surviving with molds (Penicillum)

[Tugbay Yagci]

greetings. last week i have prepared very beautiful and natural looking enclosures for my Ts.

i went to the wilderness and gathered lots of kinds of woods and barks and twitches. i brought them home and sterilized them in the oven at 200 celsius.
for a bout 10 minutes or something. for i am a food engineer, i know any kind of common molds (especially Penicillum) are killed in 10 minutes under that heating.

but today i saw greenish colonies, most likely Penicillum, like the ones on bread loaves. i am also uploading a picture. they grew under every piece of cork. where there is very low levels of oxygen and plenty of humidity.

now, sadly, if i have to get rid of them, i have to ruin all my GBB's webbings and also the beautifully decorated live mossed enclosure of my G. grossa.

please could you inform me about tarantulas living with mold colonies?
are they really dangerous? they dont look so in my terrariums.
what should i do ?

thank you for any info.

i have C. cyaneopubescens, G. grossa, B. vagans

[matthew spooner]

hi tugbay, i am always dubious about using anything straight from the outdoors to use in tanks. i occasionally use nice bits of bark that i find and like you did, i bake it first. for decorating purposes to bring a bit of colour and natural look, i tend to use sphagnum moss, works a treat. hope this helps

[Maria Clarke]

Hi there,
if I collect any interesting bark or pieces of wood I usually bake them in the oven
at 200` for at least 2 hours, after sterilizing them in miltons fluid first,
that way it reduces any risk of anything being alive,

probably over cautious but better safe than sorry

hope this helps
I havent had any problems with any mould,

[Richard Gallon]

Most woods will go mouldy in the humid tanks we keep spiders in. However, cork bark is highly resistant to mould, as is decomposed birch bark (Betula spp.).

Unless you heavily ventilate your tanks, or keep them dry you are always going to have mould problems in natural set-ups.

In theory the mould isn't a problem, but I once had a spider covered in fungal spores from mouldy tank furnishings and it wasn't easy for the spider to clean it off.

Best to stick with tried and tested cork bark.
Richard

[Richard Gallon]

Remember than heat sterilisation is only a temporary measure. It's only sterile while it's in the oven. As soon as it cools, airborne fungal spores will start growing on it again.
Richard

[Tugbay Yagci]

thank you very much. now we thought with my girlfriend that these molds exist in the nature as well. so i will not ruin the enclosure and wait and see how much more it will get.

i will keep you informed about this for future discussions.

[Maria Clarke]

Remember than heat sterilisation is only a temporary measure. It's only sterile while it's in the oven. As soon as it cools, airborne fungal spores will start growing on it again.
Richard

Thankyou also for this info, I will keep it in mind
but up till now I havent had any problems, but I dont tend to have any excessively wet tanks,

could of course be a different story if I did

Thanks again

[Marko Sajovic]

You said you have problems with GBB tank.
Here the solution is easy. Keep it dry. Tarantula only needs a waterdish, and mould problems in dry tank are minimum.

[Tugbay Yagci]

not just gbb, B. vagans and G. grossa also.
do you know any websites where i can buy cork bark products from the internet?

[Nicola Dolby]

I wish I'd known this before Richard, I might not have blown up my microwave!!!! I've found that mites are far more of a problem with the topsoil I use, like tiny red spiders. I put extra crickets in there to eat them but then the crickets don't last that long!!! the best one is when the spider comes out of his/her den in the evening and finds a mushroom sitting in the tank! the last one left one of my Avics totally confused, he just sat on the side of the glass, not moving until I got rid of the thing (soppy spider). All the best

[Marko Sajovic]

Mushrooms that occasionally show up don't seem to bother my spiders. Also I newer had problems because of mold. Had two types in the past, green and white