New Arrival

[patsyking]

I am all excited as I got a Green Bottle Blue this morning. Its only tiny but I can't wait for it to get its proper colours. Its started webbing already! I've got three spiders now. I've taken a photo of it but its not very good but will post another one when I can get a better photo.

[patsyking]

New Arrival

I forgot to say, I've called it Sapphire.

[Phil Rea]

Hi Patsy. I've merged both your threads into one. Should be easier to keep track of replies

Congratulations on your new spider

[patsyking]

Thank you Phil. I didn't know how to put my thread right after I forgot to put her name on.

[James Box]

nice one, Patsy...if only she were an adult female, as i'm looking for a girlfriend for my mature male!
you won't regret buying Sapphire, these are gorgeous spiders...not too docile, but beautiful to look at.

[patsyking]

Thanks James. I know she/he will grow to be very beautiful. I don't handle any of my spiders at all. She is purely for looking at. I find them fascinating, watching their antics, feeding etc and since I've had my chile rose in November I can tell by her actions if she is going to eat or not and so on.When its big enough for a water bowl and it webs over it will it get annoyed when I change the water and having her web disturbed? I like to give fresh water every day.

[Peter Lacey]

Hi Patsy, seems we both received GBBs, although your one is a little younger than mine with those fawn legs. I posted a few pix of mine which arrived yesterday in the Ferrero Rocher thread, she's(?) lovely and I sat up watching her til 5am this morning - thank goodness I'm off for the next few days!
We haven't come up with a name yet although Flossy (candy floss = web) seems the favourite so far, that's the girls choice, Cyanide didnt get the seal of approval.
I've been looking at this species for months but was turned off by the web, now I want her because of the web and I'm going to enjoy the development of colour as she gets older.

I downloaded a pdf caresheet you might be interested in, I'll see if I can find the link but here's a starter: http://www.petbugs.com/caresheets/C-...pubescens.html

James, I went to view an adult female at Cold Blooded that he'd reserved for me about 3 weeks ago but instead came back with a pile of earth, sorry no there's a C. fasciatum in there somewhere (see thread). Might be worth asking him although it was nicely coloured so not sure if its still up for grabs.

[James Box]

cheers, Peter...i can try to get hold of him to ask.

Patsy, mine webbed over the water dish, but as this is an arid species, it wasn't too big of a deal if i couldn't top up its water every day. i usually had a hole to pour through, but when that disappeared, i made my own (sorry spider!), as i'm not all that bothered about moving a bit of webbing round.
i would say that fresh water every day is not necessary. just topping it up should be alright, for when it's old enough for a dish.
mine is an adult, so fine without humidity and not a huge amount of water, but as slings apparently they do need some moisture. i think yours is too small for a waterdish (could drown) but if you spray a bit of water down the sides of the enclosure, it should raise the humidity to acceptable levels, and the drips that make it to the substrate will be adequate for drinking needs.
i tend to water like this for slings every few days, as my spider area is rather warm and dry, causing water to evaporate quickly.
i'm fairly certain that humidity and ventilation are good for most slings (anyone please correct me if i'm wrong), so it's a good sign to have to spray every few days or so.

[Tom Forman]

Hiya patsy, congrats on getting a greenbottle.

They are a great spider.

In the short time that I have had mine I have come to 2 conclusions:

1. They definetely seem happier if they can climb up onto something like a branch than if they are kept in a shallow container.

2. They like it on the drier side. By the looks of your picture you can lower your humidity quite a bit.
With my high humidity T's I water every week so the soil has just dried up by the time I re-water. With the greenbottles I give a bit of water so that it dries up within the next 3 days (simulating weekly rain in a desert kind of environment).
More ventilation holes would make the soil dry up faster too and like James already mentioned ventilation is probably more important than the right humidity with this species (as long as humidity does not drop below 40% of course but when does that happen in the UK...)

You will love the webs they make if yours is a webber. Mine range from webbing hardly anything at all to webbing up absolutely everything :P

[Leanne King-Smith]

Here is my GBB sling Stella. She is about an inch now. I bought patsy(my mum) her GBB sling because she liked mine so much

Great advice guys.

[Andrew Ferguson]

Leanne, that is a lovely picture and those markings are fantastic. Thanks for sharing the picture.

[Leanne King-Smith]

Thanks Andrew. Took me an age to get that pic. She didn't want her pic taken, lol. I'm glad you liked the pic. Any pics of yours? I have a B.Smithi (El Guapo) and he is tiny!

[patsyking]

Thanks everyone for the help. I'm going to have a look at the care sheet via the link too. As both my daughters have one of these spiders too we can discuss and compare etc with each other. The humidity in the tank was a bit high I agree but I'd only just put her in there so misted the side of the tank at the same time. That mist has now gone and I will just spray it every few days.She has already made lots of web. I'm glad she won't be worried by having her web disturbed to change her water when she is old enough to have a bowl. I will just top it up and change it once a week I think.She does'nt use her hide at all but I will leave it in there so the tank looks nice and I will be getting her a stick this weekend as my son-in-law will be cutting his hedge. Will a privet hedge stick be ok? If not what kind of wood should be used?

[patsyking]

Hi Peter

I like the name Flossy. How big is your one? I'm just wondering how much bigger mine has to get before the colours come through. There was a skin in the container when I had mine so it must have moulted very recently. I wonder how often it will mout, any idea?

[Peter Lacey]

I think we're stuck on Flossy too, seems appropriate I guess.
I purchased mine from Louise and she kindly provided a moult report:
19/09/07 size 2cm
29/10/07 moulted
29/12/07 moulted
02/01/08 moulted

apparently she's due another moult soon. She's about 5cm. Actually I don't know her sex yet but I refer to all my unknown sexed Ts as she, just sounds better than "it".

From what I've read and been advised whilst they're spiderlings they should have a moist environment but make sure there's ventilation to avoid fungus etc. Once they move to juvs they like it very dry. They often cover their water bowl but I think I'll just top it up anyway. As yet I haven't created a burrow for her but her current enclosure (the Ferrero Rocher tub) is merely an experiment so once she(?) gets a little larger I'll seek out a nice tree root that she'll hopefully burrow within.