A. avic? and P. imperator rehousing help!

[Ivymike1973]

In regards to the mold, just pick it out when you see it. You probably don't need to change out the substrate as the mold will just grow on the new substrate as well. It's not really that harmful to the scorps so it is more of an aesthetic thing.

You can also get some isopods to help clean up the mold and any boluses. I am getting some today for the first time so I will see how well they work firsthand.

 

[Stan Schultz]

On Sunday I came into possession of two “pink toe” tarantulas (fairly sure they are A. avicularia) ...

[size=+1]GREAT SCORE![/size]

:clap: :clap: :clap:

​

FIRST AND FOREMOST: DON'T DO ANYTHING WITH THE TARANTULA CAGE NOW! Except:

Make sure that the humidity is kept quite high in the cage.

Keep the cage in a warmer part of your home.

Other than that, LEAVE IT ALONE!

Don't clean it.

Don't tip it on its end.

Don't try to remove the male.

... and two P. imperator ...

I know little about scorpions beyond the fact that P. imperator are semi-communal to communal forest scorpions and do best in a slightly or semi-damp terrarium situation. But, they are not really swamp animals, so you have to be careful about getting the cage too wet. And, this exposes them to the threat of mite and other infestations. You need to be alert and attentive to them. I will defer further comments about them to others with more experience.

... The female is webbed into a corner of the tank where she can roll the sac up and down while the male appears to be guarding her. ...

A. avicularia are some of the very few tarantulas that are often kept together semi-communally. The parents tolerate each other well, and the mother actually cares for and feeds the young for the first several weeks after they emerge from the eggsac. (I've even seen reports of them all living together in the same nest almost up to the time that they reach sexual maturity!) So, leave them together for now, and don't worry about the babies. Move the cage out of high traffic areas and into a warmer part of the house. Without making the cage dripping wet, keep the substrate slightly damp and the cage completely covered (plastic food wrap often works best for this) to reduce ventilation and keep humidity high.

Since you don't say when the eggs were laid, we can't predict when the babies will emerge from the eggsac. But, since the mother and babies can be kept together for weeks, there will be no huge panic to get them out.

Here's a photo of a female Avicularia versicolor, an allied species, guarding her brood of babies.


(Click or right-click the thumbnail to see a larger image. Click the larger image to see it full size. Photo by Jen Burge, one of the photo-contributors for TKG3. A tip o' the ol' hat, and many thanks to Jen. Used with permission.)

... Should I remove the male T from the tank now, or wait until later? ...

Don't try to remove the male. But, after the babies hatch the female will attempt to drive him off, or eat him. Or, it is possible that when the babies emerge the male will try to eat them. If you notice this, you're going to have to go into the cage and extract him however you can. Be prepared.

... Are there any signs that the female T will exhibit when the sac is close to hatching? When should I remove the slings and what is the best way to do that? I will be buying deli cups for them. ...

She may attempt to eat or drive the male away when she feels the babies begin to get restless inside the eggsac. If she starts getting aggressive, you can get him out of there. He probably doesn't have a long life left anyway, so if she does manage to grab and eat him, it'll be a quick death. Here is the father to a batch of babies from a different breeding of A. versicolor.


(Look closely at the top center of the food bolus. That's his fang! Photo by Patrick Mumford, one of the photo-contributors for TKG3. A tip o' the ol' hat, and many thanks to Pat. Used with permission.)

Other than that, there's no need to do any of this. Leave them together. LEAVE THEM ALONE! The female may want to eat while she's brooding the eggs and the babies. If you want to, you can merely throw a few crickets into the cage with them, but Momma probably won't leave the nest to catch them. Kill a cricket and offer it to her with a pair of tweezers or forceps. The male will hunt for himself.

Perhaps a week after the babies emerge you can eviscerate an adult cricket and place it in the nest with a pair of forceps. Repeat at least once a week. If necessary, remove the remains after a day or two. Baby Avics have been reported to communally dine on a killed cricket, all lined up along both sides, almost like a Christmas dinner at Grandma's!

Alternatively or later, throw in a few dozen small crickets for them. Note that the newly emerged babies will have DLS of up to 15 mm or more (5/8 inch). They will need commensurately larger crickets than you might feed a species like L. parahybana or B. smithi. They will be satisfied with pinheads only for a very short time. Start looking for sources of 1/4 to 1/3 grown crickets now, in anticipation.

Again, it's not an immediate, panic stricken crisis. You will have up to as much as three weeks (or even more) after the babies emerge before you need separate them. And since they eat fairly large prey, feeder crickets of the correct size should be easy to find.

Some questions you should be asking but didn't:

1) When will they emerge from the eggsac? 55 to 70 days after the eggsac was produced depending on ambient temperature. The higher the temperature, the sooner they'll hatch.

2) How many babies will there be? Not hundreds. Well fed female Avics will produce 100 to 150 babies in a monstrous eggsac. The usual number is about half that.

3) What do you do with all of them? Temporarily, keep them together in any handy, large, escape proof container. Once you have them in a more or less stable place and are caring for them, merely advertise here. Ask a token amount for them. If you only get $2 apiece, you can easily see $100 out of an eggsac! And, you get to meet a bunch of other rabid aracho-enthusiasts! You have no idea how many people will gladly drive a hundred miles or more for the sake of getting a handful of baby tarantulas at a good price, especially if the spiders have some sort of documented history behind them. And, your story and this thread are exactly what they're looking for!

Alternatively, you contact the dealers advertising here about them taking your babies. Some may pay cash. Others may only want to trade. The main rule is that they pay for the shipping! (The recipient ALWAYS pays for the shipping!)

Lastly, you should be taking lots, AND LOTS, AND LOTS of photos from every conceivable angle illustrating every little behavior and happening by them. Use a real camera, not just a cell phone. You want to document everything in full color and good focus. If you don't have your own camera, can you borrow one from a friend or family member for a few months?

I think that Arachnoboards would prefer that you post all your photos here. Just be sure to cross-reference the photos to this thread, and backwards too.


Congrats and all that stuff!

:biggrin:


Enjoy your little 8-legged marching minions!

 

[Kaiju]

So I went to brush my teeth and took at look at the Ts and noticed some interesting behavior. The female has put the sac at the bottom of her web tube and gone to the top entrance where the male is tapping and rubbing his boxing gloves on the glass. He did this for about two minutes then moved off and made a circuit of the cage, during which the female returned to the sac and is waiting at the bottom of the tube. The male is now probing the bottom of the web tube, presumably looking for the female. The tapping has stopped for now but he is angled with his front legs facing at the bottom entrance. He started tapping again, this time on bits of the web. The female has moved herself to the top of the tube again and the sac is about halfway up the tube.

To me, this looks like she feels threatened by the male since she keeps moving away from him. Does anybody have any input or similar experience with communal Avics? If he is becoming hostile I have no problem removing him now. I have a tank ready to go for him when the time comes.

 

[Stan Schultz]

... To me, this looks like she feels threatened by the male since she keeps moving away from him. Does anybody have any input or similar experience with communal Avics? If he is becoming hostile I have no problem removing him now. I have a tank ready to go for him when the time comes.

He is not becoming hostile. He wants another "roll in bed." On the other hand, she's got a headache and if he keeps bothering her, she'll eat him instead.

If you want to, you can remove the male to his own cage if you can do so without seriously damaging the female's nest. Or, you can leave him there to be eaten. As I said, in an earlier post, his days are numbered under any circumstances. For him there are only two options:

1) A relatively long life in a nursing home, dying an inch a day.

2) A relatively short life with a quick though somewhat painful death.

Basically the same options we have as we get older. :unhappy:

By the time the babies are grown enough that they can leave Momma and she has a chance to molt so she'll be ready to produce another eggsac, he'll be so old he probably won't be able to successfully breed her again. (Are Avics among those tarantulas that can double-clutch(1)? I don't know!) So, putting all sentimentality aside, there's no practical reason to maintain him. And a lot of breeders just let things follow a natural course. Casual enthusiasts often get very much caught up in the romantics of the situation and go through heroic efforts to save the males. Whatever you do is your choice.

Enjoy your little 8-legged entrée!

(1) Double-clutch: Able to produce more than one eggsac between any two consecutive molts regardless of the number of individual matings or number of sex partners. In most tarantula species the female molts, mates, produces one eggsac, molts, mates, produces one eggsac, molts... A few species are able to produce two or more eggsacs between molts, e.g., molt, mate, eggsac, eggsac, molt, mate, eggsac, eggsac, molt... Or, molt, mate, eggsac, mate, eggsac, molt, mate, eggsac, mate, eggsac, molt... Most female tarantulas are willing to accept more than one male or mate multiple times with the same male during any given breeding season, but this has nothing to do with double-clutching.

 

[cupcakescastle]

was there ever an update on this? I just stumbled across it & am sooo curious what happened