Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Welcome to kingsnake.com's message board system. Here you may share and discuss information with others about your favorite reptile and amphibian related topics such as care and feeding, caging requirements, permits and licenses, and more. Launched in 1997, the kingsnake.com message board system is one of the oldest and largest systems on the internet.

Click for 65% off Shipping with Reptiles 2 You
Click for 65% off Shipping with Reptiles 2 You

Brazilian White-Kneed spiderling strange

clffdvr Nov 08, 2009 05:18 PM

He's growing. He's about two or three inches in diameter now. He lives in a tall waterglass (8 inches tall and 2 1/2" diameter) full of good,peaty soil, with a screen on top. His little world sits in the end of the large tank that I keep conditioned for my Mexican Red-Knee. So he stays around 80F, and each week I use a dropper to wet the top of the water-glass soil. He made a cavern at the bottom, and he absolutely stays there all the time I'm up and around. A few times he's acted abnormally and stayed up, so I filled his tiny water dish and fed a de-legged lobster roach nymph. After that, he would disappear for several weeks again. I see evidence of his nighttime activity because he rearranges the soil on the surface, often burying the water cup (it's a very small water cup, and holds about six drops of water.). AFIK he's busy almost every night.

Well for the last four or five days he's been staying on the surface. I thought he might be needing to molt, but he's done that before, overnight. It worries me that he is staying up for so long. I can't tell whether he went down at night to eat his nymph. He can still move fast, but I don't know about the near future. Does anybody have an idea of why he's staying out all day? Does he need a bigger container? Is this behavior a problem? I sincerely don't want him to die.

Roger

Replies (4)

wolfpackh Nov 09, 2009 07:30 AM

It does not sound like anything is wrong w/ your tarantula. Doesn't need a bigger container in my opinion. Tarantulas just do strange things.

clffdvr Nov 09, 2009 07:28 PM

Luckily, he ate a small roach last night. I know he ate it because I removed most of it's legs so it couldn't burrow, and today there are only some leg parts left in there. IMO I tend to think that eating means he's OK. I guess we'll just have to see in the long term. Maybe I can post a close-up. I'll try to do that. He's growing sparse but bright purple hair on his abdomen, cool.

Thank you for your reply,

Roger

clffdvr Nov 19, 2009 02:07 PM

He was very thirsty. When I put drops of water on the substrate he is on, he came over and sort of wrestled with the dropper. So I re-filled his tiny water bowl, and within an hour was hunching over it, and stayed there for about an hour. He is not digging caves anymore, not even using ones I make for him. He eats whatever I put in there, so I think I'll "power feed" him to see how many roaches he wants per week.

Roger

thevez2 Nov 20, 2009 08:36 AM

Sounds like it is doing fine. Maybe was getting dehydrated before. You seem to have solved that. And a healthy appetite is definitely a good sign.
-----
KJ Vezino
My Gallery
Missouri Tarantula Enthusiasts Group

Site Tools