One square foot of Peruvian Amazonia - tarantula build

[plateOfFlan]

Thanks! I can't emphasize enough how much time and effort and money went into initial setup, which was a huge pain, and also how little effort it takes nowadays to maintain.

I wanted to talk about the cleanup crew bugs, since I think there's a lot of misunderstanding/misconceptions about bioactive setups. I seeded the tank with springtails and dwarf white isopods last year. I can't actually tell if I have any springtails left - they're very tiny and I used to see rafts of dead ones on the water in the bromeliads but not so much anymore. I wanted to get a rough headcount on the isopods so I tossed in a small bit of snake shed to draw them out. The answer is there's a *lot* of them!



They burrow around in the substrate and have gone all the way down to the bottom of the tank, but I was surprised to find a lot of them moved into these holes on the cork bark and are living happily up there as well:



Things the isopods eat:

- tarantula poop - I have never seen poop in the tank since I put Typhon in, which if you're familiar with the kind of mess an arboreal tarantula can make is shocking. It must be a real delicacy.
- tarantula bolus - the leftover bits of food and webbing a tarantula leaves after eating. I never see these either, the few times I spotted one it was already covered in isopods.
- webbing - spiderweb is made of protein and after a few days they'll happily eat it
- living moss - this was pretty frustrating! I carefully set up a mat of sheet moss for ground cover and the isopods chowed on it so quickly it's been unable to recover. Every bit of green was quickly devoured - here they are chomping away:

Luckily a few volunteer ferns have appeared and been left alone, so the ground isn't totally bare, but I don't love how it looks now. They also immediately destroyed the club moss that used to be there.
- dead leaves and cork bark - they're doing a good job of turning fallen leaves into soil, and there's always soil falling from the holes in the cork bark so they seen to be nibbling on that as well. I can't spot any visible damage but if given enough time I'm sure they'd reduce it to dirt. Typhon helps them weirdly enough, because she's taken to pulling dead leaves off the bromeliads and dropping them to the floor. Sometimes their behavior is very mysterious. There's also a big pile of dried oak leaves inside the cork bark round for them, which I refill every so often
- mold and fungus - occasionally there's a small outbreak but they quickly get it under control

Things they won't eat:

- shed tarantula exoskeleton - this was probably a tall order considering the size of Typhon and thickness of her shell, but they were unable to break this down at all. They did swarm the shed and appeared to clean up any soft tissue on it while it was still wet, but I had to remove it
- living plants that aren't moss -
- soil gnat larvae - I occasionally get soil gnat outbreaks, which aren't harmful but are gross to look at

You'll also see a shallow water dish in one of the pics - I put that in occasionally if Typhon seems thirsty but try to remove it before the pods all get in there and die - they have gills so they can't drown but they have trouble getting back out and will apparently die of exhaustion trying to swim around. They're so small that I think they have a hard time breaking the water's surface tension and become trapped. Other than that they seem to be doing fine and are producing babies and doing their job well!

One shot of the lady for good measure. She's taken to basking with her front pair of legs dangling like this, which I think is a sign of a very relaxed tarantula (Unlike many species, she is not photophobic and enjoys being active during the day and deliberately warming herself under the lights)

[Bogertophis]

Incredibly nice t & set-up- I'd never do bioactive with my snakes, but I sure would if I ever keep another t- seems like a great system for this type of creature.

[plateOfFlan]

Incredibly nice t & set-up- I'd never do bioactive with my snakes, but I sure would if I ever keep another t- seems like a great system for this type of creature.

One of the big benefits is minimizing direct contact - I'm not having to reach in there with tongs to clean up messes all the time, which stresses her out and puts me at risk for getting haired/bitten. I quickly mist in the morning when I get up before she's active, and every few months I go in and prune plants, and she hides while I do that and then comes right back out, so it's less disruptive for her. Tarantulas aren't really able to acclimate to dealing with a huge scary presence like a human coming into their space all the time (I always explain it to people as "we're like Godzilla or Cthulhu to them - they can't even get their heads around what we are, let alone that we may not be malevolent") so minimizing any contact that will stress her out I think is a good move and makes her more visible because she's relaxed, so I can observe her more.

eta: I've added springtails to both of my old world Ts enclosures too, but not gone full bioactive, because they're even more high strung and have more dangerous venom so minimal human contact is also a big plus for them! In contrast my very chill Tliltocatl was sitting in the water dish I wanted to fill so I gently picked him up and moved him over - he doesn't seem to mind in the least.