So, you want to keep a pet tarantula?

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hi people !
lost my connection over the weekend @_@

a belated thx u to lopez and LK for the tigerrump. Did you get my letter ok LK?

really sorry to hear about your GBB lopez hope it pulls through :(
 
Glad the Tiger rump arrived okay - mine has just shed, and I believe yours had shed a day or so before the show. :)

The GBB is in "intensive care" with a damp paper towel for moisture. It's currently sat over the towel, so maybe it's trying to drink....I just don't know.

I'll do all I can....if I can keep him alive until the next moult then he has at least half a chance....
 
Yes hsp70, I recieved the cheque in the post on Friday. I thought I'd sent you a text to say it had arrived, sorry.

I noticed that Tachira's (C. cyanopubescens) legs were looking quite dark this morning, so I think a moult is on the horizon. I'm currently checking him every couple of hours just in case he also has difficulties. My fingers are well and truly crossed for Carabobo Leon... If he can suck juice through his fangs (but just not move them/catch prey) then I'm sure you can feed him liquid crickets via a pipette or by sitting him on a saucer and dropping bits of goo in front of him or something. I've a pipette I "acquired" from uni for you if you want it? Read all about it in the TKG and it's been done before.
 
I've received lots of advice from various breeders and keepers, ranging from "Euthanise it in the freezer" to "Feed it mushed up crickets"
I'll be nursing the spider as best I can, but I don't hold out a great deal of hope.

What has given me some hope is an account from someone whos Usambara moulted with deformed fangs and was totally unable to feed. The spider was only small (slightly bigger than Carabobo) but went without food for 2 months, then moulted, regenerating succesfully. The spider also grew in this moult despite not eating!

Here are the pics of Carabobo - you can clearly see in the bottom pic that his fangs are held much too far from the body. :(

http://www.vsupermarket.co.uk/~lopez/MySpiders/Carabobo02

http://www.vsupermarket.co.uk/~lopez/MySpiders/Carabobo03
 
Originally posted by Lopéz
I've received lots of advice from various breeders and keepers, ranging from "Euthanise it in the freezer" to "Feed it mushed up crickets"
I'll be nursing the spider as best I can, but I don't hold out a great deal of hope.
Click to expand...

I saw that thread on the BTS site.

I hope it pulls through Lopéz. It'd be such a shame to have to euthanise him :(
 
Looking like Marcelo (Chile Rose) is getting ready for a moult and he's looking very plump :) Laid down some nice webbing on the floor of his cage.

Incy (Pink Toe) has also recently moulted and the body is now less pink, and more a kind of greeny brown, but the feet are still black :) He's a fair bit bigger as well, nice to see he's doing well in the "Pasta Bake" jar I put him in :)

Gonzalez (White Knee) is currently eating very well, I'm feeding him a couple of fruit flies every couple of days and he's going through them like a nutter. Very pleased I got him and can't wait until he moults, as he is still VERY small!
 
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My B.smithi is a real pig. I thought I would give him a couple of crickets for his dinner. He had a couple on Sunday anyway but I thought I would put one in to see if he would take it. So I drop one in, Tom runs across the tank and grabs him straight away and starts to tuck in. "I wonder if I should put one in for later?" I think to myself. I put one in and straight away he runs across his tank and grabs it. He's already got one in his mouth and he's picking up another! There are currently two crickets hanging out of his mouth.

BTW, Tom seems to have settled in a bit better now. He doesn't spend all of his time on the sides of the tank now. I think he likes his piece of coconut shell 'cos he hides in there in the day and sits on the top of it in the evening.
 
Have any of you ever used humidity meters. The one i've found just looks like a little cheap sort of dial. Wondering if its worth the £4 it is, just as a little guide more than anything so i can keep tabs on the humidity as best as i can.
 
Originally posted by DHR
Have any of you ever used humidity meters. The one i've found just looks like a little cheap sort of dial. Wondering if its worth the £4 it is, just as a little guide more than anything so i can keep tabs on the humidity as best as i can.
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Never.

They're generally wildly inaccurate.
As a guide, if you have big water droplets on the glass it's much too wet in there. Such conditions promote mould and encourage mites to thrive.
My most humid spiders are my 80%+ C thorelli and H lividum from Malaysia, and at the most they only have slight misting/beading on the tank sides.

http://www.vsupermarket.co.uk/~lopez/MySpiders/BangkokTank01

That's really as "misted" as any tank should be.
If the peat moves easily when you blow on it (like dust) then it's generally too dry.
A spider in overly dry conditions will appear "shrivelled" and move slowly, possibly with very unusual jerky/wobbly movements.

Bear in mind all spiderlings need a higher humidity level to thrive - being so small they are prone to drying out (dessication) very rapidly.
 
Got some good news :D My little Avicularia purpurea arrived all the way from Germany this morning. He's about the same size as Louis was when I first got him (was expecting smaller, so that's a bonus). He was very active, so the long journey doesn't seem to have affected him at all. He's currently in his new tank (a little orange jar like the one above ^^ ) and he's webbing already. His film cartridge was full of web too so he's definately a prolific webber :)

Here's some pics of his Royal tinyness anyway.

Aviculariapurpurea01.jpg


And this is a slightly better one of him in his new home. His colouring is a bit like Louis's green, only darker. Hopefully he'll grow up to be an awesome purple fuzzball :cool:

Aviculariapurpurea02.jpg


This has cheered me up no end before my exam today anyway, I've wanted an A. purpurea ever since I first saw them.
 
Awww, glad the l'il purpurea arrived safely. Good to see that Sven is a reliable trader as well. :)

I've had a new arrival of my own today - a boyfriend for Pepper!
He's only mine on a breeding loan, the guy wants him back after he's serviced Pepper as he has 2 females of his own he wants to breed.
He arrived safely packaged and surprisingly active.
This male moves more like an Avicularia than a Chile Rose - all waving legs in the air :D
The colours are striking, it's hard to grasp just how bright pink that carapace really is.

Ladies and gents, this is Roger.

http://www.vsupermarket.co.uk/~lopez/MySpiders/Roger01

Handsome, isn't he?

http://www.vsupermarket.co.uk/~lopez/MySpiders/Roger02

Much smaller and more slender than Pepper.

http://www.vsupermarket.co.uk/~lopez/MySpiders/Roger03

1. These are his Tibial spurs. The adult male generally has these to lift the female up for mating and hold her fangs steady. Some species do not have these.

2. Palpal bulbs. These "boxing gloves" are filled with sperm and used to transfer it to the female.

I've just popped him into a small tank for now, and he appears to be spinning a sperm web already. Fingers crossed!
 
If possible, could i have one of the offspring mate? I'd need to do a little reading on the breed though to be sure. I was planning on getting a Mexican Red Knee (or a True Mexican Read Knee), what are they like in comparisom?
 
Originally posted by DHR
If possible, could i have one of the offspring mate? I'd need to do a little reading on the breed though to be sure. I was planning on getting a Mexican Red Knee (or a True Mexican Read Knee), what are they like in comparisom?
Click to expand...
Put it this way, there's no guarantee with spider breeding.

1. You have to actually get the damn things to mate. Sometimes, for whatever reasons, they just won't "do it"

2. Then the female might not produce an eggsac. Sometimes they just don't get gravid.

3. If she DOES make an egg sac, she might eat it, it might be infertile, it might rot, it might go hard.

4. If all the above manages not to happen, the spiderlings may just never hatch at all, or all die very quickly.

Now bear in mind from breeding to hatching we could be talking of a timescale covering 4 months plus......

So if I actually get some hatchlings, you'd be welcome to one. :p

Species is Grammostola rosea
 
Roger (whoever thought of that name should be praised ;) ) is absolutely beautiful!! It's amazing how the males look so much different to the females. He's gorgeous. Hope pepper enjoys her lovin' sessions.

Anyway, got home after my exam today and was greeted by this;
GBB01.jpg


After days of knowing he was about to moult, my little greenbottle blue finally flipped over. I was quite glad I wasn't here to see this because I'd have been worrying too much after what happened to his bro! Anyway he seems fine and as I picked up the container and put it on the desk he suddenly flipped over. It was really funny. Here he is looking all hidey with his knees up high. They sit like this for hours after the moult.

GBB02.jpg


His legs are turning blue now after being pinky, and his green femurs look beautiful. Carapace and abdomen are also looks extremely bright. Very pleased with this little T, I'm so glad we found them at the BTS show.

GBB03.jpg
 
Hmmm, my Curly seems to have made a nice big burrow for herself. The trouble is, the is no exit for her.

I put a small piece of bark in with her, hoping it would encourage her to burrow underneath it. She did that, very nice. I can see her through the sides of her tank as I positioned the bark close to the side for that very reason. But there is no way out. She does not look like she is about to moult and I can see she ihas bee digging in the other direction underneath the bark. She has already piled up a lot of substrate on top of the bark and I am worried if she digs much further that it might collapse on her.

Do you think I should dig her out?
 
My Curly has done the exact same.
They are persistent diggers, there's no avoiding it really.
I occasionally remove a bit of substrate from Miguels tank so I can drop a cricket in for him :)
 
Last night I decided to "test the water" and put Roger in with Pepper.
I dimmed the lights, set the tanks down on the floor and let Barry White play softly on the stereo.
As soon as Roger hit the peat Pepper came out of her burrow and sat atop her cork bark, drumming loudly with her pedipalps.
If you've not seen mating tarantulas before, this drumming is surprisingly loud, almost like someone rapping their fingertips on a wooden table.
She approached Roger, partingher chelicerae and lifting her body.
Poor Rog was having none of it though - he froze at first, eventually grappling with Pepper in an attempt to shrug her off before spinning around and legging it at an almighty rate of knots!

I managed to get a few pics of the failed copulation:

http://www.vsupermarket.co.uk/~lopez/MySpiders/PepperMating01

http://www.vsupermarket.co.uk/~lopez/MySpiders/PepperMating02

http://www.vsupermarket.co.uk/~lopez/MySpiders/PepperMating03

http://www.vsupermarket.co.uk/~lopez/MySpiders/PepperMating04

I can only assume this means he has not had a chance to spin his sperm web and charge his palps.
I'll try again in a few days - one good thing to come from this is I now know Pepper is responsive and willing to mate. :)
 
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