Beginner Tarantula questions!

[Alexandra V]

I do have a few more questions for you (or anyone else I guess who would see this?)

How fast do these guys grow? I guess specifically these two (green bottle blue and brazilian black)

Also, what size crickets would a 3/4" or 1" need? I ask because that's about the size tarantula I keep seeing, and I was wondering if they need pinhead crickets or 'smalls' or whatever size. I'm trying to figure out how long I would need to buy super small crickets for a tarantula. I don't breed my own crickets, and the stores around me sell by the dozen, so I'd end up with a bunch of tiny crickets that none of my other animals could really eat(and would get too big too fast probably if I just kept them).. But I guess as the crickets grow I could feed them to the geckos!

I DO have a working mealworm colony of various sizes, but can mealworms be fed to tarantulas? Would they be good for them?

Just still figuring out the feeding part. Once the spider is bigger it wouldn't be an issue, just when it is young!

The GBB tends to be a medium grower and the brazilian blacks are known to be slow growing. At around 1" they would in fact need pinhead crickets, but you could put in a little bit of effort and go one of two ways: either go with larger crickets and pre-kill them, or do the same with pre-killed meal worms. I feed mealworms to my smaller Ts and superworms to my larger ones that will take them (one of mine wants nothing to do with them) and for my very small ones (at or under 1") I still do pinheads because I can get them by half dozens here. Once they are about 2", I start offering live mealworms.

From personal experience, if your tarantula is willing to take them, meal worms have been like steroids for my slings and they've been growing much faster and bigger since I switched onto them.