Ephebopus Murinus and Poecilotheria Metallica behaviour

[Richard Harper]

I've never seen anything like that before, but as it is a WC specimen I'm not exactly surprised that there may be blemishes or physical defects. Unfortunately there isnt much that you can do that I can see apart from keeping an eye on it to see if it deteriorates in any way.

Will do so.

Have you started a burrow for the murinus ?

Yes I have, it is currently spending the day near to the burrow.

[Peter Roach]

I recently bought a WC Haplopelma albostriatum and placed her into a bucket of top soil (6-7 inches) I started a burrow for her and left her to it. From memory it took about 10-12 days before she actually started to use the burrow.
Once it was decided that it was suitable she then enlarged it and created a spiral burrow around the bottom of the bucket and now she can generally be seen at the burrow entrance waiting for lunch to walk past.

[Richard Harper]

Well my murinus has decided to go into my man made burrow last night. Guess I'm not too bad at making a decent burrow after all . It's currently sitting looking deeper into the hole. No web yet. Hopefully it will now be able to get comfortable and relax.

Thanks so much Peter for putting my mind at ease and correcting my mistakes.

[Peter Roach]

When the substrate gets a little drier (as it will) just pour some water into the substrate where it meets the wall of the tub.
This will help keep the bottom layers damp and the surface layers reasonably dry, stop mould and hopefully keep fungus gnats at bay.

[Richard Harper]

When you say where the substrate meets the tub wall, do you mean around the entire tub or only one section?

If only one section, which section? A random spot on the wall or near to the tarantula burrow?

[Peter Roach]

Wherever you think will do the job as the spiders tunnel will almost certainly run along the bottom of the tub and the water will spread out along the base.
I squirt the water on the left wall as i'm right handed BUT as they are in round buckets, the squirted area can be at any side depending on how i pick the bucket up.

[Richard Harper]

Well after what seems as years of worry, my E. Murinus finally moulted yesterday after taking a good drink of water.



YAY!!!

[Peter Roach]

So now you can check if she is actually a female

[Richard Harper]

yup i can, will do that now and send pics for second + opinions . Looks female to me

.

now I just need to get her a mate

[Peter Roach]

Looks female to me

Oh yeah

[Richard Harper]

hahaha thanks Peter. Just hope she starts webbing now that she looks brand new.

[Richard Harper]

Hi Peter

I've been thinking of adding some springtails and woodlice to my T's vivs and I was wondering if you could tell me what is the best way to do so.

Do I just remodel the viv and then add the springtails, give them a couple of days to get settled then add the T?
or
Do I just drop them into the existing viv with the T?
or Do I make a hole or something of the sort in the existing viv with the T then put them in the hole?

[Peter Roach]

Just dump them in but make sure that the substrate is moist and stays that way as they will die if it dries out

[Richard Harper]

Thought I'd let you see how my P. Metallica and E. Murinus have been doing since the last post.



The springtail populations have exploded in their vivs.

[Peter Roach]

Glad you got it all sorted out.
If the springtail population gets to large all you have to do is let the substrate slowly dry out and the numbers will reduce (just dont kill them all off).