Why is my T always in her water dish

[Lisa Grose]

Hi, for the last few days my T has had her leg in her water dish. Not moving for all that time. She is drying up the dish and I have to keep topping it up. Can anyone tell me if this is normal behaviour? She seems ok other than this. I am wondering if it is the sign of a molt. Why would she be still all this time. Can anyone tell me the longest their T has gone with out moving, not including molt time. I'm worried for her.
Dora is not eating and has now gone 3 weeks without anything but the week prior to this she couldn't stop eating. I couldn't fill her up. As long as she eats I put food in. I like to leave food in for her and if it hasn't gone within a day I take it out. Then I'll give her a week before I feed her again. We were just getting into a routine and now she has lost me again. May be I over fed her but I have learnt that she wont take food if she doesn't want it so I dont think that is the answer. When she eats, she eats all her food. I only come across leg remains from her. Her abdomen was huge. May be she over ate. Is this possible in T's. I wish someone else with a lasiodora striatus could compare, give their reports/ideas etc. No books give any info on this breed. The nearest thing is Lasiodor parahybana and no two t's are the same so what do I do. Keep guessing! More info please on lasiodora striatus.

[Alexander Ramsey]

Hi, unfortunately I am not overly familiar on your species. However my Chile rose, Esmerelda, often sits for several days at a time, she has a specific spot (right on top of the thermometer) and she seems to favour this spot. As for eating she went 5 days and had a full grown cricket every day! and now she isn't interested and hasn't been for about 10 days. I don't think this is a concern, I am led to believe that in the wild a T might have 2 or 3 meals then go 4 - 6 weeks or more on nothing.
As long as the food is available you can't go far wrong, if the T is hungry the T eats! On the 4th of these 5 consecutive days mentioned earlier, Esmy literally ran the full length of the tank to get the cricket as soon as I had put it in.
Now she backs away from them, I know she isn't due a molt either 'cause she'e maybe got one more to adulthood and had one about 5 weeks ago.
I don't think you have any thing to worry about just yet and I wouldn't be suprised if your T molted soon.
Let me know how you go?

[Lisa Grose]

Thank you for your reassurance. I will keep an eye on her unlike Dora who has 8 of them on me. Lol

[Dee Pluck]

hiya Lisa,
sorry but i dont keep that spider either however i wouldnt worry too
much, 3 weeks isnt too long for a T to go with out food, i've had loads
of mine do that and longer, sometime by their choice sometimes mine.
once the T is healthy looking and has access to water i wouldnt worry too
much. T's can go along time with food.
Keep an eye to her when she's hungry she'll eat again.
as for her water dish some of mine do that all the time.
at this moment in time i'm looking at my T. blondi who has her arse
in her water dish (she emptied it first) and has been there since last night.
who knows why they do it but it adds to our fun of keeping them.
you got a pic to post???

[Peter Roach]

Tarantulas will usually stand in or crouched over the water bowl when the humidity is too low.
Try generously overfilling the water bowl so that one entire corner of the tank is damp.

3 weeks without food is like you missing lunch for one day
I have a female A chalcodes which last ate in early April (about 6 months so far), I give her a lobster roach once every few weeks and take it out after a few days. She is active and isnt losing any weight so I'm not worried in the slightest ... she will eat when she's ready and not before.

[Lisa Grose]

Yeah, thanks guys and garls, great prayer there Dee. I will be putting pictures up soon so watch this space. My avartar is her but I know you can hardly see her. Will get on to those pictures.

[Peter Lacey]

Hi Lisa
I found the same issues when I purchased my Lasiodora klugi, loads of info on L. parahybana but little on my species. However they come from similar environments - rainforest. So over fill the water bowl and a weekly damped of the substrate. If she's over the water bowl permanently that's a great indication she needs more moisture and pouring it directly into the substrate will raise the humidity too.
I'd suggest your check your temperatures are over 70.
Eating wise I think Pete has covered this above.

[Lisa Grose]

Ok, here,s the pics of Dora. She is 6 years old and has 7inch leg span. The tank that you see her in was her temporary set up just after I brought her home. She is now in a large vivarium 24inch width by 18inch depth by 18 inch high with deep substrate as she likes to burrow. She can move soil quicker than a bee can sting ya arse.
Thankyou Peter, that seems to have helped her. I think the tank was far too dry. I have now made one corner damp and she has moved some now. I will get a humidity gauge.
Here is the link to the pictures: http://dgrose.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/dora.html
Hope you like

[Nicola Dolby]

Hi, just to throw a fly into the ointment (no pun intended) let me give you 3 examples. First I have a B. smithi who hangs around his water bowl. His humidity is 65%. I have a T. apophysis who does the same at 85%. I have a B. baumgarteni who is always burying his water bowl at 65%. The difference is my baumgarteni is almost fat. In the wild many spiders will find food near a water source and as food is a scarce resource they'd grab all they can. Keep to your regime and the right temp\humidity and you'll be fine

[Peter Lacey]

Hi Lisa, good to hear you're seeing some improvement. I find its a good idea to provide a moistening of all my tubs substrates occassionally and more so for those that originate from rainforest.
Vermiculite and sphagnum moss in the substrate will help hold the moisture and raise the humidity. The cheap humidity dials aren't very accurate but there's a good digital reader that checks the temperature too for around £20 (Peter Roach has a link for these). As its not necessary to have a dial in each tank and neither is it necessary to have one permanently in a tank the reader will provide instant spot checks for any tank you point the reader at. Definitely on my list of purchases.
Sounds like a great sized tank and with such depth you can afford to create deep substrate and deep slopes for an imaginative enclosure. Got any pix?

[Alexander Abrams]

Hi Lisa, very nice T, another one for my wish list. I know I come to this thread late and I'm only going to echo what has been said before, but my E murinus will dip her front pair of legs and pedipalps into the water dish if the humidity dips to low, a quick misting seems to work fine and she's back under her plant pot and ignoring everything going on around her, food included, for the next few days. So no need to panic, as I'm sure that you know that by now.
Alex.

[Lisa Grose]

No pictures of this vivarium yet. Thanks for the info on the humidity. I will get one of these digital ones when I can. The weekend I had to get a new heat mat for Dora because the one I had, had caught fire. Good job I was in and noticed it. Dora found the heat extra nice, little did she know. I am waiting for Dora to settle more before I mess too much. When I have pictures, I'll post them to ya.

[Lee_Ross]

ok,

now don't 100% quote me on this but i reckon there could be an alternate reason outside of humidity but at the same time related.
(experts feel free to completely dismember this post if i'm wrong)

I remember watching a documentary, i can't quite remember if it was bbc's "Lost Land Of The Jaguar"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/jaguar/

or if it was the documentary dvd i have which is animal planets "Worlds Most Dangerous Animals -TARANTULAS"
(couldn't have got that title further from the truth huh!?)

http://www.lovefilm.com/product/3452...arantulas.html

*HOPEFULLY THATS PROPS ENOUGH FOR QUOTING - NEW HERE BUT TRYING*

anyway, regardless of where i heard it back on topic.
......................

what was said was this "Tarantulas do not drink as a rule but rather they dip their legs into water to replenish the hydraulic properties of their legs"

i did a bit of scouting and if you google "TARANTULA" and "HYDRAULIC"
(do it yourself because i'm not away to sit and write props forever lol)

you find a load of diff sites that say the leg muscles are only used to contract the leg and blood is used to expand, hence when a spider dies the legs curl underneath as the hydraulic pressure drops.
.........

a couple of them mention moisture escaping from the booklungs and humidity playing a massive part in this, but i haven't seen anything online that mentions the "CHARGING" using the legs in the water ?

does anyone know more about this ?

do they top up leg fluid using water ? or is it actually blood they use for the expanding ?

just a theory but i have seen my singapore blue sit with her front legs in the water and then a while later she's back up the back wall
(possibly legs get tired with the climbing, recharging then climbing again ?)

i'm not an expert, but i'd love to hear opinions, the initial question in the thread got me to thinking about this and it could very well be the reason i think ? i noticed no one else had commented on it !

[Lee_Ross]

i'm quite surprised that no-one has commented on my post yet ??

or is it just too long for anyone to be bothered reading ?

[Peter Lacey]

I'm certainly no expert but that seems contrary to what I've read in Stanley Schultz's book The Tarantula Keeper's Guide. To suggest that the spider puts its legs into the bowl and absorbs water seems against the excellent water retention properties they have.
I'll let someone with more experience answer this further.