Another guide

[Louise~Nichols]

LOL Sylvi!! Northern Mollies, Southern Mollies...errrrrk...where's it all heading...*Trailerpark trash Mollies*... soooo much seems to be Mollicoma'd...it's a wonder we're not creating hybrids everywhere!! PM heading to you anyways, m'dear.

[SylviRigden]

LOL!!! ok.

[Peter Lacey]

Tom its great that you've put this info together but you leave it rather open because of the language you use and a little conjecture. Hopefully you'll take this as constructive criticism rather than chipping away at your work.

A varied diet is important in keeping your Tarantula healthy so it lives as long as it should do naturally, it is especially important to give a growing tarantula a varied diet.

With the removal of all predators and parasites, with daily vigilance and guaranteed feeding etc I'd suggest the tarantula would fare far better in captivity than it would naturally and this despite the fact the variety of food available is quite limited. Its already been suggested in these forums that some celebrated breeders have fed their Ts solely on cockroach and their slings on maggots. What has been identified is the deficiency of feeding fruit flies as a sole diet for slings.

Tarantulas can tolerate a temperature between 17 degrees C and 28 degrees C. Anything below 10 degrees or above 35 degrees for an extended period will kill the Tarantula.
On the fringes of the atacama desert, where virtually no rain falls the temperature can reach beyond your figures almost on a daily basis! If you check the temperatures of some of the countries where tarantula inhabit you'll find at certain parts of the year temperatures meet your extremes on a regular basis, check this out for Chennai, India: http://www.weatherbase.com/weather/w...s=97234&refer=
I've heard of someone who put an adult pokie out for a length of time whilst it was snowing, it survived.
Perhaps, it might be best to suggest temperatures that have worked for you or recommended by long standing hobbyists rather than try to provide guides to natural temperature levels and the limits the tarantula can endure.

Humidity, there's a number of ways of reading humidity, we use relative humidity but this fluctuates in the UK as it does around the world. Check the BBC 5 Day forecast, today it reads at 36 but on Friday its expected to be 56! In an enclosure the humidity will be determined by the heat and the amount of water the air can absorb. At the point where the air becomes saturated dew starts to form, however if the temperature outside the enclosure is quite different to that inside condensation will start to form. Who could tell whether the moisture was created by the former or latter?
You also mention mould and mites which, going by recent topics in the BTS forum, are bigger concerns than they need to be. As for dew drops on the web, surely, at least for the arboreals, this is a natural way for tarantula to get a water intake?

I hope you don't feel I'm picking it to pieces, its just I believe that once people see inaccurate information the credibility of the information is doubted to the point its rendered useless.

From my experience people have many different views on keeping Ts, some try to imitate the natural habitat of each species others try a generic plan. The tarantula itself is adaptable and for the most part, hardy. It doesnt have temperature or humidity gauges in the wild, probably seldom has a good supply of clean water and undoubtedly has many co-habitants to deal with. Its survived like this for millions of years without our help, sometimes I wonder what it would have to say on all our fussing

[Tom Forman]

its practically impossible to bring out a guide that would please all.

I know I certainly would not keep my T's lower than 17 degrees. Why would any1 want to?

Like I told louise, I do not want to be the one to find out the lowest temp a T can tolerate before it dies just so that I have accurate information.

You can gladly go ahead with that experiement and let me know though if you want

I can always change things if you are unhappy with some of my phasings. I kind of just started compiliing sites, then it turned into a guide but I know it's not perfect by any means yet. I will not have any time to improve it for the next month but hopefully it will be ready by x-mas lol.

Anyway, you have pointed out the phrases you don't like, give me something I can change it with or it will stay as is. Can't say fairer than that. (pm me if you do)

Edit: I should copy and paste your post and add it to the end of my site under the heading: "General critisisms"

[Peter Lacey]

LOL Tom
I think you've missed my point, prob because I've waffled on too much.
What I suggest is that rather than reel off info that's subject to speculation try to provide the set-up that works for you. If your arrangements work it doesn't matter whether people agree or not, it doesnt matter if it reflects the natural environment but quoting figures outside your environment is bound to attract contrasting views.

I'll take another read and pm you my thoughts