Tarantulas and Spiders

[3skulls]

Damon, that sucks! That's what my P. pederseni where doing when I had to stay up and fix them.

[3skulls]

Today's friend

[Mike41793]

Damon- I hope the vagans is a girl so i can keep her since she was my first but if hes a boy then i'm glad you have him all ready to go to sex up the lady T's!

Glad everything made it ok.

I'm sorry to hear about the smithis. Thats how i lost my irminia i had gotten from rich. Was just too big of a hole in the container. Learned my lesson though!

[Mike41793]

Soooo do you guys solder or drill your holes in your enclosures? I bought a soldering iron to try it out because so many people said it was easier. It sucks and the holes look like crap. I'm glad i practiced on the enclosure that already had a crack in it.

Soldering iron holes on the outside, drilled holes on the inside:


I'll be drilling mine from now on!

[BFE Pets]

it takes practice to make the holes look good. 1st you have to make sure your iron is hot enough. I use a 40 watt iron. the 25 watts like at walmart dont get hot enough to make good holes in acrylic. also even with a better iron you can only do so many holes before you've gotta let it heat back up. 2nd you have to let the iron do the work. dont try and force it through let it melt through. You can drill holes and I think they look better but you run a risk of cracking acrylic. the only tip I have on drilling is use a dremel tool instead of a drill. they have variable speeds. use a good sharp bit. set the dremel to a lower speed and dont push let the bit cut through. when you push it will crack almost every time.

I know how much that vagans means to you so as much as I want it to be a male i'm actually pulling for you that its a girl. its getting the royal treatment. its in a critter keeper instead of a cup and it has a nice hollow piece of cork.

[3skulls]

If that vagans is a male, its going to w a while before he will be mature. (Mabye years)

I always drill my holes.

[BFE Pets]

That's fine with me. I can always find other males in the mean time. Maybe. But if it is male atleast I know I've got one for down the road!

[Mike41793]

Yea fine with me too. I know itll be a while to maturity but i think he'll be able to sex it by next molt.

EDIT: yea i'm just drilling mine from now on. I crack a bit on the first hole but the others came out ok

[Mephibosheth1]

How are spiders sexed??

[3skulls]

I use a drill with a clutch and turn it down. Go slow and steady.

If its something really small like the hentzi were, I'll poke a hole using this tool I have that looks like a big needle.

Anything around 1/4" - 1/2", I use a 5/64 drill bit. The pre punched cups, those hole are too big.

Anything needing bigger holes than that I go to 1" vents.