Enclosure size

I don't really "get" the argument against keeping spiders in larger enclosures. I mean, sure, if you're one of those people with a huge collection it's only sensible to maximize your space. But if you have a collection of fewer than 10 spiders, why can't you be a little more liberal with the space?

The argument I hear most is that the spider won't be able to find its water or its prey. The first of those is easy... Just put the dish near where the spider tends to settle, typically near its hide, burrow, etc. as for finding the food... They manage to survive in the wild, which is a lot bigger than any enclosure I've seen.

In fact, my own experience points to the opposite. I moved The Luggage to a new enclosure this weekend, out of her deli cup into a plastic tank. Having fed her a couple crickets, I feel like her hunting is a lot better as she has more space to manoever. She took each of the crickets I gave her down in one leap (I'm so proud!).

Plus, I no longer feel like she could escape in one dash when I have her lid off, and I don't destroy a bunch of her webbing every time I have to open up for feeding and maintenance. I really hate deli cups. I realize they're handy but the violent jarring of opening that lid, plus the constant concern of a freedom dash really puts a damper on my appreciation of them as enclosures.

Is there some other reason I'm missing on why smaller enclosures are preferable?

im with you blue, like I said I pretty much put the prey in the spiders mouth so that's not a problem. and I too hate having a spider in a small enclosure, when the lid comes off theres only one way to go. out. all of my spiders are in encloseres ten times larger than recommended. except adult terrestrials they get 15 quart tubs

Well it might depend on the species or indivdual spider, but I keep mine in roomy cages and they don't really utilize the extra space. They'll pick out a favorite spot and stay there the majority of the time. So eventually when I upgrade from the plastic totes to acrylic cages I'm going to go for smaller. It is easier to feed the more fussy eaters in a smaller cage too

I'll likely always have a small collection - currently at 4 arachnids, and only 2 of those are spiders. I tend to give larger enclosures, since I want my creatures to encounter walls less frequently.

Case in point: recently had a major mold issue in my very fossorial scorpion's tank. Need to purge all substrate and start anew. When I dug her up, she had really only used about 1/4 of the tank. She had dug her tunnel away from the middle, effectively only using the far back corner of a 20gal tall aquarium.

So this time around, I pre-dug a burrow so she'd go towards the middle this time. Heck yah, I still gave her an entire 20gal tall aquarium, all to herself. She deserves it for all the mold I gave her earlier this year.

And as far as making sure she eats, she's the most skittish thing I have. I'll see claws sticking out of the burrow, knowing it's feeding time. So much as moving the glass, just for a tiny opening, and she's gone. I just leave pre-killed superworms at her door step. Wouldn't have it any other way.


Now if Poec54 had the same style of enclosures that we have, he need a townhouse complex for his collection.

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edgeofthefreak said:

I'll likely always have a small collection - currently at 4 arachnids, and only 2 of those are spiders. I tend to give larger enclosures, since I want my creatures to encounter walls less frequently.

Case in point: recently had a major mold issue in my very fossorial scorpion's tank. Need to purge all substrate and start anew. When I dug her up, she had really only used about 1/4 of the tank. She had dug her tunnel away from the middle, effectively only using the far back corner of a 20gal tall aquarium.

So this time around, I pre-dug a burrow so she'd go towards the middle this time. Heck yah, I still gave her an entire 20gal tall aquarium, all to herself. She deserves it for all the mold I gave her earlier this year.

And as far as making sure she eats, she's the most skittish thing I have. I'll see claws sticking out of the burrow, knowing it's feeding time. So much as moving the glass, just for a tiny opening, and she's gone. I just leave pre-killed superworms at her door step. Wouldn't have it any other way.


Now if Poec54 had the same style of enclosures that we have, he need a townhouse complex for his collection.

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Yeah Poec is the expert I hope someday I can breed Ts as well .
If He had the same cages for my 12 Ts in glass cages for all his Ts. He could still fit them in his house I am sure. I think I got around 50-60 Ts right now. He would have to spend $30+ per 10-20 Gal cage though since I use elaborate locking lids.

I personally eat , sleep, and breath my T's. I have 48 T's and everyday I water or feed someone. in fact I like messing with my T's so much I need a lot more tarantulas so I have more to do. I hate going in the spider room and no one needs food or water or boluses removed or mold removed or ventilation added or decorations changed or rehoused. it drives me nuts to be in there and have nothing I need to do! I will also swing by the spider room anytime I get out of bed to get a drink or use the restroom because there are several spiders in our collection that only come out at night. (flashlight right inside door)
I do not handle my T's. all of my interaction with them is maintenance. In fact I have a colored dot system so that someone who has never seen a tarantula before could walk in that room and look at the dry erase board and know exactly how to take care of every spider in the room AND know which ones have potent venom, will kick hairs, or shoot poo. which ones will run and which ones will hide. which ones need humidity, which need it dry, and how often to feed each one. I personally set the temp of the room for the day randomly between 76 and 81f every morning between 5 and 6 am, and change it to 70-72f at 9 or 10 at night.
when I feed my T's I will offer them whatever prey I have that day (dubias, mealworms, crickets). I will put the prey right in front of the T' and if the T withdraws the food is removed immediately. no big deal because I will be back later that day or early tomorrow to try again. I never ever just drop live food in and leave. in fact I have almost all of my wifes arboreals trained to take the prey right from the tweezers.
the point of this rambling is to show that large enclosures are not more work to someone like me in fact they give me and the T's more room to maneuver.
the only spiders we have that seem to like smaller enclosures are our avics. if given a big enclosure they make a small tube in some corner and never leave it. given a smaller enclosure they make the whole enclosure a network of tunnels and seem more active.
ALL of my non burrowing terrestrials love large enclosures and are all over em'. obligate burrowers make much longer tunnels in big enclosures and you see them ALOT less but I assume they are happier

I love that I edited, and it deleted my entire post...that was a wasted 45 minutes

cold blood said:

I love that I edited, and it deleted my entire post...that was a wasted 45 minutes

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I wish I knew! I had it sitting here just a few seconds ago, but I refreshed.

Damn, CB, now I'm dead curious what you said.

I'm going to get hate on for posting this, but here it goes. The real, unspoken, reason is that T keepers are in the majority cheap; Michael Jacobi is right about that. And not even logically cheap, they'd rather have a huge collection with tarantulas kept in substandard conditions than a small, specialized collection in excellent conditions. If you break down the costs, I'm sure that in the end it'll be more expensive for the large collection than the small. I know what I have planned for my first Avic would be considered massive overkill by the average Tupperware keeper, but I also know that a single breeding would more than offset that cost.

Fyrwulf said:

I'm going to get hate on for posting this, but here it goes. The real, unspoken, reason is that T keepers are in the majority cheap; Michael Jacobi is right about that. And not even logically cheap, they'd rather have a huge collection with tarantulas kept in substandard conditions than a small, specialized collection in excellent conditions. If you break down the costs, I'm sure that in the end it'll be more expensive for the large collection than the small. I know what I have planned for my first Avic would be considered massive overkill by the average Tupperware keeper, but I also know that a single breeding would more than offset that cost.

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+1 on this, i feel if your breeding anything non porteri. a few large enclosures will DEF pay for themselves. like i have a custom roach tank coming in which set me back ~$100[tired of totes with off dimensions] and i now have 3 custom arboreal enclosures.. and a pen-male psalm who i plan on sending off.. i feel this is going to offset what i payed for them in notime. sure itl be in the long run but, its better then a tote imo [i coudlnt put them in a 6qt it doesnt work for me i woudlnt want a irminia in a unmodified 6qt]
however if you plan on just keeping, no breeding.. or want to use as little space as possible "because your T doesnt use that extra room" [trust me they move at night iv seen them on my days off lol] then totes may be the way to go but to me.. i dislike the look of most totes, and once they are so old i just need a real cage XD

Certainly no harm in it. We give our Ts plenty of space and they do fine. Key thing with larger enclosures is to make sure they can find their food and wster.

Count me among the cheap keepers. The low upfront cost ($10 for an LP!!) and minimal special equipment (ie, none really) was a big factor in attracting me to this hobby, over say, reptiles. Also enjoyed browsing the dollar store with a view to buying cheap tools and enclosures. 4 of my T's now live in former food containers. My G. pulchripes lives in a 10 gallon aquarium bought at Petco's $1/gallon sale.

So, it makes lots of sense that this hobby would be full of cheap, I mean 'cost-aware' people like myself.

---------- Post added 06-30-2015 at 11:38 AM ----------

While being cheap, I'm not very inclined to cut corners on the enclosure size, or type of enclosure. My re-used food contains were picked because they're the right size for my T's now, and it's silly to spend money on an LP enclosure that they'll out grow in 6 months. They'll eventually go into 15 or 20 gallon aquarium setups. I'm not looking for a wide variety of T's, but rather a small number, up to 10?, that I will be able to see. The size of my collection will be driven by the shelf space I have, and the number of good sized, clear enclosures I can fit there.

If you have feeders that move a lot like crickets, they'll eventually get to them so finding the prey isn't really an issue, but if you use something like dubias that don't move a lot, it can be a bit more problematic(I've had a disastrous experience with a communal attempt and low movement feeders) and as for water, like you said, you can move the water bowl closer to her hide and that will solve that problem.

There's not much wrong with bigger cages, it's just that they don't need much space so it's not necessary to have a big enclosure so it's a waste of space and money. They may move all around the enclosure at night, but it's only to search for something they likely won't find either way like food, water or a better hide.

I like my enclosures a bit bigger than some recommend just so I have enough room to operate without scaring them off and risking an escape.

My only problem is that I insist on having an enclosure I can see well through because I enjoy it a lot less when I can't see well inside so I can't use cheap ones for adults and glass isn't very good for arboreal so I'll have a lot of DIY acrylic ones to make in the near future with the recent increase in my collection(which pretty much quadrupled in the past year) and it will be pricy, but well worth it for me, however many T I have.

cuSTOM roach tank? Got pics ..COOOL! My adult Ts get a 10gallon or similar sized plastic storage tote.

pyro fiend said:

+1 on this, i feel if your breeding anything non porteri. a few large enclosures will DEF pay for themselves. like i have a custom roach tank coming in which set me back ~$100[tired of totes with off dimensions] and i now have 3 custom arboreal enclosures.. and a pen-male psalm who i plan on sending off.. i feel this is going to offset what i payed for them in notime. sure itl be in the long run but, its better then a tote imo [i coudlnt put them in a 6qt it doesnt work for me i woudlnt want a irminia in a unmodified 6qt]
however if you plan on just keeping, no breeding.. or want to use as little space as possible "because your T doesnt use that extra room" [trust me they move at night iv seen them on my days off lol] then totes may be the way to go but to me.. i dislike the look of most totes, and once they are so old i just need a real cage XD

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Ultum4Spiderz said:

cuSTOM roach tank? Got pics ..COOOL! My adult Ts get a 10gallon or similar sized plastic storage tote.

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Its in the mail tomorrow ill show then xD but yes custom to my specs even multi colored xD (blk and clear) atm im using a 99ltr tote and it annoys me how they have to sit at and angle.. So all frass is still in the egg crates.. And i dont wana cut down egg crates, im too lazy for that lol