filling his water bowl with dirt

KristinaMG · Aug 28, 2015

My A. genic sling (1 inch) has been filling his water bowl with dirt ever since I recently rehoused him to a larger space. I know this is a common behavior, though none of my others do this, but I was wondering if it means anything in particular? Eg is he having a hard time drinking from the dish as is?

Beary Strange · Aug 28, 2015

We could theorize about why they do this particular behavior all day long. My personal guess is the same reason they put boluses in their dishes. It's a water source, they put it in there to wash it away.

Prle · Aug 28, 2015

My Acanthoscurria geniculata sling does that to after rehousing from a deli-cup in a slightly bigger enclosure. S/he was in a "megalomaniac bulldozer" mod and have dug a lot of coco peat from the hide I putted in. But when s/he finished with excavation burial of the water dish stopped to.

EDIT:

I think the reason for that is simply the fact that I placed water dish in the spot that s/he chose for peat disposal.

KristinaMG · Aug 28, 2015

Prle said:
My Acanthoscurria geniculata sling does that to after rehousing from a deli-cup in a slightly bigger enclosure. S/he was in a "megalomaniac bulldozer" mod and have dug a lot of coco peat from the hide I putted in. But when s/he finished with excavation burial of the water dish stopped to.

EDIT:

I think the reason for that is simply the fact that I placed water dish in the spot that s/he chose for peat disposal.

My B. albo buried a water dish while excavating her tunnels, but that is different. My A. genic is not tunneling or burrowing, just specifically putting a certain amount of substrate in his water dish whenever I refill it with clean water. It is still a common behavior- I've heard of Ts doing this all the time, I was just curious if there is a known or theorized reason for it.

advan · Aug 28, 2015

Remove the water dish, some actually prefer to drink from freshly saturated substrate.

Chris LXXIX · Aug 28, 2015

Nothing to worry about IMO. Had a female, free received (T's Ban benefit ah ah) "Chaco" who loved to do that after a rehouse (need to do rehouse thanks to previous owner poor husbandry). Now she's fine, stop that.

Ellenantula · Aug 28, 2015

You could try a different place for water bowl. Never worked for me, but some claim a placement change sometimes works.

Amimia · Aug 28, 2015

Try giving another one? I have a T that would always fill his water bowl so I gave another one that he actually uses. He still fills the other with a bunch of crap.

Poec54 · Aug 29, 2015

Water bowls are best partially buried in the substrate, so just the lip is sticking out, that makes it easy for them to drink from. In Florida I can't keep my substrate wet enough for mine to drink from, as that creates a bigger set of problems. Where you live and how much the air inside your home is processed (heated/cooled) has an impact on your ventilation and substrate moisture.

Tfisher · Aug 29, 2015

This is why my T's cant have nice things. They ruin everything I try and make. I tell them everytime "well if thats the way you like it then you can live with it"... [I need to stop talking to my T's]

El Consciente · Aug 29, 2015

There's no way to ascertain exactly why they do this, but I've always wondered if it was a function of there being a high volume of dirt being removed combined with finite space in the enclosure. Certainly hikes up the likelihood of a buried waterbowl.

Although, the phenomenon of boluses being clearly deliberately placed into waterbowls has always left me scratching my head.

GG80 · Aug 29, 2015

Mine buried its dish under an inch of substrate once. I gave it another one and it buried that one aswell. Since I rehoused it into a larger enclosure 3 months ago it hasn't buried its new dish yet and I catch it drinking from time to time now. Yours probably just doesn't like where it is in the enclosure or is just going through a faze. Either way, nothing to worry about.

Arachnomaniac19 · Aug 29, 2015

Imagine how much money we could save if we used giant tarantulas for construction work. Just feed them the idiots of the world.

Anyways, your tarantula is tarantulaing. I don't get why they'd put blouses in the water though. I mean cats hate drinking and eating close together because of contamination (instinct). I guess having the boluses in the water wouldn't attract ants.

Poec54 · Aug 29, 2015

El Consciente said:
There's no way to ascertain exactly why they do this, but I've always wondered if it was a function of there being a high volume of dirt being removed combined with finite space in the enclosure. Certainly hikes up the likelihood of a buried waterbowl.

Although, the phenomenon of boluses being clearly deliberately placed into waterbowls has always left me scratching my head.

Think about it. Everything they do has been fine-tuned over thousands of years. Hungry tarantulas often venture out around the front of their burrows at night. Sometimes large animals and/or predators pass by. A flat surface is much easier to run back inside on than one with holes. One stumble, one delay, could cost them their lives. Don't see a lot of pot holes in race tracks.

In the wild, small places that hold water probably get flushed out with every rain and things in them washed away. That removes boluses and evidence/odor that could attract predators. Even something as small as ants could cause serious problems for a tarantula. Rather than the spider walking a distance from it's burrow to dispose of boluses, it's safer to let water do it for them.

Tfisher · Sep 1, 2015

maybe the tarantulas flip the water dishes because they have green thumbs... Okay seriously tho, think about it. When a tarantula finds water maybe in a leaf I'd assume there's a good chance that they would flip it. Maybe to keep those shrubs and grass growing. Nature is far more complex than we understand.

dementedlullaby · Sep 1, 2015

Most of my species fill their dishes with dirt. Even the Avics somehow get some dirt in their dishes. My A. seemani has switched from burying multiple water dishes to just pooping in the water dish after I change it. I do not consider this a victory.

My point is spider be spiders yo

.

Poec54 · Sep 1, 2015

Tfisher said:
When a tarantula finds water maybe in a leaf I'd assume there's a good chance that they would flip it. Maybe to keep those shrubs and grass growing.

I doubt they're growing gardens...

MarkmD · Sep 2, 2015

My L,Parahybana puts sub in her water dish every so often.

think its a cleaning habit they have thinking it will disappear ie (down a stream) etc like in the wild or to much humidity in the setup, could be none of those or combi of both??

Storm76 · Sep 4, 2015

With age, many stop doing this. My female only throws plastic plants in hers now...no substrate anymore. (Thank god!

)

Tim Benzedrine · Sep 4, 2015

Today, I stood and watched my LP gather a wad of substrate, move to to the water-cap, and place the wad of dirt NEXT to it, with just enough touching the water that it would have began wicking.
Yeah I know, I doubt that was the spider's master-plan, but it sure LOOKED like she knew what she was doing.

filling his water bowl with dirt

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