- Joined
- May 23, 2004
- Messages
- 325
Had a bit of comic relief today after finding 
mites in my T. pruriens' container. After removing the sling, I put the substrate into the microwave to zap the little buggers before tossing out the soil/peat. Having no idea how to do it, I decided to add water. Turned on microwave at HI for 5 minutes. Came back later to find entire inside of oven covered with dirt. Oooops. The upside was that the substrate covering seems to have helped loosen the stuff already on microwave walls waiting to be cleaned.
It's been a while since I had slings, and had forgotten about the evil mite invasions that might appear. Guess I'll take out the magnifying glass and give all of the sling containers a check tonight. Several of my slings live in those microwavable GLAD containers, and I'm thinking those might be really good for all of the slings now, as they can be zapped without having to do an entire new setup.
I hate keeping slings in small vials, as it is so much more difficult (for me, anyway) to keep the balance between too wet/too dry. So far I haven't noticed even the teeniest .25" slings having any trouble finding their food in the sandwich-sized boxes, and I feel much better being able to keep a damp side and a dry side. About half of my 50 spiders are slings - most of the adults lived in sandwich boxes when they were slings, and nobody starved; everybody learned to go out hunting. The L. parahybana are especially fun, as they run around their containers a lot. I feed chopped crickets/mealworms as well as live pinhead crickets - figure if they are accustomed to both live and dead food there will be less chance of them starving to death if nothing live is available.
My Avic slings (avic and versi) live in Beanie Baby boxes, and all except one have learned to go down to the bottom of their home to find chopped food. One A. avic holds out for live food. I do monitor pretty carefully to make sure everyone is actually eating. Interesting to watch A. versicolor carrying a mealworm slice up to its web cradle to eat at leisure.
mites in my T. pruriens' container. After removing the sling, I put the substrate into the microwave to zap the little buggers before tossing out the soil/peat. Having no idea how to do it, I decided to add water. Turned on microwave at HI for 5 minutes. Came back later to find entire inside of oven covered with dirt. Oooops. The upside was that the substrate covering seems to have helped loosen the stuff already on microwave walls waiting to be cleaned. It's been a while since I had slings, and had forgotten about the evil mite invasions that might appear. Guess I'll take out the magnifying glass and give all of the sling containers a check tonight. Several of my slings live in those microwavable GLAD containers, and I'm thinking those might be really good for all of the slings now, as they can be zapped without having to do an entire new setup.
I hate keeping slings in small vials, as it is so much more difficult (for me, anyway) to keep the balance between too wet/too dry. So far I haven't noticed even the teeniest .25" slings having any trouble finding their food in the sandwich-sized boxes, and I feel much better being able to keep a damp side and a dry side. About half of my 50 spiders are slings - most of the adults lived in sandwich boxes when they were slings, and nobody starved; everybody learned to go out hunting. The L. parahybana are especially fun, as they run around their containers a lot. I feed chopped crickets/mealworms as well as live pinhead crickets - figure if they are accustomed to both live and dead food there will be less chance of them starving to death if nothing live is available.
My Avic slings (avic and versi) live in Beanie Baby boxes, and all except one have learned to go down to the bottom of their home to find chopped food. One A. avic holds out for live food. I do monitor pretty carefully to make sure everyone is actually eating. Interesting to watch A. versicolor carrying a mealworm slice up to its web cradle to eat at leisure.
