Good beginner/display pede

[peterbourbon]

Hi,

Originally Posted by cacoseraph

have better success with centipedes than oh... ~95% of keepers, so it seems like there is probably some merit to what i say

That may not be a result of keeping pedes in good conditions, but the lack of people who focus on centipedes. Not that your conditions are definitely wrong, but I'd consider even the same amount of 95% keepers who actually don't keep (or kept) pedes with same passion or in same amounts. This hidden part of your statistics should be considered as well.
If you said the same about Theraphosidae, then it had a different weighting.

Originally Posted by cacoseraph

oh, and the bonus is that you are basically extending the lifetime of the pede by the period in which they don't need to eat. i would consider moderately to massively increased longevity as something of a perquisite

What is in your opinion the period when pedes don't need to eat?
Some pedes even don't have winter in their habitate, so the period you talk about is a virtual period you decided to start in your time of keeping. A forced extension of lifespan in captivity has nothing to do with a proper simulation of their habitate and their natural lifespan.

A lot of pedes died (not only in my care) of bad ventilation - giving an explicit advice not to ventilate the enclosures does not match their habitate where they always have ventilation, if they like it or not.
Of course there is a bunch of hardy pedes out there who can survive in bad conditions, but we are talking about advices to keep a centipede in best possible conditions - and this is impossible to generalize for the meta-pede.
Have you ever kept centipedes who live in special/endemic habitates?
Have you ever simulated rainy/dry seasons for centipedes that live in those parts of the world, just for the experience to learn something more?

What I criticize is not the fact that no one keeps centipedes in perfect conditions (I guess it's almost impossible), but the general lazy attitude that avoids experimenting with different climatic zones and simulation of seasons, cause "finally it's just a pede". You'll never see an improvement of your husbandry, if you don't try.

Reproduction can't always be considered as a proof for good husbandry - and even less for pedes who have learned to live almost everywhere like morsitans, subspinipes.
Reproduction can be just a matter of survival as well - and everyone sees his/her pedes on eggs here and then.

Anyway: If you have good experience with keeping pedes in mentioned conditions, then it's fine.
But people should be careful with advices that are contrary to the natural habitate of animals.

If I kept 50% of my species like you did or do, they would die within one week.
The other 50% would maybe survive and even lay eggs.
Then I could give advices like "I even had a lot of clutches and pedes could survive a long time, so what?"
And also keeping centipedes in enclosures where they don't have the possibility to move properly can't be good at all. A lot of my pedes use the whole enclosure to wander around at night, so giving them space may not be that wrong.

I hope you see what I basically want to say. This specific part of the hobby did not seem to improve the last 5 years, because all the "old hobbykeepers" repeat their general advices again and again - and stopped to move and improve. Maybe time has changed - and it's finally the right time to focus that topic a little bit more.
If science repeated the old theories we wouldn't know that much today.
And that's what I meant with "antiquary advices".

Anyway: I don't meant to argue - it's always good to have different opinions. And i respect your experience as well (though it's contrary to mine). Finally I'm missing those debates.

Regards
Turgut

[cacoseraph]

well, i use no vent or super low vent cages and don't have problems with mortality from it so i submit your pedes are dying from something else


i kept a 4"BL pede in a 10 dram vial. it did great. it started out as a 2"BL and molted like 3-4 times in its tiny cage. to me this is proof positive that a large cage is not needed at all



see, you assume your fancy cages are the reason you have success... i am proof it is not the case at all.

instead of being offended at that you should see it is an opportunity to really figure out the *actual* requirements of centipedes... not those you have imagined for yourself


also, there are exactly three reasonable, objective criteria for success with simple animals: do they eat? do they molt/grow? do they reproduce? any other criteria are just subjective, probably emotional nonsense

[Moltar]

Debates like this between two experienced keepers do more to increase my understanding than just the answering of questions alone so thanks for disagreeing guys.

In my case I have the hvac thermostat set for 69 degrees all winter long. The invert room gets lots of midday sun so it gets into mid-high 70's every afternoon. I think that should be fine for temps, yes? In a 4"x8" cylindrical plastic container I have lots of vent holes in the lid and around the top edge only. My reasoning is that this way the air won't get stagnant but will stay humid at the bottom, creating sort of a micro-climate down at ground level. This seems to be working as evidenced by the length of time it takes mistings on the wall to evaporate (18+ hours) I've been misting the whole affair twice weekly and squirting enough water in there to have a moist side and a not-so-moist side. The pede seems to move from one side to the other regularly enough, not sticking in any one place. I feel like i've got it close enough for comfort at least. It's made burrows all over the place and is eating.

My approach at keeping theraphosids is a little more like the approach caco describes. I think any animals that have survived as long as these have an inherent hardiness that makes them able to adapt - at least to a certain degree - to conditions outside the specific environment in which they're found. My setups are usually simple and geared towards meeting their needs rather than actually recreating their exact indiginous environment.

Even though I didn't start this thread, thanks guys for your input.

[micheldied]

get a mutilans commune...then you'll see them a lot.
my mutilans is always out when its dark.

[spider_mike]

Originally Posted by micheldied

get a mutilans commune...then you'll see them a lot.
my mutilans is always out when its dark.

commune as in community? Live in groups?

Mike

[micheldied]

Originally Posted by spider_mike

commune as in community? Live in groups?

Mike

exactly.