a good mother! As a reward I stocked her up on a couple super worms! View attachment 388399 View attachment 388400 View attachment 388401 View attachment 388402
Picked up a sexed female P.irminia last month and it laid a sac a week later. Pulled it today to find it was a phantom. She casually followed the sac out and hung out on the side of the enclosure for some pictures, after which I gave her a slight nudge and she calmly walked on back in! As far as I'm concerned she has proven herself a good mother! As a reward I stocked her up on a couple super worms! View attachment 388399 View attachment 388400 View attachment 388401 View attachment 388402
Hey Steve. Do you need a male? I have a freshly molted MM.
 

USNGunner

Arachnosquire
Joined
Jul 30, 2020
Messages
148
Also, my T is alive and eating so yay! Unfortunately, the grainy footage hasn't revealed if she's molted. I'm hoping to see her booty because she had a little bald patch from kicking hairs when I rehoused her. Patience ...
What camera are you using? And what are you looking to get? I've been thinking about this very thing but don't know doodly about any of that tech. :rolleyes:
 

spideyspinneret78

Arachnoprince
Joined
Jul 19, 2019
Messages
1,253
Rehoused my C. lividus (sub?) female as she pretty much grew out her old enclosure. I was eager to grab the opportunity to take a few hundred million picture of her, since I had no idea if I will ever see her again after she settled. My lass had other plans though, so after a couple of shots I was compelled to move her into her new home.

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Gorgeous photos. I love the details.
 

Rigor Mortis

Arachnobaron
Joined
Nov 7, 2018
Messages
498
It happened. 3 years and 10 spiders later, it happened. One of them put dirt in her water dish. :lol: I thought I was pretty lucky having none of these ungrateful jerks who fling sub into a water dish like it's nobody's business but my A. anax decided to break the trend.
 

tamra

Arachnopeon
Joined
Jun 22, 2021
Messages
8
What camera are you using? And what are you looking to get? I've been thinking about this very thing but don't know doodly about any of that tech. :rolleyes:
I'm a tech geek so I've got several cameras. I've been using an older Nest camera which can produce very sharp video. I used to love it because I could keep a rolling 2 week stream on the cloud for free, but Nest was purchased by Google a few years ago though and now you have to pay a monthly fee ($8 I think) to keep the data. Otherwise, it's only useful as a live camera. The new fee annoys me so I've been experimenting with some other options for home security.

Amazon's blink cameras are pretty good and can be used indoor and outdoor, but they only capture very short clips when there is movement. And a slow moving spider typically won't set them off. You can drop in for a live view, but again, only for short segments. My Blink is perfect for capturing who came to my front door, but not much else.

I also have some Wyze cameras. I was skeptical because they are WAY cheaper than most of the other options. Nest cameras are over $200 in Canada, Wyze are just over $40. They have a model that you can pan remotely and the image quality is great. Wyze also charges a fee to keep your video stream, BUT they allow you to add a data card to keep the data locally in each camera. I think I paid $20 for a card that keeps about a 10 day stream. I use these as security cameras to monitor the front and side of my street [Am I starting to sound paranoid? It was handy when someone crashed into my neighbor's car and drove off. I also, weirdly, caught the Property Brothers and their 8 car film crew beside my house setting up for their in-vehicle shooting in our area. I live on a long corner lot with an unusually large amount of open street parking, so our corner is a popular meetup place].

Anyway, main camera issues: Nest has a great web interface. I can quickly scan my video to look for movement then scan more slowly to target the area I want to see. Creating clips to save is easy once you get the hang of it and they are stored online so you can share them, and they are easy to download. Wyze has a great cheap camera but a lousy web interface. Going through the stream can be excruciating because you can't scan as you go. You have to pick a spot in the video and wait for it to load. So it's fine for keeping a security stream you only have to check if something serious happens.

Both Nest and Wyze offer pretty good live viewing via the web or phone app. So far it's worth paying the fee for the Nest storage until Wyze improves their web options because the Nest camera really is very usable. Oh, and Nest has an interface for my ipad, phone and PC. The other two don't have PC options, just mobile devices.

My biggest issue with the image quality right now isn't the camera. There are deep shadows in my spider tank, uneven light, and a lot of glare/haze from the acrylic sides which hampers focus. Also, the tank is lit from the other side with a himilayan salt lamp I have on a time for a bit of warmth and light. The Nest has excellent night vision so my nighttime video is very sharp where it's not interrupted by reflections. I'm working to see if I can minimize these issues -- getting a glass or better quality tank might help.

If I perfect my setup I'll share my specs. The spider really is incredibly interesting, but she moves so slowly that it's really helpful to be able to scan the feed an skip through hours she just sits there :)

Here is a typical daytime shot - she's about to grab a cricket in the corner.

day.jpg

And here is a typical night shot. you can see the reflection of the night lighting around the camera lens. It's actually very dim but shows up on the plastic. And it really captures the water spots from where I misted. But I now know she comes out around midnight for a nice long drink.

night.jpg
 

tamra

Arachnopeon
Joined
Jun 22, 2021
Messages
8
Oh, and yes, I'm pretty sure she has molted. She doesn't look any bigger but she's super fluffy and no more bald patch on her booty. First successful molt in my taratntula keeping experience. Yay!
 

Rigor Mortis

Arachnobaron
Joined
Nov 7, 2018
Messages
498
My A. anax has decided she lives in her hide now, which is the most exciting thing that's happened in a week. The joys of keeping juveniles and sub-adults: Hardly anything ever happens. Some might say that's boring but that's why I have them in the first place. :rofl: It's the amazing when one of them actually does something.
 

GiuseppeCharcodes

Arachnopeon
Joined
Jul 15, 2021
Messages
14
Slipped a sheet of acrylic into place under a wire mesh lid after I caught my A. chalcodes trying to bite her way through- figured that was that.

Nope, she is undeterred. Guess I have to remove the wire entirely. My area can get muggy, and I'm hoping she's not feeling stuffy.

Edit: She started renovating her tunnel as well. She's very active lately.
 

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Arachnid Addicted

Arachnoprince
Joined
Apr 16, 2019
Messages
1,546
I pulled another eggsac today, however, I noticed something odd about it. Here's the story, lol.

First, it was a 22 days, Nhandu carapoensis sac, and they were all ewl.
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After I opened it more, I found and mass of mold in the middle of it, I could "scrape" of some of the nymphs with a soft paintbrush, but the ones closer to mass were really attached to it so, I dropped them all, unfortunately. I heard about these mold masses before, but I've never seen one so far.
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I noticed this mass started with rotted eggs, and the mold stuck in the nymphs, maybe if I had waited ten more days, I wouldn't be able to save any of them.
Luckily, I pull it out today and saved most of them.
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Anyone passed through something similar?
 
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Rigor Mortis

Arachnobaron
Joined
Nov 7, 2018
Messages
498
My N. chromatus lives to annoy me. Went to refill water dishes last night only to find another half-eaten mealworm in her dish. This is the second time she's done this and I'm beginning to wonder if she just hates mealworms.
 

spideyspinneret78

Arachnoprince
Joined
Jul 19, 2019
Messages
1,253
My N. chromatus lives to annoy me. Went to refill water dishes last night only to find another half-eaten mealworm in her dish. This is the second time she's done this and I'm beginning to wonder if she just hates mealworms. IMG_20210912_171058018.jpg IMG_20210912_171209687~2.jpg
Either that, or she just hates you! Hahaha. My N. coloratovillosus always takes a huge dump in her water dish each day and then throws a fit when I try to clean it up. I wonder if sometimes she does it out of spite. Nhandus are....special. They're lucky that they're cute.
 

corydalis

Arachnosquire
Joined
Jun 27, 2019
Messages
142
Rehoused my subadult female H.mac and it was my smoothest transfer ever with the species. Just opened up her old enclosure and placed it into her new one, she switched on her own within a few hours. Exploring her new home calmly, this time wasn't even bothered by the torch nor the flash light.
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Ungoliant

Malleus Aranearum
Staff member
Joined
Mar 7, 2012
Messages
4,096
Last night, I discovered that my Kochiana brunnipes sling died. It seemed to be doing fine during the month that I had it; I think it may have had a bad molt.
 

8 legged

Arachnoprince
Joined
Nov 25, 2020
Messages
1,069
I bought 4 Aphonopelma johnnycashi slings and got an Aphonopelma crinirufum 0.1 as an encore - which made me very happy. The girl is missing a leg, but that should be over time...

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8 legged

Arachnoprince
Joined
Nov 25, 2020
Messages
1,069
Today's inspection tour was a joyful event, both my incei girls built an egg sack, as well as my langenbucheri lady! Obviously the matings were a success!
N. incei:
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P. langenbucheri:
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LucN

Arachnobaron
Old Timer
Joined
Jan 22, 2009
Messages
315
My G. porteri refused her crickets about a month ago. I wasn't sure whether she was nearing premolt or simply going on a hunger strike. This particular individual has never gone on a hunger strike except at last year's summer. I was feeding exclusively superworms. I now know she's a picky eater because she never says no to crickets. Found her on her back this morning, so I ought to see the results at some point tonight. She is a WC, owned her for 8 years now, no idea of her actual age. Could be anywhere between 10 and 15 as a guesstimate. Molted 3 times so far, so this is #4. Her last was 3 years ago. She's basically following behind my B. boehmei, which molted in early August. Anyways, I have faith that it will go well, she's a good eater as opposed to a lot of porteri out there. And I do catch her visiting the water bowl every now and then.

Edit : For anybody that cares, she actually molted fine. Yay !
 
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Kibosh

Arachnoknight
Joined
Dec 6, 2013
Messages
257
Did a few rehouses. I. Mira, C. Hati Hati, and T. Violaceus. All went well, except the Hati Hati was a bit of a spaz. All about 1.5-2" put into their subadult homes.

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LucN

Arachnobaron
Old Timer
Joined
Jan 22, 2009
Messages
315
Yesterday, my G. porteri molted. Tonight, I notice that my T. albopilosus is in heavy premolt. I'm not exactly sure when she last molted, but it doesn't feel all that long. Was it last year or even earlier this year o_O ? I really, really need to keep notes on this.

Edit : Did a search and found my answer. According to an older thread of mine, she last molted in April of last year. So she pretty much went a year and a half before needing to molt again. Maybe at some point, she'll switch to a 2 year molt cycle ? Time will tell.
 
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