Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've been looking up care-sheets for Red-Knee's, and most say to keep them in a moist substrate. For instance:
http://animal-world.com/encyclo/reptiles/spiders/MexicanRedKneedTarantula.php

The other theory is to keep them in arid conditions. Is there a way to understand this seeming discrepancy?

Regards,

Clffdvr

Caresheets suck. I don't like em, don't trust em, and don't use them for much. They are written based on one moment in time, and the whole picture is never considered. The care sheets that tell you to keep the humidti low are basing that on the fact that they hail from semi-arid regions with low relative humidity. The caresheets that tell you to keep them at about 50-60% are basing it on the fact the the internal humidity of a Ts burrow in nature is usually around 50% (1-2 feet or more underground). Any sheet that says higher (for that species) is just out to lunch.

As common sence tells us, just like temperature, humidity varies on a daily and even hourly basis. So trying to maintain a constant humidity in your enclose is not only impossible, it's pointless.

Your T come form a dry area, so the substrate should be kept dry. It should be provided a waterdish, and that should supply enough moisture for it. If you see it hanging out by the waterdish a lot, then that tells you it wants more humidity. In that case I overflow the waterdish until about 1/4 of the substrate is moist, that will set up a humidity gradient across the cage (more so than the dish alone) Always be sure to leave most of the soil dry. Let the moist soil completely dry out, before overflowing again.

90% of all pet tarantulas can be kept this way. Only a few actually require higher humidity.
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KJ Vezino
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Your reply makes sense to me. If I kept my T in even slightly damp substrate, and it burrowed, it would live in 100% humidity. Even I questioned that. But I'm new to this and had to ask. I don't want my T to suffer.

Do you examine your T's with a magnifying glass to search for mites? I have to do that to my reptiles every six months. If my T had a couple of mites when I got him, and they multiply into a swarm, is there a cure?

Roger

No you don't need to examine your T for mites. If you happen to see little white mites on the substrate then you have a problem, but inspecting the T itself is not necessary.

The cure for mites is to keep the substrate bone dry. Mites need humidity to live and thrive. Take that one element away and they will be no more.

Mites are usually introduced into a tank by feeder insects. SO if there are any visible remains (bolus) after a T is done eating, they should be removed.

If the mites ever get real bad, you should just scrap the substrate and start over.
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KJ Vezino
My Gallery

American Tarantula Society
British Tarantula Society
Nebraska Tarantula Enthusiasts Club
Wiccan Tarantula Circle

At some point in time someone managed to keep a given species of tarantula (pick whichever one you want) in a completely dry cage. The tarantula, being basically a very hardy sort of creature, survived. So this person wrote it up in a care sheet and everybody else smiled sweetly and kept their tarantula dry, too.

At about the same time someone else, who wasn't paying attention or who just wanted to do something different, got one of those tarantulas and put it in the same sort of terrarium that they were keeping something else in, say a salamander or box turtle. It just happened to be a relatively damp terrarium. The tarantula, being basically a very hardy sort of creature, survived. So this person wrote it up in a care sheet and everybody else smiled sweetly and immediately switched over to keeping their tarantula damp, too. So now we had 2 different care sheets.

Out of curiosity, several of those people shelled out the cash for some sort of relative humidity gauge and tested the Rh in the tarantula's cage. "Hey, this tarantula is doing great. And, the gauge says the humidity is 65%." So they promptly rewrote the care sheet to state that the humidity was 65%. Others found Rhs of 55%, 60%, even 80%, especially if their meter hadn't been suitably calibrated after they bought it from a local discount department store. They, too, wrote up their own versions of the care sheet.

Other people, in an attempt to also appear "hip," or "with it" either quoted these care sheets or merely rewrote them under their own titles and distributed them out of sheer ignorance. Now we have 3, 4, 12, 50 or more different versions, and everyone of them swears that they're the truth and your tarantula will die and you'll toast in Hell if you go against them. Out of complete ignorance!

An important point here is that few, if any, of these people had the experience to appreciate the resilience and adaptability of tarantulas or took the time to test where the limits were for the tarantula's tolerance. Statistically, they were making grandiose statements from an "n" or "1!"

The fact is that tarantulas, for the most part, are sturdy and resilient enough to be able to survive in a remarkably wide spectrum of conditions. This is completely predictable when one understands that they and their ancestors have been on this planet for many Many MANY millions of years. By now they've survived just about everything imaginable.

So why does it make a difference? Because if you keep a tarantula in too extreme an environment, not even a tarantula can survive. A desert tarantula in a swamp cage would be a good example.

It just so happens that over the last 50 years or so we've found that almost all tarantulas are resilient enough that they'll acclimatize quite nicely to a dry cage as long as they have ready access to fresh water. They're big enough to carry a sizable water reserve in their body tissues, they're sturdy enough that they can tolerate a little dehydration (just as we can) without grave consequences, and their exoskeletons are impermeable enough that they won't dehydrate too quickly, at least before they learn where the water dish is and take a drink.

It also just so happens that over that half century we've found that there are a lot of troublesome, even malicious, things that would also grow well in a tarantula's cage, especially if it's damp. After we lost a bunch of tarantulas to rampant mite infestations, fungus and bacterial infections and other completely unknown and unguessable maladies, we gradually began to realize that those cages that were left dry contained almost all the survivors. A wet cage quite commonly meant death to a tarantula. Maybe not this week or next month, but sooner or later the tarantula kept in a cage with a damp substrate and an inordinately high humidity generally had a shorter life expectancy (often a MUCH shorter life expectancy!) than one kept in a bone dry cage with a water dish. Whether the tarantula came from a desert or a rainforest!

Now, I've narrated this little story about humidity and damp substrates, but the same principle and history also holds with temperature and heaters, lights and plants, and all the other gimcrack things and tricks that people argue about on these forums. And, to protect yourself from misinformation and outright frauds (there's always somebody after your hard earned money!) it's incumbent upon you to STUDY your tarantula, to find out how it really works so you can make an informed judgment. Remember, the person who wrote that care sheet doesn't have anything invested in your pet!
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Please send all E-mail postings directly to schultz@ucalgary.ca

May all the holes in your path hold large hairy spiders!

Stan Schultz
Marguerite J. Schultz
Co-authors, the TARANTULA KEEPER'S GUIDE

>>I've been looking up care-sheets for Red-Knee's, and most say to keep them in a moist substrate. For instance:
>>http://animal-world.com/encyclo/reptiles/spiders/MexicanRedKneedTarantula.php
>>
>>The other theory is to keep them in arid conditions. Is there a way to understand this seeming discrepancy?
>>
>>Regards,
>>
>>Clffdvr

Baby spiders need more humidity or they dessicate so it's good to always keep the soil lightly damp and not let the soil become totally dry for more than a day. Juvenile and adult spiders can usually be kept pretty dry as long as you have a water dish for them. Even so, I like to flood 1/3-1/2 of the cage with water every 10-14 days via over filling the water dish considerably to kick the humidity up for a day or so. My B. smithi just shrug and more often than not avoid the damp spot in the cage. My B. emilia are different. More often than not they will go over to and lay directly on the damp spot for a day or so.
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Wyvern

The Invert Collection:
* 0.0.1 Aphonopelma anax - Texas Tan
* 0.0.1 Aphonopelma chalcodes - Desert Blond
* 0.0.1 Avicularia avicularia - Pink-toe
* 0.0.4 Avicularia geroldi - Brazilian Blue Pink-toe
* 0.1.0 Brachypelma auratum - Mexican Flameknee
* 1.4.0 Brachypelma emilia - Mexican Red-leg
* 2.1.0 Brachypelma smithi - Mexican Red-knee
* 0.0.1 Cyclosternum fasciatum - Costa Rican Tiger Rump
* 1.0.2 Grammostola pulchra - Brazilian Black