H. carolinensis slings—failed molts?

Hey folks,

I've been raising some H. carolinensis slings, courtesy of the awesome Austin S.

Starting on Monday or so, they began going through their first molt under my care. Unfortunately, it seems that about half of them are either failing to complete the molting process (dying while in the process of molting), or dying shortly after molting (within 24 hours). It's pretty obvious which ones are going to die post molt—they hide and are kind of sluggish, as opposed to stretching out and running around.

I've been feeding them FFLs as frequently as they've been willing to eat (toss one or two in every couple of days, add more once they're all gone), misting every 3 days or so. They're in individual enclosures—1 pint mason jars with sterilized substrate and small hides/rocks.

They've been at room temperature—mid to high 70s in the day, 60's at night. Humidity is ambient, but I live in Seattle—even our indoor air is fairly humid.

Is this just kind of par for the course for very young slings? Should I provide a more stable environment by putting the individual enclosures in a larger container and sealing it to keep a more consistent temperature and humidity? Change feeding/watering habits?

If it matters this is their third molt, I believe.

woah, how do you keep track of 'em in 1-pint jars?

i lose a lot of lycosid slings anytime i try to raise a whole sac, even if the conditions they're kept in are as identical as i can manage.
i have a feeling you aren't doing anything wrong, but i guess my track record isn't so great!

That is so crazy.

I cant suggest anything to you other than this.

In the wild, they breed during the rainy season. I imagine humidity is a stable 80-90%. Temps are anywhere from 80-100 during the day and 70-80 at night.

I think you're doing everything right.. I don't understand what is actually going on. it is weird that from when you go them, until now, they were all doing fine? I cant understand why.

Not entirely sure either. I could mist more frequently to keep the humidity up. Maybe they're having trouble with molting due to lack of moisture? Our ambient humidity is between 80% and 100% here, and based on the amount of condensation on the inside of my windows most days, it's definitely pretty humid indoors, too.

Temps are a bit low, if their natural cycle is between 70 and 100. I've been keeping them in the warmest part of the house, though, and taking care to keep them close to a heat source on colder days.

They've been happy as clams since they arrived, and the ones that have molted successfully are active, eating, and seem to be doing great. The ones that have died behaved no differently than the others, I've been keeping pretty detailed notes about feeding time, amount of food consumed, and behavior. It's just that transition through the molt that seems to be problematic.

It's the FFFs that's causing the problems. I have a terrible hangover so I'll make it short: What the larvae eat makes a whole difference in the nutritional values of the adult flies. Most growing mediums lack nutrients that spiders need.
A study made with a Pardosa sp. wolf spiders showed that sling fed "normal" fruit flies had a 100% mortality rate before maturity, usually dying in molts or short after. Slings that were fed FF grown in a medium with dogfood added to it didn't suffer from that.

I'm going to try to test this myself this summer with WC wolfie babies.

Exactly what Hanska said. It's most likely the FFFs.

See the following discussion:
http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/showthread.php?269716-Fruit-Fly-myth&highlight=myth+calcium

Go with pinhead crickets and small roaches. Just be sure to crush the heads of the crickets so they don't eat your slings.

Good luck!

Okay, I've done the research based on Hanksa and Bill's feedback. Here are some useful excerpts that probably apply to just about any lycosid (and maybe spiders in general?)









Looks like Carolina 4-24 medium (for sale here: http://www.carolina.com/drosophila-...00.pr?catId=&mCat=&sCat=&ssCat=&question=4-24 ) with crushed dry dog food (any quality brand will probably be okay) has significant advantages in survival, molt success, and overall growth.

I boiled dry dog food until it was like a sludge and added that to my normal medium.

Wolf spiders need to hang while they molt. to my knowledge, all will suspend from a thread whilst molting, as all species ive ever kept did the same.

H. carolinensis... LOTS of them...

I have two female H. carolinensis who have carried egg sacs since mid December. Within the last 2 weeks, spiderlings have emerged. The smaller female didn't have many, but the large one has PLENTY! Now I am trying to feed them. The ones which are no longer riding on the mothers are eating FFFs. This thread bothers me. The larger female still has most riding on her. I noted in the thread abive about pinching off the heads of pinhead crickets. However, won't they die...and not be suitable prey?

Start a culture of FFF's using a 50/50 blend of whatever it is that you use for medium and some ground up dogfood. Feed those flies to your slings, and they should be better off!

I'm at a total of 4 slings left, but every molt I've had since switching the medium has been successful. One of the slings is getting ready for third molt in my care!

Looks like the old adage applies again. The broader the spectrum of nutrition, the healthier the animal. I've been reading the ingredients labels on dry dog food lately. Contains everything including bits and chunks of kitchen sinks. But of note, there are a lot of different fats, offal parts and minerals that normally are only found in the diet of wild ranging omnivores. The intestines, bones and even some dirt, stuff humanoids consider inedible, all contribute to the healthy broad spectrum diet.