The Great Escape .

Darryl Albers

Arachnosquire
Old Timer
Joined
Dec 20, 2004
Messages
67
Is there any possible explanations for a few of my adults and large juveniles beginning to become persistent houdinis ? My H.lividum is persistently trying to escape , he has now lost 2 legs in 2 months , no burrow ...just loads of webbing, perfect conditions ... even tried constructing one but that was just covered back up !!!!

My adult female A.Seemani has become relentless in the past 2 weeks. Do females ever have a maternal drive that would drive them to look for a male , hence escape ? Again i must stress that conditions are perfect , correct humidity ..clean water dish every week ..clean substrate yada yada yada ...

My smithi juve started with his tricks but has settled down now .

My ts remain undisturbed all day in there own t room .

any insight will be greatly appreciated . :confused:
 

Cerbera

Arachnobaron
Old Timer
Joined
Mar 12, 2005
Messages
540
here we go...

Aah - someone else with a runaway seemanni.

One one level, you can relax a bit - it is inbuilt into their personalities that they will test the limits of any container they are in. Costa Rican Zebra T's will always try to escape, but with care, you can minimize the amount of time they spend doing it, and arrnage things so they can't injure themselves.

But having lived with mine for a while now, and had time to subtly alter her conditions, and see what happens, my observations may help you.

In my case, the problem was humidity, and far too much of it. Although every care sheet in the world for Seemani suggests a humidity of 80%, I can tell you that this is simply not the case if you want them to be content. They may want 80%, but that's in a webbed / covered deep burrow, in moistish soil, NOT air humidity, which I have found to be perfect for them at 60 / 70 %

Which leads nicely to the next point - whatever you do, make sure you are not measuring humidity with one of those crap little dial hygrometers like the ones made by Exo-terra - they are piss poor, without exception, and simply lie about what levels of humdity is going on. (Exo-terra - these are not unfounded allegations - I have written to you about it, and I have proof !) So get a decent digital one, and I bet you find that the real air humidity in the tank is far too high. So thats the first thing to fix - more ventilation, or less water to evaporate. i had to do both, to get it right. You don't need to mist at all, living in London.

Also, they can't climb well, so you need to arrange moss in the corners of the tank to cushion her falls, or even better, raise her substrate to within 4 inches of the roof - that way she can't fall far enough to hurt herself. Also - they climb more if they don't like the substrate their on, and mine was a lot happier when I changed from 70 / 30 % potting soil / vermiculite to 100% peat moss. I find they need at least 5" of substrate to be happy burrowing too.

The cobalt is somewhat more of a mystery. I've never heard of these trying repeatedly to escape, especially not to the extent where they would break legs to try - I would suggest conditions are probably anything 'but' perfect to make it want to try that hard. Does it have at least 9" of peat moss in which to burrow, kept very moist, with adequate ventilation, and consistant heat (not from underneath) ?

Any other info you can provide would be useful...

Hope some of that helps - but its worked with Ginnevra - who now climbs the walls only once every other week, or so, and even then, only briefly, to check she 'still' can't get out, and then gives up very quickly, and goes back to sitting like the happy spider she now is...
 
Last edited:

Cirith Ungol

Ministry of Fluffy Bunnies
Old Timer
Joined
Dec 22, 2004
Messages
3,886
I have 6 lividum slings in dry substrate and a moist spot on one side of their little cup. They all dig away happily every night and show me new tunnel entrances every morning... So I don't see anything out of the ordinary, as dry as I'm keeping them. (Ofcourse they get fed good hydrated food - maggots - so I'm not afraid that the dryness will have any but good effects on the long term health of the habitat)
 

Windchaser

Arachnoking
Old Timer
Joined
Dec 13, 2004
Messages
2,996
When you say perfect conditions, could you please be more specific. If you are going by many of the care sheets found on the web, then chances are your enclosures are way too wet. Most care sheets overstate the humidity requirements considerably. All but a few tarantula species in the pet trade will do great with a dry substrate and a water dish.

It is really difficult to give you any advise without knowing what specifically you mean by "perfect conditions." What is your substrate? Are you using heat sources? Heat sources are rarely needed as they can result is essentially cooking your tarantula. If a heat source is used, how it is used is very important. The tarantula must be able to move away from the heat if it needs too. Are your enclosures very wet/humid? Under what circumstances did your H. lividum loose its legs?

If you give us the answers to these questions, it would be much easier for us to give you feedback.
 

Darryl Albers

Arachnosquire
Old Timer
Joined
Dec 20, 2004
Messages
67
Cerbera said:
Aah - someone else with a runaway seemanni.

One one level, you can relax a bit - it is inbuilt into their personalities that they will test the limits of any container they are in. Costa Rican Zebra T's will always try to escape, but with care, you can minimize the amount of time they spend doing it, and arrnage things so they can't injure themselves.


I have a accurate digital thermo /hygro . but my air humidity is 80 percent . thanks , i will drop it by 10 . but my Lividum will not burrow at all ! his conditions are correct and i have allways successfully used coco fibre substrate . thanks for the reply ,,and useful info ..

cheers . :)
 

Darryl Albers

Arachnosquire
Old Timer
Joined
Dec 20, 2004
Messages
67
Windchaser said:
When you say perfect conditions, could you please be more specific. If you are going by many of the care sheets found on the web, then chances are your enclosures are way too wet. Most care sheets overstate the humidity requirements considerably. All but a few tarantula species in the pet trade will do great with a dry substrate and a water dish.

I have dry coco fibre substrate which my other 29 ts are more than happy with , and create great , stable burrows . i have a side mounted small heat mat which all my ts base themselves around because it is cold here , i dont believe that subjecting them to temps below 10 degrees is fair , do you ?

my humidity is 80 percent and i mist accasionally to simulate a wet day . deep subsrate and a cork bark log which he hides under sometimes . now he has webbed the enclosure heavily. hope that helps .
 

Cirith Ungol

Ministry of Fluffy Bunnies
Old Timer
Joined
Dec 22, 2004
Messages
3,886
I use straight peat moss and mine dig about fine. You could try that instead...
 

Windchaser

Arachnoking
Old Timer
Joined
Dec 13, 2004
Messages
2,996
The coconut fibre stuff has been used many and is a good substrate. If your temperatures are around 10 C (50 F), then yes, you do need some sort of heat source. At my place, even though I am in Chicago with cold winters, my inside temperatures never get below 20 C (68 F), so I don't need any additional heat. During the summers my temperatures are higher.

How are you maintaining an air humidity level of 80% if you are using dry substrate? I have kept all of my tarantulas at the ambient humidity levels (approximately 35% in the winter, anything up to 90% in the summers) and simply provided a water dish at all times. During the winter, the water dish and reduced ventilation for the lids will usually result in air humidity levels of around 50% in my enclosures.

Also, what caused your H. lividum to loose its legs? Did they get stuck on a screen lid? Did they get trapped between the lid and the tank? I would find out what caused the injury and fix that problem. As far a burrowing goes, I have had some that have not burrowed for a month or two and then finally dug their burrow. Have you tried a starter hole for it? How long have you had it? I have found that H. lividums take some time to get comfortable in their new enclousres.
 

Big and Hairy

Arachnosquire
Old Timer
Joined
May 20, 2005
Messages
87
This sounds like a situation I might have. I use the coconut fiber substrate, which some of my spiders have been fine with, but my G. Rosea didn't like it too much and laid webbing down everywhere. My A. Genic seems to be a little more ok with it, but I think the substrate might be too moist or the humidity may be a little too high, as it is 75 to 80% on average and she has recently been trying to get out occasionally. The temps stay at aroung 75 to 80 degrees. Thanks for everyone's input on this.
 

GabooN

Arachnoknight
Old Timer
Joined
Jun 17, 2004
Messages
167
how much do the digital hygrometers cost usually? I work at walmart and have seen some of the digital thermometers, and i have one for my carpet pythons tank, but none are very small.

Do you guys keep a thermo and hygro in each of your tanks? I just imagine they would take up alot of space, esp in a small sling jar (mine is 4" diameter and 8" high). Or do you have the ones with the probe (my digital thermo for the snake has one) ?

I'm just curious since I have just set up the jar and drilled the holes and put in peat moss. There is a bit of precipitation *edit, oops i mean condensation* on the walls, but I was going to wait to see if it would dry out a bit since it is fresh substrate (newly sealed bag). The condensation is just tiny tiny crystals, not big drops. The moisture seems to be on the walls where the substrate is only though, not on the walls above teh substrate. Is this a good thing because Cerbera was saying how they like humid substrate as opposed to humidity in the air itself.
 
Last edited:

Darryl Albers

Arachnosquire
Old Timer
Joined
Dec 20, 2004
Messages
67
GabooN said:
how much do the digital hygrometers cost usually? I work at walmart and have seen some of the digital thermometers, and i have one for my carpet pythons tank, but none are very small.

Do you guys keep a thermo and hygro in each of your tanks? I just imagine they would take up alot of space, esp in a small sling jar (mine is 4" diameter and 8" high). Or do you have the ones with the probe (my digital thermo for the snake has one) ?QUOTE]

I have only one ,i move it from viv to viv , and the external probe is permanently in the large plastic storage box wherin i keep my vials and smaller containers for my slings . i will get another when my collection doubles .
 

Windchaser

Arachnoking
Old Timer
Joined
Dec 13, 2004
Messages
2,996
Persopnally I don't use any meters in my enclosures. I have one in my house, but that is it. I believe the concerns of achieving precise humidity levels is not necessary. Most species do quite well with dry substrate and a water dish. If you want to increase the humidity level in a particular enclosure, leave less ventilation in the lid. If a T is constantly hovering over the water dish, then restrict the ventlation a little more, use a larger water dish or both. There really isn't a need to measure the humidity level.
 

GabooN

Arachnoknight
Old Timer
Joined
Jun 17, 2004
Messages
167
Yeah i figured it wasnt that necessary. The substrate has been drying over the last few days, so it should be okie as it is, I think I will drill a few more holes though just to make sure before I get the little guy, probably below the substrate level to help it along. I added a water dish today (water bottle cap cut to half the height) to see how that goes with the drying substrate.
 
Top