Whats Wrong With...

Blaze

Arachnopeon
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Mar 1, 2011
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11
What exactly is wrong with putting a 1 inch sling in a 5 gallon tank? is it really that bad for the spider?
 

Hobo

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
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It will be difficult to keep the enclosure safe and escape proof for a 1" sling.
You will lose such a small sling in an enclosure that big, as they will burrow, and even 1" of sub is deep enough for them to completely disappear.
It will be difficult to make sure it is feeding/hydrating correctly, or even if it's still alive if you never see it.
It is an obscene waste of space that you could use for more spiders.
 
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RoseT

Arachnosquire
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Sep 20, 2010
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^^ Pretty much...I mean you got to make it somewhat easier for your sling to catch its prey at that age..That much room will allow anything you feed it to easily roam and hide. Will make it 10X harder for you sling to catch its prey.
 

Rob1985

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T's don't need much room, plus if it's a burrower good luck finding it now!!! {D
 

Bill S

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I used to do stuff like this. My first OBT was a 2" sling in a 10 gallon terrarium. I never had any real problems with it, but it takes exta effort to make sure the spider gets its food. Housing them in smaller containers is just a matter of practicallity. At this point I'd put a 1" sling in either a deli cup or maybe a kritter keeper, depending on the species and its behavior patterns. As someone else said, if it's a burrower it will be difficult to keep track of in a large container.
 

newspidermom

Arachnosquire
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Nov 13, 2010
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OK I might be talking out my um...abdomen...lol, but from what I read too much space actually stresses the T out and they can actually start pacing. Since their eyesight is so bad they rely on feel and vibration so they will "learn" their surroundings. Once they learn their enclosure..water here, a hump there, oh, and a nice little cubby hole here, & oops...a wall there...lol. Too much space to "learn" and I guess they can't find their way back so to speak. If you watch a T in a new enclosure they always explore and are pretty active at first until they settle in. If you think of Ts in the wild they never roam too far from their burrows and usually wait for the food to come to them. The mature males will roam, but that's usually for mating. The rule of thumb is about 4-5 times the leg span is all they really need. You can probably be a little more generous with a sling since they molt more often. And like it was already said...why would you want to stress yourself out looking for a little sling in all that space not to mention the higher risk of escape. Ts can squeeze thru some tiny spaces. Years ago my brothers 5" B. Smithi escaped thru a hole the size of a quarter! We found her thank goodness, but gives you an idea what a tiny sling could get thru. So that sums up my opinion...sorry it was so long winded...lol.
 

phoenixxavierre

Arachnoprince
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What exactly is wrong with putting a 1 inch sling in a 5 gallon tank? is it really that bad for the spider?
If it's escape proof, nothing. They have a whole lot more space, less dependable prey, and a whole lot more predators in the wild and manage to survive just fine.
 

Bill S

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OK I might be talking out my um...abdomen...lol, but from what I read too much space actually stresses the T out and they can actually start pacing. Since their eyesight is so bad they rely on feel and vibration so they will "learn" their surroundings. Once they learn their enclosure..water here, a hump there, oh, and a nice little cubby hole here, & oops...a wall there...lol. Too much space to "learn" and I guess they can't find their way back so to speak.
I've heard stuff like this before - but it doesn't make much sense. Spiders evolved OUTDOORS. If having space was too stressful, they'd have died out millions of years ago. In captivity, if you give them more space than they need - they simply don't use it all. Just like in the wild. In a properly set up cage they'll find a place in it to call home settle down in it. If the cage does not provide what they are looking for, they will wander in hopes of finding it. If you put a spider in a very large cage and it does not settle down, that might be a hint that you need to reconsider the environment you are providing.

I'm lucky enough to live in an area where tarantulas are fairly common. I've got a decent sized collection of captive tarantulas, but we sometimes find tarantulas living in burrows out in the yard. (It's a very large yard.) We leave them there and observe them. They do not stress over having too much room. We also have a fair number of wild spiders that live in the house. There's a pair of Pholcids living in one of the bathrooms, a few Selenopid crab spiders scattered around different walls in the house, and even a recluse spider living behind the shelves in the tarantula room. They have all the room they want - but generally choose one place to call home and pretty much stay there. As far as I can tell, that does not stress them out.
 

NikiP

Arachnobaron
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Apr 16, 2006
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It won't kill them to have a larger enclosure. Granted, I certainly wouldn't put that size sling in a 5gal because that's just asking for it to escape.

Several of mine are enclosures that most would consider over done. They either use the space, or they don't. Plain & simple. None of them wander around or bump into things. My 6" MF P. cambridgei is in an 12x12x18 exo terra, She actually has multiple spots with a web mating that she will use, which I find interesting. My 5" E. murinus is in a planted 10gal tank that I made swampy. She has her hole & an impressive 7" strip of webbing, she never sets foot in the rest of the tank, so really she uses less then a 1/4 of the tank. My 2.5" P. regalis is in a 1gal container. It's way larger then him, but he's webbed up everything. Am planning on revamping some of my other enclosures soon so more of my subadults-adults have similar expanded housing. I find it more fascinating to watch them & see how they make it their own.

I'm very careful when I feed & try to do it at night so they are more out & about. Though really I haven't worried about how they find their food since my Avic, sp, regularly climbs 6" from it's webbing to the bottom where i've dropped in a cricket & hunts it down. It's impressive how well they can feel the vibrations.
 

Spidershane1

Arachnoknight
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Apr 11, 2010
Messages
170
Too big of a cage will definetly stress out a T.
For hundreds of millions of years, tarantulas everywhere have thought to themselves "dude, I'm so stressed out from walking a couple feet and not running into a peice of plastic".
Now that humans have come along, T's can finally fulfill their destiny of being put into a box.
And they all lived hapilly ever after.
 

Joanie

Arachnoknight
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Nov 4, 2002
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I knew someone who kept a rosehair sling (starting at about 3/4") in a 5 gallon tank. The sling did fine for quite awhile (it lived over a year in the tank), but eventually died during a molt. My guess is that it was harder to keep the sling hydrated in such a large space. Finding prey never seemed to be an issue, as the sling was a chunky little thing when I saw it. And who knows, maybe it would've died during a molt anyway--it's not exactly unheard of even in well-hydrated slings.

I tend to favor larger enclosures for my spiders (not quite the sling-in-a-5-gallon level, but larger than what I've seen some hobbyists use) and I've never had any problems.

Just my two cents.
 

SC Tarantulas

Arachnoknight
Active Member
Joined
Feb 27, 2011
Messages
218
It is so much harder to keep track of such a small T in such a large enclosure. Most T's don't roam very far from there burrow/hide anyway. I would much rather see a 1" sling in an enclosure with about a 3-5" diameter (max). Anything more than that just seems like wasted space.
 
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