housing zebra stripe knee

[greigmason]

Hi everyone, was just looking for some advice please. I'm thinking about buying a little a. seemanni(zebra stripe knee) and I was wondering on the best conditions for keeping her. Do they like dry conditions or fairly humid? I know they are fairly docile and as I'm still quite new to the hobby I was looking for a low maintenance spider to add to my collection of my lovely little b. smithi. So in effect doubling my collection! I have also had my eye on a brazilian black but I can't seem to source one anywhere. Could you please advise me on best housing conditions for both. It's true what they say, when you get your first you'll definately want more! Thanks alot guys,
Greig

[kev hall]

Hi Greig i have 3 A seemanni at different sizes but all kept on around 4" coir,a hide and a shallow water dish. They get a weekly spray but seem to be pretty bomb proof, so go on you no you want to

[matthew spooner]

with regards to the g.pulchra (brazillian black) thespidershop.co.uk is selling 2cm spiderlings for £12, other than that i dont see these come up very often as i think they are quite hard to breed

[James Box]

pulchra

so i hear as well, Matthew...though i and a friend are having a go, might as well, we may fluke out!

A seemanni...there are probably a few species, so i'm told, being sold as A seemanni...the spidershop is selling one called Aphonopelma sp. "Guatemalan Blue" which i may have purchased from another dealer over a year ago as A. seemanni, and MAYBE (i am just hypothesizing without alot of knowledge) this is the so-called "Blue Phase" of seemanni.
so that may affect the care...i *think* seemanni is from Costa Rica, whereas we can have a pretty good guess from where sp. "Guatemalan Blue" comes!
so some climatic differences may exist if you care to look them up.

aside from all that, the good news is that they are hardy, and from what i'm told can do well in dry or humid, though humidity and darkness may bring out the colours more.
i've kept my specimens, whatever they are, primarily humid, though found that one of the enclosures dried off very quickly, despite weekly waterings, compared to the other...and neither spider seems to have the advantage over the other in either size or health.

my spiders are skittish (i'm told this is fairly common for "zebra's"), but i've not had any defensiveness from them. they are voracious eaters and grow alot faster than most Aphonopelma.