confused and need help.

[vincent winyard]

hi there everyone i finaly got my hands on a female panama red rump or sericopelma rubronitens as it's otherwise known. trouble is i've been surching high and low for a care sheet on these t's but some websites are showing the brachypelma vagans mexican red rump. are these species the same or similar if not can someone please help with some info on the panama red rump i need to know the basics and of course what there temprement's like thanks eveyone .

[R Thomas]

Hi Vincent,

Not much thats for sure on this - you might piece together enough care info from:

http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/showthread.php?t=84006

From what I can tell they like dry substrate with a damp end and a temperature around 75 degrees and the usual hide.

If I find anything else I will let you know

Richard

[Colin D Wilson]

The beauty of common names and google eh? ... insert "red rump" and everything with a rosy backside comes up listed

S rubronitens husbandry (based on the 6 inch example we have here) seems to be reasonably easy......

reasonably active = likes a lot of room to move around in (both itself and the substrate) although doesn't seem to show signs of burrowing even with adequate substrate. It has made full use of a larger "cork bark" tubular style hide laid on its side, although not webbing as much as i thought it would.
temp = high 70's with a night time drop of a few degrees
humidity = dry with intermittent dampening of a corner (or waterbowl i suppose)
eats like a demon (anything and everything)

temperment is deffensive agression, will rear up then just run and hide (obviously common sense has told me not to see if it follows up the threat pose ). This one's very fast and extremely acrobatic for a terrestrial (ish) spider, doesn't really show any other signs of deffense such as flicking.

[R Thomas]

The beauty of common names and google eh? ... insert "red rump" and everything with a rosy backside comes up listed

Colin, obviously I tried to avoid typing 'red rump' into google from work incase a number of corporal punishment sites appeared. I think my boss would not have believed me if I had said that I was only looking for a tarantula lol

Richard

[vincent winyard]

hi richard thanks for your help and the info you've managed to get much appreciated. on the website you found they say these t's could be handled not that i would even try and on the other hand like colin pointed out it's more likely to rear up so i guess it's down to the individual as far as temprement's concerned but the rest sounds very simular. i just hope mine's a little laid back ha ha. many thanks again richard.

[vincent winyard]

hi colin thanks for getting back to me with all the info you've given. i said to richard the guy on the web page he found said he handles his panama red rump then you've got one that rears up so i'll just wait and see what mine's like hopefully she'll be ok if not we'll get bye somehow. the rest sounds pretty straight forward. colin i've had to put her in a 12 by 12 by 12 exo will she be ok in that for now. o and one more thing i think i should let you know i dont handle my t's unless it's absolutely necessary im only telling you this as it sounded like i make a habbit of it at the beginning of this thread. many thanks for all your help colin.

[Colin D Wilson]

I'm not a big fan of exoterra for terrestrial spiders due to height (i.e. chance of falling if they climb around) and front opening doors (it's safer to be above the spider when performing maintenance and feeeding, being on the same "plane" as the spider puts it at the advantage ... i know painfully from experience ) Another disadvantage is if the spider piles substrate agains the doors, then again you have the roof you can take off so you could say i'm being a little picky there... it's just my own opinion and many hobbyists use these exo's perfectly fine.
but saying this, and particularly regarding this spider species, i think it should be ok if you pack a fair amount of substrate in there (possibly piling it up at the rear of the exo where you could place a decent hide sunken into the substrate), then you could securely lean logs, branches, corkbark pieces, plastic plants etc against the sides giving the spider somewhere safe to climb without the chance of falling 10 odd inches. This would give the spider plenty of tactile stimulation and the tank would be quite natural in it's look, you could let the spider live out it's life in something that size quite happily.

[vincent winyard]

that sounds a good set up colin. there's already some plant and a small log in there plus her hide trouble is she's already dug herself right in to the extent that there's one big mound of substrate covering the entrance to her hide so i dont think it's a good idea to disturb her at the moment just to add more substrate. i put her in the exo as thats all i had spare at the time but if you think she'll be ok in there i'll leave her be for now and just see how she goes. thanks again colin for all the info mate.

[jasonbotting]

sorry to butt in though i am new to this forum i`ve been keeping red rumps for a while she is more than happy in her exo terra 12by12by12 i left in the 3d backing some plastic plants good size cork hide i keep her at 70% humidity and she eats very well as for handling i tend not to because i just think i would not want something 100 times my size picking me up. regards jason

[vincent winyard]

hi there jason and welcome to the forum. i just think different people have different opinions on probably every species of tarantula but in a nut shell all there opinions are saying near enough the same thing. i realy appreciate your coments jason it's good to hear your red rump's doing well in the set up you've provided for her. prehaps i'll just leave mine where she is and see how she goes. thanks again mate.