communal questions

[darrell hetzel]

hi everyone,
i have been playing with the idea of a commune for a while now and have finally decided to give it a shot. i have chosen H. incei as the species. i was wondering what size container i would need for the highest chances of success. i will be purchasing four H. incei at 12mm. any other information that may help would also be greatly appreciated. please remember, this is my first commune and i will probably ask a few questions with obvious answers. i apologize in advance. thank you to all the knowledgeable people in the community for there much appreciated information.

[Aaron Annal]

Gonna follow this if ya dont mind as i would also like to give a commune ago

[Ray Gabriel]

I have seen incei colonys in 45cm? cubes, with deep coir substrate and a few bits of bark.

Rearing Poecilotheria in groups I found that keeping them in smaller containers kept the "social interaction" in larger containers some would wander of to establish themselves on thier own and resulted in cannibalism.

Just to add, squat maggots make an excelent food for rearing slings individualy and in groups.

Good luck

Ray

[Stephen jordan]

I cant quite remember which forum I found the post on but one woman used a 36 - 18 - 15 aquarium and just dropped a H Incei egg sack into it, the main interest in the post was that she had 3 generations of spider from that one sack. Started of with 70+ slings together.

[Peter Lacey]

I'm keeping a variety of Poecilotheria communities at mo, at varying stages of development (regalis, pederseni, formosa, striata, ornata, rufilata, miranda, subfusca)

I've also got a community of P. murinus slings (over 10 in a large faunarium) since July 2009. I've not noticed one bit of aggression or cannabilism and even when I've made food scarce the community has remained stable.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMdrctiSLck"]YouTube- P. murinus RCF sling community[/ame]

Since August 2009 I've dwindled down a sac of P. cambridgei slings which are still living in the same enclosure with mum and counted at least 7 remaining slings over the weekend. They're scattered around an 30x30x30 Exo.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lLuG2aUPZM"]YouTube- P-cambridgei[/ame]

In addition I have a small tub with 10 P. cambridgei which is so full of web I have no idea if there's any still in there. I'll be taking this apart within the next few weeks to see what the result is of close communal living.

My next project will hopefully be Heterothele villosella which Ive heard reports of being more communal than H. incei, even hunting food together.

http://thebts.co.uk/forums/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/295/ppuser/23

The most amazing communal species of spider I had were the Indian Social Spiders (Stegodyphus sp. ) of which its reported species of the same genus can be introduced and within 5 minutes become active members of the community. These were extremely interesting to watch as they'd tear down food much bigger than them as a team. They often come with egg sacs but I've not heard of these developing unfortunately.

Good luck with your community and please keep us posted.

[darrell hetzel]

sorry for the delay in updates, my car took some of my time and money, so i had to delay the commune for a week or two. i recived six H. incei two days ago (i couldnt help but get a few more than planned) and all is well. they are doing great and webbing everything! i will try and get pics up in a day or two, but no promises on clearity. i have an average camera and the slings are just over 1cm.

[Lisa Ashforth]

Good luck with it Darryl.

I have a small colony of H. incei. About October last year I dumped a batch of 10 slings from the same sac into a 12x8x8 aquarium with various hiding places made from bits of cork bark, artificial plants and moss. I drop a dozen or so small crickets in once a week or so, which always seem to disappear quite quickly!

I have no idea how many are still in there out of the original 10, but within a few days of being put in there, they had set up little webbed hides scattered throughout the tank. I have seen upto 4 of them out hunting at any one time and they have grown quite a bit in that time.

At some point that tank will become too small for 10 (assuming there are still 10!) but I have a 24x12x12 tank to move them to when needed.

here's the last pic i took of the tank from above, and a pic of one of the youngsters who is now about an inch legspan.

[James Box]

i'm a bit "off" the idea of H incei together, merely because my attempt didn't go so well (out of 10 slings, i ended up with only 3 adult females that needed separating as i found two fighting).
the problem, as i see it, is that you don't see the spiders often enough to truly be able to monitor their health...a missing spider may just be hiding every time you look, or it may be dead.

my mistake, i believe, was providing too much space. next time i try, i will rectify that, but i've no idea when that'll be, as i need a mature male first for one or all of my lovely females

of course, it may have been any number of reasons that the others died, but again, the problem of not being able to monitor an individual's health is a big flaw with communal keeping.

However, i've had much more success with Yamia sp "Koh Samui".
I've heard good things about Heterothele villosella however, and might try that...and i am going to very carefully have a go with a few Pterinochilus lugardi.

i'm sure this is known by all, but i can't emphasise enough that only a few spiders of any kind are truly social! some are more tolerant of each other, but that's entirely different.

[darrell hetzel]

i was a little quick to assume complete success. i came home from work today to find a dead H. incei in anothers mouth. the others are still alive and baisicly ignoring each other. my fire alarm did go off last night, could the loud noises trigger it?

[darrell hetzel]

here is the picture i promised

[James Box]

Hi Darrell,
if i remember correctly, the Arachnofreaks thread about H. incei mentioned that cannibalism may have occured, in fact i think they thought it likely to some degree...so this may be normal, i'm afraid.
but it seems like the encouraging results outweighed the discouraging results, and we maybe should assume that such occasional cannibalism occurs in the wild too, even under the best conditions...
anyway, scientifically speaking, any data is good to have!

[darrell hetzel]

but it seems like the encouraging results outweighed the discouraging results, and we maybe should assume that such occasional cannibalism occurs in the wild too, even under the best conditions...
anyway, scientifically speaking, any data is good to have!

indeed the good does outway the bad, as the rest are geting on fine. and what is a commune if not an experement? so data is what i belive to be the ultaimate goal of a commune.

[James Box]

precisely so
i hope all goes well with the rest of them!

[darrell hetzel]

i will try to keep everyone updated

I've heard good things about Heterothele villosella however, and might try that...and i am going to very carefully have a go with a few Pterinochilus lugardi.

my next attempt is going to be H. villosella. i have heard of some successful attempts with Pterinochilus species of late. i wish you luck with the lugardi. i have been wanting one now for a while.

[James Box]

thanks Mate, good luck to you too!
...and i think if you are after one, there are still quite a few lugardi slings going round. a number of females dropped sacs on unsuspecting owners (like myself)
which i can tell you was a lovely surprise, and i've learned alot more about them then i thought...
for instance, i believe the mother sorted out cricket bits for the babies (only had crickets that were too large, she pounced on them...and suddenly when i checked the next day, the babies appeared fatter), and she cohabited with the 17 slings i couldn't be bothered to separate out for ages...that's where my colony of 6 that i'm trying came from.
also, she's rather docile for a baboon spider, and her colouration is subtle but lovely. the babies are cute, but then, aren't all spiderlings?

i may also be trying H villosella soon