Your thoughts on temperature fluctuations

[M Zurowski]

Hello all,

I recently bought a Habistat pulse-proportional 'day and night' thermostat to control a ceramic heater for my vivarium. For all the years I have kept tarantulas I have always kept them at the same temperature for the day and night cycle. I was just wondering if any of you have experience with changing the day and night temperatures and how successful this was.

Hope to hear back soon.

[Peter Roach]

Successful in what way ?

How many habitats in the world have a constant temperature day and night, 365 days a year ?

I have a dedicated spider shed heated by an oil filled radiator, the temps generally fall 5 -10 degrees during the night (spring/summer) and 10 -15 degrees (autumn/ winter)
Nothing has died because of the temp drops that I know of.

[M Zurowski]

Successful in that the tarantula doesn't die or loose appetite.

I'm thinking of doing it for my tarantulas but I'm holding off because none of them are eating at the moment and I don't want to stress them further.

[Peter Roach]

Have you thought that they may not be eating BECAUSE there is NO temperature drop ?
Why are they stressed now ?

Tarantulas have managed for about 65,000,000 years to live with drops in night time temperatures .
Why do you think that yours are different ?

If NONE of your T's are eating at the moment, surely this is telling you something ? If all of my collection stopped feeding then alarm bells would start ringing !!!

I have a reasonable sized collection of about 700 T's and I have variable night time drops in temps and all of mine are feeding OK (except premoults) so I honestly can not see what you are worrying about.

[M Zurowski]

Yes I have thought that decreasing the temp at night could solve all the problems but I also thought it could add to them, hence why I posted this thread - to get people's experience. Alas, my white knee ate last night for the first time. Presure release valve open.

[michael connachan]

I have also had thoughts regarding day/night fluctuation and have come to the conclusion that nowhere in the world does day and night blend together as one temperature there is always a drop in the temp at night so as a rule I reduce my thermostat by 5 degrees for nighttime and have done successfully (as in no deaths or other problems) for about 5 years with many different species of T's. So I would say yes nighttime temps are a must as all or most hobbyists try to replicate the particular tarantulas natural habitat.

[Stephen jordan]

I set my spider room heating to keep a constant low temp and let daylight hours here raise the temperature to whatever nature decides, That way I get seasonal cycles with little effort.

[michael connachan]

I don't have a dedicated spider room as I only have 4 T's so it is not practical so I use a thermostat at 28 degrees and change it to 24 for night time but it drops lower than that due to night time temps to around 20 degrees celcius.

[Stephen jordan]

I'm pretty sure and I'm positive someone will correct me if I am wrong but many spiders try to escape the heat hence the drop in temperature inside the burrow where they hide for most of the day and only coming out at dusk and night to hunt because of the cooler temperatures, Which are obviously cooler and more comfortable for the spider. My spider room drops down into the 60's some nights and I havent seen any issues arise, If anything they don't seem to like it too hot. Especially if they can't escape it!

[Szandra Speier]

I wanted to say....Stephen I think you have definitely rigth! My Ts like to nap close to the heat source...but they do nothing all day long. But in the night, when the lamp dont lights they are much more aktive. The fluctuation of temp between day and night is totally normal. Dont worry about it!