Tarantulas and Spiders

Paintbrushes??

And some of the caresheets I read said you use a water bowl with marbles in it so they can get out....

Do you actually use the syringe to squirt the water into the spider's mouth??

I drill holes near water bowls. Then I can water with the syringe without having to open the enclosure.

A paintbrush is used to help nudge your T to move. Or to test to see what kind of mood its in. A soft brush won't hurt them.

Mike here's Shalya's partial list of what she would except. all under 2" preferably. H. Incei gold, A. franki, versicolor, obt, peacock spider, and any of the Chilean dwarfs except sp red cause she has one already. lol I had to make her shorten the list because she wasnt looking at the prices of stuff and she was listing P. metalicas and some hard to find stuff that cost a fortune. lol

One more tool i've found useful in addition to what rich listed: an antenna off an old broken radio. It can be used to prod spiders like what you'd use the paint brush for or just rearrange stuff in the enclosures. The reason why i like it is because its an antenna so the length is adjustable. When i'm doing stuff in the smaller cups i make it shorter and in bigger enclosures just make it longer.

Yea rich i'm gunna transfer my obt to a smaller cube. Not sure if i wanna give him a more arboreal or more burrowing setup... I really like the tunnel my meridionalis has made in her cube. I need more ceratogyrus!

I was going to go a bit more arboreal with my OBTs but... I think they are happier with a deeper substrate and lots of anchor points.

Making more of a sheet web over a burrow. All the sac mates to yours have pulled down all webbing and have gone underground.

I could be way off on this but what i've noticed with my obt's is they burrow when they are about to molt. most of my slings are burrowed and the ones that have recently come back out are rocking fresh exoskeletons.

So here's what i've got going on with my bean beetles so far.... I purchased 2 cultures. I used one and fed approximately 150 slings. the other one I divided into 10 starter cultures of 20-25 beetles each. The starter cultures wont be touched or sold until I see eggs on the beans. which from what i'm reading can take up to 7 weeks but normally you should see reproduction at about 4 weeks when using adult beetles. The original cultures both have hundreds of eggs that I can see and at least 50 beetles each. if what I witnessed today was actually mating then the males tend to be slightly larger than the females. If they are indeed mature and mating then the largest adults that i have seen are very comparable to fruit fly adults. the mature males can fly but i've only had one actually do anything more than flutter back down to the beans. These things are 100 times easier to use than fruit flies or even pinheads. I'm hoping the cultures take off and I can use them on a regular basis without buying them! I will keep you guys posted on them.

If I or we can find a way to cut feeding time down, I can get 100s more :D


I think the B. lats will help a ton.
They are more "icky" looking on the roach front.

The beetles will be awesome. If they work, that might be something I can sell at the pet stores along side with the dubia.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 3skulls

If I or we can find a way to cut feeding time down, I can get 100s more :D


I think the B. lats will help a ton.
They are more "icky" looking on the roach front.

The beetles will be awesome. If they work, that might be something I can sell at the pet stores along side with the dubia.

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:P I was thinking about setting out beetles at the shows maybe 1/2 price with the purchase of a sling. Cultures retail at the shows for $8. I'm kinda stoked about the B. lats too. I can't wait to not smell crickets! And they seem like the perfect replacement!

No one has ever had them down here. I'm looking for stuff to add thy others don't have.
Like I said, I would be the 4th bug guy. The shows just aren't big enough :(

I used to have bean beetles and kept them going for about a year before letting the culture die out. They're kind of a feast or famine type of bug. The adult been beetle doesn't feed, they're entire purpose is to mate and die which they do over the course of about 7-14 days. Then you have a container of black eyed peas sitting on the shelf and taking up space for about 6 weeks until one day you find it crawling with about a billion new bean beetles (which will only live for another 7-14 days so you better feed them off quick) I found it hard to synchronize my cultures so that I had beetles hatching out all the time so usually I had nothing to feed off for weeks at a time. They're a good supplement but certainly not a replacement for other bugs.