Enclosure Cleaning

What's the best way to clean the enclosure for your T's ? GBB are heavy webbers and are skittish. How does that translate to clean and enclosure care ? How about Chaco ? They don't web yet get pretty good size. What's the best way to clean these enclosures without or with minimizing stress and safe guarding yourself.

So you're doing the Mrs. Doubtfire thing? All you need to do is spot clean; pick up boluses, dead crickets, etc with a forceps or tweezers (more precise than fingers, and safer). They want a natural home they can call their own, and don't want it constantly torn up by a crazed cleaning person. I don't replace my substrate. I use disposable water bowls (soufflé cups, purchased by the sleeve), as cleaning out as many bowls as I have is not feasible (besides some pretty vile things end up in them).

Poec54 said:

So you're doing the Mrs. Doubtfire thing? All you need to do is spot clean; pick up boluses, dead crickets, etc with a forceps or tweezers (more precise than fingers, and safer). They want a natural home they can call their own, and don't want it constantly torn up by a crazed cleaning person. I don't replace my substrate. I use disposable water bowls (soufflé cups, purchased by the sleeve), as cleaning out as many bowls as I have is not feasible (besides some pretty vile things end up in them).

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Almost exactly my thoughts. Everything's done with a tweezers in a very short time...they're naturally pretty clean, other than the obvious waste, it doesn't need anything. Substrate doesn't have an expiration date, I'm frequently baffled by all the people insisting they needed to re-house simply to change their sub. I've had the same stuff in enclosures for a decade, its still substrate. I even fill the water bowls by sliding a syringe in the enclosure, they never know I'm there.

It's just a bad idea to clean an enclosure, imagine having your entire home ripped up and put into a completely new environment. As others have said you don't need to clean it and spot cleaning it all you need to do,

Spot clean with water, for most of my T's, I use a wet paper towel wadded up in my forceps, so if it gets attacked, its not my hand. In the case of a GBB, I would not destroy its webbing though, that will stress it out and make its home foreign to it. Like Poec said, just remove the dead prey and boluses.

T's don't live in a clean sterile environment in the wild, they will be ok.

Make sure not to clean too frequently, it will freak out the spider whenever you do. Wait for your T to be hiding and retrieve left over food and bolus etc. Remove the things that can cause uncleanliness in the tank before they create problems. Substrate doesn't need replacing often either, I have a beautiful genic who has had the same substrate for two years and it is as clean as a whistle =) Ts are very clean creatures

Only perform complete clean outs if the environment is unsafe for the T (for example an extreme mould infestation etc)

Thanks alooooot that was a big concern.