Unwanted crickets and heavy premolt??

I have looked almost everywhere for a thread about this, I have been looking since yesterday morning and could not find one. Maybe I just don't know how to navigate the site well enough.. whatever the cause, I do apologize if this is seen often.

I have a B. Smithi Sub-adult who is in heavy premolt. I went to check on it and I see these tiny crickets in its tank. They're smaller than a grain of rice. Could they pose a threat? I plan on changing the substrate in a few weeks, after its molt of course but for now, is it a problem? If so, what should I do? I don't want to disturb it.

En masse, they might pose a potential threat while the T is molting. I occasionally get baby crickets in an enclosure if a female laid eggs prior to being eaten and have never had a problem. If the substrate is dry enough, the baby crickets will drown in the water bowl.

Why are you going to change the substrate?

Formerphobe said:

En masse, they might pose a potential threat while the T is molting. I occasionally get baby crickets in an enclosure if a female laid eggs prior to being eaten and have never had a problem. If the substrate is dry enough, the baby crickets will drown in the water bowl.

Why are you going to change the substrate?

Click to expand...

Is there anything I could do about it though? I don't want the T to be stressed out even more by them. I mean, molting is stressful enough on its own, I don't really want more stress on top of it. Would it be too big of a risk to take her out and put her in a tupperware dish or maybe just set up a temporary tank? I have quite a few extra tanks.
I plan on changing the substrate because I don't want baby crickets in the enclosure. She has about three to four inches of substrate so it takes a while to dry out and my T seems to be awfully messy with its water dish. Almost every time I check on it, the water dish has been dumped out and placed upside down or in some weird position. So, my luck, they'd end up surviving in there and just become a nuisance.

Just remove the little pinheads, at that small size I doubt they would actually pose much of an issue. You can put a piece of dog food in the enclosure to encourage the little crickets to come out in the open to eat. You don't have to catch them either, just kill them, which is far easier than actually catching them.

I think changing the sub is a bit of an over-reaction IMO, especially if you are going to do it AFTER it molts....at that point it will be out of harms any anyway as you would need/want to wait till the t hardens up before moving it.

Cant the pinheads nibble on the T when its molting? Adult crickets will, so why pinheads not?

Neoza said:

Cant the pinheads nibble on the T when its molting? Adult crickets will, so why pinheads not?

Click to expand...

The OP needs to stay calm. Little crickets would probably be intimidated by the size of a subadult spider moving during shedding. If you're worried put a piece of lettuce in there to occupy the crickets for a while.

The only reason I'm going to change the substrate is because I don't want the crickets in there in general. Right now, my main concern is making sure my T has an undisturbed and successful molt.
Thank you all for replying, I will definitely do something to keep the crickets occupied while she is doing her thing. xP

AlanaMarie said:

The only reason I'm going to change the substrate is because I don't want the crickets in there in general.

Click to expand...

Kind of pointless. How are you going to keep baby crickets from hatching out again with new substrate? You could be changing it out every month. I rarely have crickets hatch out in my spider cages, because they have enough cross ventilation. Fix that and you don't have to worry about the substrate.

Poec54 said:

Kind of pointless. How are you going to keep baby crickets from hatching out again with new substrate? You could be changing it out every month. I rarely have crickets hatch out in my spider cages, because they have enough cross ventilation. Fix that and you don't have to worry about the substrate.

Click to expand...

Indeed, changing the sub would do anything, it will just stress the T out.