mold

[xXScYtHeXx]

Last night I had a dream about mold overtaking my scorpion tank. I was really scared. This morning I woke up and looked around. I found a slight fuzz on the side of the coconut hut. I turned the hut upside down to find a lot of mold. It made me sick. Some spores fell in the bedding so I removed the portion where the spores fell. Now I got a new coconut hut (made at home since we grind coconut for making certain foods. I boiled the hut for about a good 10 minutes. You think I will have this problem again? It was really bad times.

Thanks
-ScYTHe

[carpe scorpio]

So, I'm not the only one that has scorp-dreams, I am sorry to hear about the mold problem. I have battled against this a few times and I suspect that cricket-poo plus humidity may play a role. The big challenge is to get humidity and still have enough ventilation to thwart the mold growth, I'm still experimenting with air-pumps/lid combinations, I'll let you know if I come up with a recipe that works.

[skinheaddave]

When I started my Heterometrus tank I had a bit of mould. Now a dead cricket will flare up and then the mold will be gone in a day. My advice would be to remove most, but not all, of the mold. Don't let it overrun the enclosure but don't remove it completely. Granted this is entirely unscientific, but my Heterometrus tank has been going for years without problems and without a single substrate change or bit of maintenance for at least three of those years.

Cheers,
Dave

[carpe scorpio]

Wow, that's amazing, I'll try it and see what I get. Thanks for the advice. Dave, I love that C. Exilicauda enclosure of yours, I'm inspired to do something similar with cork bark in the back of my next 55gal. tank.

[skinheaddave]

Thanks, man. Yeah, cork bark would be a good backdrop. Too bad the stuff is so bloody expensive.

I want to do some more experiments into less sterile enclosures, but time, money and space are always factors. It is on my list, but the list just keeps getting longer.

Cheers,
Dave

[carpe scorpio]

I know what you mean, I wish I could put the addition I need on my house right now, but it's going to cost 35,000, so I'm going to have to wait. As far as the cork bark, I got lucky, a buddy of mine gave me a whole hefty bag full.

[Kugellager]

I would also recommend changing the coconut over to peat as the coconut is highly susceptable to mold while te peat is highly resistant.

John
];')

[carpe scorpio]

Also, I have used finely ground cork, also mold resistant to a very high degree.

[xXScYtHeXx]

Thanks for the info