Advice please :(

[Adam Garthwaite]

My T, Derek (Chile Rose), (sex unknown), hasn't eaten for 4 weeks now, and has become very inactive. Thursday he began making a large web (see pics) and I was thinking perhaps he was going to moult. This morning, as I was leaving for work, I noticed his abdomen had shrank and there was a pale yellow fluid on the web, but he was happily building the web still so I thought nothing of it. But I returned home from work today and the tank looked a whole lot different! Could someone shed some light on this please.
http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~mrwhite/derek-web2.jpg Before
http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~mrwhite/derek-wtf.jpg After

Help is much appreciated!

[Mark Pennell]

Mr White
No need to worry or panic all your chile has done is laid an egg sac, not to uncommon for Chile's to do this. If its wild caught and has not molted since you have had it, the chances are it may just be fertile and has mated in the wild.

If you have had this for a long time and its never been mated then the sac will just be un fertilised eggs and will not hatch.

Best regards
Mark

[mary walters]

My guess is a phantom egg sac, two of mine have produced these in the last year, a Nhandu Vulpina and an Avic Avic. Unless ,of course, she was wild caught, in which case it could be viable. Best of luck anyway, nice spider.
Mary

[Stefan]

I agree that there is nothing to worry about. 100% Vermiculite wouldnt be my choice of soil though.... what do others think.

I normally mix peat with vermiculite 50/50

[Adam Garthwaite]

Thanks for the responses, calmed me down a bit.
What would be the best course of action? Should I remove the egg sac? Would it be best to wait a while before trying her with food again?
RE the substrate, when I bought everything from our local pet store the owner was sure that 100% vermiculite would be just fine for my chile.
And I guess this proves he's a she, lol. Time to get the spider name book out!

[Edit] I'm pretty sure that this T is captive bred (brought her from Virginia Cheeseman, her site is in the links section) so it must be an infertile egg sac [/Edit]

[Neil Richardson]

My chile is on 100% vermiculite and she's thriving.

She just moulted however, so once she's started feeding i want to switch her to a 50/50 mix like my other spiders. I've found that they dig much better in it. My chile used to have orchid bark back when i was new to the hobby, and she dug some huge chambers on that, and i'd like to encourage her.

[Layla McInnes]

Quite a lot of Adult female Grammostola roseas appear to be WC or LTC so she could be. You should email Virginia to find out.

[Adam Garthwaite]

I've just received a reply from Virginia and "I expect she was one of the wild caught ones that I put with my male some months back" :O
Baby spiders!? Possibly
What would be the next course of action? Do I need to remove the sac and incubate it? And how long would you expect it to take to hatch?
Regards,
Adam

[Neil Richardson]

I'd leave it to mum to be honest.

I posted a similar problem to you further down the forum.

http://www.thebts.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=873

Seems to happen a fair bit with WC chiles

[Layla McInnes]

It could have even been mated in the wild and already been gravid.
Id also leave it to mum.

[Adam Garthwaite]

Thanks guys, i'll leave everything as it is for a while.
In a couple of months when the sac hatches, what would you suggest I do next? (sorry for all the questions I really wasn't prepared for this :s)

[Layla McInnes]

Well tape up any holes or as soon as they start hatching take them out into a seperate kritter keeper or something with a pair of tights over the lid.
Collect film pots-deli cups now coz you may need a few

[Adam Garthwaite]

All seems to be going well, Dereka (lol) has been pretty calm, rolling the egg sac around, taking it into a shallow burrow she recently constructed. I'm keeping humidity @ 70-75 and keeping the water dish topped up.

I have tried to feed her but she showed little interest in the cricket (lucky thing!) looks like i'm going to have another batch of crickets go to waste (unless anyone has an yummy cricket on toast recipes?)

Only thing i'm slightly worried about is temperature, during the day the tank will warm up to 24/25, this is without a heat mat. When I wake in the morning, the reading can be as low as 18 :S Should I now be using the heat mat, or is there a risk of over heating and thus destroying the eggs?

Many thanks once again!

[karl]

In my experience G.rosea doesn't need any additional heating while looking after a sac. As long as the room you are keeping her in doesn't get below a comfortable temp (for humans) they have no problems.

From what I know of their natural habitat temperature extremes are common, but this is more regulated in a burrow. The two sacs I had where in a room with little heating, but remained between 19 and 24 degrees C.

Also, I didn't feed my females when they were looking after the sacs. I think the disruption (opening the tank, dropping in food, opening it again if it wasn't eaten) would be far greater than if they were quietly waiting in the wild. Neither of my females suffered as a result of this.

[Adam Garthwaite]

Thanks very much karl. Guess these crickets are the lucky lot!
In your experience, what is the incubation period for the g.rosea egg sac? Also what should I do when it hatches? I imagine all the little slings could get quite lost in the main tank. Would there be a time to remove the sac to another container?
Thanks a lot for your help.