Welcome to my scorpling ICU!

tabor

Arachnoprince
Old Timer
Joined
Jun 26, 2003
Messages
1,620
Last week or so, i received a lovely package from a friend overseas. Much to my surprise he included many freebies, many of which were very very small, and only second instar or so. Usually I have no problems raising scorpions from this tender age to adulthood, but for some reason this particular batch seemed extraordinarily frail.

I started with about twenty 2i I. maculatus. Within the first 3 days FIVE had died. My young liocheles species were also dropping like flies. Something had to be done. Where I live is super prone to all forms of mold, any uneaten cricket parts will be covered in mold in less than 24 hours or so, it is ridiculous.

I was having problems locating prey items in my area small enough for these little dudes to eat, but at the same time my other option (prekilled larger prey) seemed to be causing outbreaks of deadly mold left and right. :wall:

Using techniques i borrowed from this site and others (such as telow on venomlist), I've been able to rectify my situation. Since moving to this new setup I've only lost one scorpling. I can't wait til they molt out of this vulnerable instar! Here's my cheap and effective solution.

For housing most of my more terrestrial scorplings i headed off to a craft store and for $1.77 picked up two of these:


Drill amble holes and add dampened squished cotton balls:




House tons of dudes (such as this CC) in this new mold free intensive care unit:



Now for the I. macs: same principle, except communal, and with bark for molting. I crafted a food dish for them to eat out of and change the cotton after a prey item has been in there for a day or so. These go into my scorpion "incubator" along with my sickly OSN.









Hope this helps someone out! -ryan


edit: theres about a dozen i maculatus in the cage for those wondering
 

tabor

Arachnoprince
Old Timer
Joined
Jun 26, 2003
Messages
1,620
looks like i need to take some of those i macs off of you
Indeed you might have to. I'd like to get them through this instar before trying to ship them out though!

 

kahoy

Arachnoangel
Old Timer
Joined
Dec 8, 2005
Messages
859
just sending you an info,

i macs dont need heavy humidity... and on the weird side... i macs go drown on water droplets when still 2i... i bet the sender forgot to give you those info.

:D
 
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tabor

Arachnoprince
Old Timer
Joined
Jun 26, 2003
Messages
1,620
just sending you an info,

i macs dont need heavy humidity... and on the weird side... i macs go drown on water droplets when still 2i... i bet the sender forgot to give you those info.

:D
yeah, i had just changed the cotton out in those pics, i usually go through and soak up water droplets that are that large because i notice ive found a few dead in them. either way ive still got 10+ imacs to raise to 3i, and about 5 that already 4i.

theres not much i can do about the humidity. where i live the humidity is consistantly %90+

for my desert species i have to keep them inside and use heat lamps to "dry" the air out, and get humidity dorn to about %40.

thanks for your tips kahoy! any idea how long these take to molt to 3rd instar? they all seem to be doing much better in this new setup. most of them are even eating :clap:
 

LeilaNami

Arachnoking
Old Timer
Joined
Jun 8, 2006
Messages
2,164
Are your C. vits doing better? I caught you another one. Only one though since it won't stop raining. It's been storming every day for the past two and a half weeks. This is texas not seattle dangit!
 

tabor

Arachnoprince
Old Timer
Joined
Jun 26, 2003
Messages
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Are your C. vits doing better? I caught you another one. Only one though since it won't stop raining. It's been storming every day for the past two and a half weeks. This is texas not seattle dangit!
Hmm my brother is in charge of the C. vits, and hes out of town for the weekend. Last I heard most of them were doing decent. It's hard to keep track with so much stuff. That's why we split care for certain species amongst ourselves. I couldn't even tell you what container the C. vits are in without searching first {D
 

kahoy

Arachnoangel
Old Timer
Joined
Dec 8, 2005
Messages
859
yeah, i had just changed the cotton out in those pics, i usually go through and soak up water droplets that are that large because i notice ive found a few dead in them. either way ive still got 10+ imacs to raise to 3i, and about 5 that already 4i.

theres not much i can do about the humidity. where i live the humidity is consistantly %90+

for my desert species i have to keep them inside and use heat lamps to "dry" the air out, and get humidity dorn to about %40.

thanks for your tips kahoy! any idea how long these take to molt to 3rd instar? they all seem to be doing much better in this new setup. most of them are even eating :clap:

your kids will be better on half dry half humid set-up, like "moist" (not wet) cotton on one side then dry bark on the other, temp should be more likely 29-30 celcius, they can tollerate 23 to 35 celcius, but some will not be, so better stick to 30 celcius.

feeding if you want a faster growth it would be 2 roachies, termites, pinheads or mini mealies everyday, then take the temp up to 31-32 celcius, 2i-3i would be likely a week or less, then just keep it until it goes to adulthood, but the drawback is their size decreases compared to the normal growth and the same time the brood goes lesser the faster the growth is.

btw, once you see them look like this... and goes on mating it is still not an adult (its a sub-adult), if it got ferilized it will go on mating and may stop to molt to adulthood, same to males...

actual size comparison to the pic would be like 95%
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f52/homoadik2s/dwarffemale.jpg
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f52/homoadik2s/dwarfmale.jpg

female is sub and male is 5i or 6i, and mated... yet died on that size and never molted again.

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f52/homoadik2s/normalfemale.jpg
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f52/homoadik2s/normalmale.jpg

the real adult male (8i) and adult female (8i)
before i thought it was 7i but it was acctually 8i as the ultimate molt.

those pics are more likely 2.5 years old. :)

more info to follow... :D
 

tabor

Arachnoprince
Old Timer
Joined
Jun 26, 2003
Messages
1,620
Thanks kahoy. I've changed my setup to exactl 30 degrees celcius (86 or so farenheit for us americans). This new mentod seems to be working as theyve all taken food and the deaths seemed to have stopped :}

also holy CRAP those dwarfs are small... for some reason i always pictured i macs geting slightly larger. bad ass scorp either way!
 
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