H. incei communal (DUW!!!)

I have been browsing the internet and forums, even Youtube looking for communal threads, there is not many.
Most of them start with I been "thinking about it" and "I have got some spare slings" and stop there.
Some have gone further, but not many.
*
I'm a big fan of communal setups, I think they are interesting, I'm even more a fan of webbing, that attracts me more than anything else!!
None the less, I thought I would share my Communal setup with you all. *


The history, how my communal got started.


I started off by buying one H.incei sling on the 30/03/09 for $10[SUP]+/-[/SUP]. (R100)
It matured on the 05/07/10.
It then got sent off on a breeding loan where it was put into a communal setup. (Funny enough the breeder also had some H.incei*
mature into males shortly after my male was introduced into the enclosure)


I can't remember the amount I got out from the breeding loan, but I think it was 180 odd slings.
So I sold allot off and gave a good couple away, I then took 30 H. incei and put them together in a communal setup, out of the 30*
I had a couple deaths, and 15 mature males with 7 females, in turn they breed and I ended up with 150 or more slings, which I gave away a couple and sold some, I kept a 100 spiders in total with the females.
I lost a couple of slings along the way, but that is the story of how I started my communal with just one spider and a male at that.
From 2009 till present day, my communal is still growing and I'm looking forward to it getting larger and with that the tank upgrade to*
52 gallon (200 liter) enclosure. At the moment the tank is a 26 gallon (100 liter) *



The start of the 26 gallon (100 liter) upgrade.
Got a phone call from my mother in law on Saturday afternoon, asking if I would like a fish tank that was just standing around collecting dust,it is 35inches (900mm) X 15inches (390mm) X 12inches (325mm).


I had decided to break up my H.incei communal during the week all ready, as I had seen one spider eating another spider.*
I had got two tanks ready to separate them, it was planned for the weekend. 09/11/12

So the larger tank was perfect, and had come in perfect timing.
There has been some loss in the communal. The new count is 50 H.incei, 6 females and 44 odds & ends left over.
The spiders get feed once a month (15 days), they get given a tube of crickets, extra small for the smaller spiders and*
then a handful of roaches mixed sizes and 15 medium crickets for the larger spiders.


The tank and setup.



Everything in the tank comes from the garden and the farm land.
I just washed and scrubbed the stones and bark.
The tank has a theme going.


Rocky Ridge



Fallen forest



Bark alley



The old setup.
Sea of webs.

I thought this was cool.
Found four H. incei in one burrow.



So after all the digging around and going through the webbing, I have 50 H.incei.
6 females and the rest are unsexed.

The 6 Females



The bunch



You will see the stones in Rocky Ridge and maybe worry that the rocks might fall on top of the spiders if they dig under them.
I have put supports under every rock to prevent them from falling.
Also compressed and wet the palm peat.



I have also added some roaches, ooths (roach eggs) and Isopods to the setup.

All the spiders seemed to have settle in nicely!

All the spider have found their spots and have started webbing.
There are 3 spiders who stay out in the open all the time!
Also the interaction between the roaches and the spiders is interesting, there is one roach who seems to like teasing the The bigger spiders.

The Brave roach! 07:28
This is one of the 3 spiders that stay out in the open all the time.



The roach got a bit to close and the spider went for him, but as I said the roach seems to tease them and was waiting for that to happen.
She seemed a bit upset after that and headed to her burrow.



Again at 21:50. the roach had another go.
The glass had a bit of condensation, hence the unfocused look.

Excellent thread

So something of interest, this spider died a week after this photo.
If you look at the spiders abdomen in picture 1 you will see white stuff on its abdomen.
It seems as this spider was attacked by something in the enclosure and the roach knew something was up with this spider.

cascade said:

The Brave roach! 07:28
This is one of the 3 spiders that stay out in the open all the time.

Click to expand...

So far I had 2 deaths, one smaller spider had a bad molt. and then the one above that passed away from it injuries.

The updates, are more webbing than spiders at the moment.
I'm waiting for some of the spider to mature into males and for breeding season to start. there is much more activity in the tank and
even more webbing once the babies become more active, as the mothers web every thing up for the new slings to climb around on,
so the amount of webbing doubles.

I have 3 species of roaches and some Isopods in the tank.
At the moment there is B. dubia (orange spotted) B.Lateralis (forest roaches) and N. cinerea (lobster roaches).
The crickets don't seem to survive longer than 4 days between the spiders and the forest roaches.

Something that I notices when I add crickets to the enclosure, The forest roaches actually attack and eat the crickets.
The one roach had caught and started eating the crickets, will he was busy eating the cricket 4 other crickets came
closure to see/help and the roach would use he's back leg to push them away and even kick at the crickets.

I feed then every 15 days, with a R15 tub of crickets, medium and small on top of the roaches that get topped up,
when I see they are running low.
I also feed the roaches.

Some pictures of the webbing.

Some of the roaches.
Some breeding has taken place.





Most of the forest roaches stay in the grass and then the larger female B.dubia has made her home by the rocks.



The Isopods, have become arboreal.
They have done such a good job of keeping the cage clean they have almost eaten all the leaves that I had added by the fallen forest.
And now they have moved up into the trees to start eating the bark off of the sticks.



Babies Isopods.

Great pictures and a neat looking setup. I love how you have names for the locations in the tank.

This afternoon 12/11/16 we had fling ants, so I collected some for the platannes and then the communal.

And this is what unfolded 2 hours later.
Was sitting next to the tank, all of sudden a roach darts out from it's hiding spot, chases something down and runs back to it's hide out.
So I get the camera and this is what happens next.

The flying ants.



Darting roach



The action.
The roach was a C. cinerea This roach had eaten about 3 flying ants before going to eat the mielies I had given them to eat.

H. incei communal (DUW!!!)

The next roach was a B.lateralis.



Something that I noticed, even the isopods become more active around the flying ants.
Normally you don't see them but tonight they were all over the area where the flying ants were walking around.
and the roaches seem to be going for the flying ants abdomen only.
as these pictures show clearly. (the photos are not so great quality, we had rain so the tank started to fog up)

A C. cinerea again, this time a larger roach.

12/11/20
So on heading to bed, I saw some movement in the communal.
At first it looked like wings flapping, I thought it was a flying ant that had survived the onslaught of roaches and the spiders.
But I was wrong, it was some baby Isopods trying to fly. :laugh:





What surprised me is the Isopods were eating the wings, which explains why there were no wings left over the last time
I through flying ants into the communal.
So this morning there were 2 wings left over from 6 wings.

So 2 hours later after taking 200 odd photos and watching all the things with the lights off, I finally went to bed around 23:45.
This is how it looks with the lights "off".





Evidence, that the spiders enjoyed the ants.

Wow, this is really nice. Thank you for posting and contributing here, really great experiment!

Really great pictures and some interesting anecdotes.

Great thread and thanks for sharing. I have a communal set up of this spider species.

Do you think these could be kept in a small scale communal? like 2 or 3 of them?

Rhodin said:

Do you think these could be kept in a small scale communal? like 2 or 3 of them?

Click to expand...

yeah, actually alot of people i know keep them like that, a simple 10"x10"x10" terrarium is perfect for that

Wow, cool enclosure

Very cool. I would love to set something like this one day.
Looking forward for more updates.

very nice setup : )
Awesome pictures!

Keep the pics coming!

Awesome!

I really can't wait to do a communal of H. incei gold or bumblebee. They're both gorgeous. So neat!