Flies and Humidity

[Jane Mitchell]

Over the weekend, with the warm weather, we had an outbreak of flies in our T's tank. Nothing serious but after reading previous posts on the forum, we let the tank dry out a bit (took the polystyrene off the roof and haven't misted the tank or anything) and it seems to have done the trick. Most of the flies ended up kamikaze style in the water dish so they were easy to remove. But now our T has spent all day yesterday and now this morning hunched over the water dish. Does this mean that it's now not humid enough?

How do you get the right balance?

[Colin D Wilson]

What species is the tarantula Jane?

If it's Grammostola, Brachypelma, Aphonopelma etc then dry substrate and just a water bowl will be ok (but just not maybe what it's used to)

If it's another genus then i'm sure you'll get the answer to your question from someone soon.

[Jane Mitchell]

It's an L Para.

It's our first problem with flies. We've had the T since last September and figured that the warmer weather had caused the outbreak. We keep the tank at about 20-25oC and 70-80% humidity with peat & vermiculite substrate and things seemed to be going OK.