white stuff in avic avic mouth need help asap!

I got 3 cotton swabs, the last one she spit out on the qtip. I feel sick, I placed her in a dry 1 gallon container with new eco earth. I see no movement in the swabs just whitish grey clumps. what can I do? my guess is it is mold I dont wanna lose her

shes puking all over the wall she is in definite pain right now I might have to put her down. Ill wait it out until tomorrow when I hear what other people have to say. there is dark clumps on the wall I suspect it may be nematodes. If someone can could you please send me a link of what I need to do to disinfect and prevent the nematodes and possible causes. I would have for my b. vagans sling to catch it.

Are you sure its not just been eating its own crap? If the tarantula is still eating then that rules nematodes out although nine times out of ten its usually just spider crap.

mcluskyisms said:

Are you sure its not just been eating its own crap? If the tarantula is still eating then that rules nematodes out although nine times out of ten its usually just spider crap.

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she stopped eating about 10 days ago, I thought she was going to molt. I saw the white on her mouth today, freaked out and ruined her web and transferred her into a 1 gallon container that I can dispose if need be because I just got a B.vagans sling that I dont want to die as well. she Puked a lot and was dragging her mouth all over the new container. There is dark spicules, possibly worms/partially digested cricket within the puke and from her puke there is white sigmoidal (s shaped lines) from the puke as well that she could not have done with her mouth, it was most likely motility from the organism. I feel horrible, she was my first T, I bought her 22 days ago and was really excited, spent 150$ on the tank,bark, decorations, live plants re-potted using ecoearth to avoid something like this and then this happens. I hope my B.vagans sling will be ok, Im throwing out all my crickets,and cleaning my cricket keeper in the morning. as for now she stopped throwing up, but oh my its terrible she keeps on fanging her mouth and tapping her pedipalps. it looks like shes in pain. It's 6 am and I cant get sleep because of this. Hopefully I can get some feedback ill post more pics if anyone wants but im almost 100% convinced she has the nemes. weather will be something like 20*F tomorrow. It looks like I'm gonna have to put her outside, and bury her. again if anyone can link me to previous threads it would be appreciated. I looked it up and found a few but nothing with a good outlook. everyone says nemes are incurable except this guy. http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/archive/index.php/t-203354.html , im not sure how I would go about treating this, if his medicine really does work, where would I get the meds?

Well I certainly wouldn't make any rash decisions just yet although if it is nematodes than death is usually the result. You have done the right thing by removing it from the other spiders, can you get a photograph of the tarantulas mouth parts?

I couldnt get any good ones. as for now the white is limited to the bottom of her mouth but before she was spitting out copious amounts. Ill also put up a pic of all the throwup and her new container. I just bought it today because I was gunna buy a sub adult metallica tomorrow. Now I'm upset and I think ill just hold on to my B vagans and hope that nothing happens. I really don't want this to deter me from the hobby. all I can attribute it too is bad feeders or my pothos ivy, but i replaced the potting soil with ecoearth and she is never near the dirt anyway.

Personally I would keep the tarantula isolated but I wouldn't plan on destroying it, I haven't heard of tarantulas "spitting out or puking" nematodes before & I'm sure that white marks down the container are tarantula feces. As mentioned, all you can do is keep it isolated from any other tarantulas for the time being & also try not to disturb it. If it's still alive in a couple of weeks and hasn't moulted then try offering it a cricket, if it doesn't eat the cricket after a few hours then remove the cricket.

I'd also say up the humidity a bit too, as it looks slightly dry in that enclosure. Hopefully it will be ok and make a full recovery!

Its not feces. I watched her spit all that up, I'm afraid it may be hemolymph and that she is internally bleeding. she wont eat, I tried offering her one today and its been 10 days, before that she was eating 4-5 large crickets every week.

AgeTheLabTech said:

Its not feces. I watched her spit all that up, I'm afraid it may be hemolymph and that she is internally bleeding. she wont eat, I tried offering her one today and its been 10 days, before that she was eating 4-5 large crickets every week.

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Haemolymph is a clear to off yellow translucent liquid, not a white looking paste. Also I would stop trying to feed the tarantula right now as it will probably just distress it even more. I must say, 4-5 large crickets a week is vastly overfeeding the tarantula, I only feed adult tarantulas 1 medium cricket per week unless they're are mated then I feed two maximum.

A lot of the time, I find with newer keepers that they have a tendency to "over worry" a lot, obviously this is your new pet and so you care about it etc. But feeding it that much a week is overkill to say the least, also I have never heard of a tarantula puking up. Moving a tarantula into a new enclosure is quite stressful for the tarantula as they take time to adapt to the new surroundings, also I may add, especially with Avicularia spp. Once they have made their web hide then they're usually settled in and they will barely ever come out of it. As I have mentioned previously, the best thing to do is to leave the tarantula in peace and quite in a dark area and keep the disturbances down to a minimum.

I don't know what to tell you but as a fellow Avicularia lover I'm keeping a good thought for you and your spider.

Take a swab of the white stuff and put it in water (if you see little wormies then you have nematodes). Also I would move this T away from any others you may have and finally Ts don't feel pain like we do at least.

Here is a helpful link so you can read up on nematodes and other problems that may occur with tarantulas: http://www.giantspiders.com/ailments.html

Please don't be rash or too impulsive with this.

Amoeba said:

Take a swab of the white stuff and put it in water (if you see little wormies then you have nematodes). Also I would move this T away from any others you may have and finally Ts don't feel pain like we do at least.

Here is a helpful link so you can read up on nematodes and other problems that may occur with tarantulas: http://www.giantspiders.com/ailments.html

Please don't be rash or too impulsive with this.

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I took a white swab and it was just thick clumps in the water, I saw no worms with a handheld 30x scope but that was when I first saw the white stuff coming out and the rest of her mouth became soaking wet, after she starting spewing all over the container and dragging her mouth. Im handling the container with gloves, I will be sterilizing EVERYTHING. What else could make a T throwup and spit out a white substance? It clearly was bothering her if she was dragging her mouth around the container. Are you sure T's dont feel pain? It looked pretty convincing that she was in pain because she was tapping her pedipalps while fanging her mouth. Ill wait it out till the next episode and swab that but if it is nemes I will put her down. Trust me I dont want to, but I also dont want my baby B.vagans catching the bug.

---------- Post added 01-12-2012 at 01:20 PM ----------

mcluskyisms said:

Haemolymph is a clear to off yellow translucent liquid, not a white looking paste. Also I would stop trying to feed the tarantula right now as it will probably just distress it even more. I must say, 4-5 large crickets a week is vastly overfeeding the tarantula, I only feed adult tarantulas 1 medium cricket per week unless they're are mated then I feed two maximum.

A lot of the time, I find with newer keepers that they have a tendency to "over worry" a lot, obviously this is your new pet and so you care about it etc. But feeding it that much a week is overkill to say the least, also I have never heard of a tarantula puking up. Moving a tarantula into a new enclosure is quite stressful for the tarantula as they take time to adapt to the new surroundings, also I may add, especially with Avicularia spp. Once they have made their web hide then they're usually settled in and they will barely ever come out of it. As I have mentioned previously, the best thing to do is to leave the tarantula in peace and quite in a dark area and keep the disturbances down to a minimum.

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I looked it up shortly after and realized that hemolymph is clear to straw colored. In addition, I did not want to move her out of her enclosure, but as soon as I saw her mouth I thought nematodes, and I had to try and swab and at least take her out of the environment she was initially sick in.

Secreting liquid and "tapping pedipalps while fanging" sounds an awful lot like grooming. Though, I don't know why it would be secreting so much.

AgeTheLabTech said:

I took a white swab and it was just thick clumps in the water, I saw no worms with a handheld 30x scope but that was when I first saw the white stuff coming out and the rest of her mouth became soaking wet, after she starting spewing all over the container and dragging her mouth. Im handling the container with gloves, I will be sterilizing EVERYTHING. What else could make a T throwup and spit out a white substance? It clearly was bothering her if she was dragging her mouth around the container. Are you sure T's dont feel pain? It looked pretty convincing that she was in pain because she was tapping her pedipalps while fanging her mouth. Ill wait it out till the next episode and swab that but if it is nemes I will put her down. Trust me I dont want to, but I also dont want my baby B.vagans catching the bug.

---------- Post added 01-12-2012 at 01:20 PM ----------

I looked it up shortly after and realized that hemolymph is clear to straw colored. In addition, I did not want to move her out of her enclosure, but as soon as I saw her mouth I thought nematodes, and I had to try and swab and at least take her out of the environment she was initially sick in.

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I know your heart is in the right place, but if she has nematodes, wouldn't she just take them with her to the next enclosure? So, moving her would only cause her more stress?

As far as pain goes, it's debated. I have yet to hear of a T saying "ouch" or "stop that hurts", but they do flinch as if in "pain".

---------- Post added 01-12-2012 at 04:15 PM ----------

njnolan1 said:

I know your heart is in the right place, but if she has nematodes, wouldn't she just take them with her to the next enclosure? So, moving her would only cause her more stress?

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And wouldn't moving her also increase your chances of cross contamination?

---------- Post added 01-12-2012 at 04:22 PM ----------

Anyway, goodluck and keep us informed!

---------- Post added 01-12-2012 at 04:25 PM ----------

Oh, and don't let this stop you. If it something and your T doesn't make it, than just try to learn something from it. My emperor died and I was really pissed at myself. I still don't know what I did wrong, if anything, but what I learned is that I want to have much more experience with lower humidity species before trying to mess with high humidity species again. I obsessed so much about the humidity levels and it made me crazy. I did everything I could do and the scorpion still died... Don't give up

Sounds to me like she is grooming. If you looked through a microscope and saw nothing that looked like nematodes, I think you are being a bit hasty putting her outside to freeze to death. I have heard of Avics with white stuff on their mouths before and people never figure out what it was and they are fine.

tarantulagirl10 said:

Sounds to me like she is grooming. If you looked through a microscope and saw nothing that looked like nematodes, I think you are being a bit hasty putting her outside to freeze to death. I have heard of Avics with white stuff on their mouths before and people never figure out what it was and they are fine.

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I'd hate to be a dog with a bad cough in the OPs home

tarantulagirl10 said:

Sounds to me like she is grooming. If you looked through a microscope and saw nothing that looked like nematodes, I think you are being a bit hasty putting her outside to freeze to death. I have heard of Avics with white stuff on their mouths before and people never figure out what it was and they are fine.

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I didnt put her out just yet. Its killing me inside because I dont want her to die. what I posted was what I saw her throw up and she was smearing her mouth all over the sides and her fangs were going crazy. She hasn't thrown up since then. I sprayed the container at 12 and I saw her drink. she cleared all the white off except a pinprick at the bottom of her mouth. her mouth hairs all look very rattled and I think she tore some out when dragging her mouth across the container. first and foremost I don't want her to suffer or for it to spread to my vagans sling. when I see the white stuff again I will take another sample and look for worms again. Does anyone know if some T's have a strong enough immune system to fight off nematodes? I keep reading that if your T has nematodes it will eventually die from them. Is anyone on this site a vet? what would a vet say if i took her to one?

---------- Post added 01-12-2012 at 07:27 PM ----------

njnolan1 said:

I'd hate to be a dog with a bad cough in the OPs home

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I saw her throw up, from what I can tell this is not healthy T behavior. It clearly isnt grooming.

I doubt very much a veterinarian would be able to help you with this. What exactly do you mean when you say you saw her "throw up"?

paassatt said:

I doubt very much a veterinarian would be able to help you with this. What exactly do you mean when you say you saw her "throw up"?

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She lifted her fangs and I saw it spurt out of her straw like sucker thing.

My T's are currently housed on opposite sides of my room. All surfaces including my keyboard and mouse, utensils, tongs, outside of mister have been sanitized using isopropyl alcohol and the sick avics new enclosure is only being handled using gloves and aseptic technique. all crickets were let free outside, and container for crickets was washed with dishsoap since isopropyl alcohol can damage some plastics. Her ten gallon enclosure was moved to another room until I can clean it heavy duty.