Ally's Eight-Legged Journey

Today is a sad day for Catchy. She went int' her final molt before I had been able to move her from her original enclosure into a larger one. I had known that she was getting too large for the arboreal acrylic enclosure she was in - she was outgrowing the mesh square in the roof of the tank - and I had bought her a new glass one with a larger mesh roof. Unfortunately, I have been so busy with work and catching up on missed items that I hadn't gotten around to moving her yet. Additionally, I had gotten a little lax in misting her tank as the weather got warmer. I would come home from work, eat-shower-sleep, and then leave in the morning to do it all over again. The follies of commuting via public transport. So why is this a problem? This has caused Catchy two main problems. The first can be seen in the photo above. Catchy did not have enough space on the mesh covering to stretch her freshly molted legs out while they were hardening. Her leg span was larger than the ava...

Since we have been playing musical tanks with the critters' enclosures, I thought it would be nice to give an update on Incy Wincy. He's had several months in the time that he's been with me, going from a scraggly little bald-ass spiderling to this lovely juvenile. He is a great spider to watch because - although he does spend a lot of time in his hide - he has stopped bolting away when I come to the enclosure, and he is always excavating his substrate. Like Big Spood, he is a budding architect. In this photo (which unfortunately has no gauge for size comparison) he is about the same size that my P. machala is now - maybe about 2 inches in legspan. His abdomen is bald due to kicking, and he is deperately due a molt: Well, this is him now. If I didn't know any better, I'd swear it wasn't the same tarantula. I haven't measured him, but I'd estimate his leg span to be about 5 inches across, which would make him about half of his adult size - salmon pi...

With Diablo vacating her large invertarium enclosure, it seemed to make sense that we move Big Spood into it. It wasn't much bigger in terms of area, but it was definitely deeper. This means that Big Spood will be able to dig - something that she clearly enjoys doing. We often sit and watch her as she excavates one corner of her enclosure, only to pile it up in a big tower at the opposite end. Here is Big Spood mid transfer: She has molted several times in my care, and right now I am finding it hard to picture how much smaller she was when she first arrived, so here is a photo (complete with wonky legs!) for comparison - though I'm not sure any size difference is at all visible. So now her substrate is about twice as deep, her water bowl is much larger, and she has some plastic decorations that I'm sure she probably won't even notice, (but I think that they look nice). Given that she has finally outgrown the white plastic container that she was using as a hide, I d...

Recently I made the decision to rehouse Diablo, my Asian forest scorpion. As previously discussed, I acquired Diablo through a Spider Shop mystery box - I paid £30 and they sent me an assortment of critters, worth more than the £30 I paid. It was a great experience, but at the time I wasn't at all prepared to care for a scorpion, and it has been a steep learning curve since then. Having since been on the website, I learned that Diablo was a wild caught specimen. This explains why he has been pacing his enclosure, tapping on the glass as if to find a weak spot and escape. I have moved him from one tank to another in a vain attempt to give him enough space to satisfy him, but he doesn't seem to be happy yet. At one end of my front room, I had an old 125 litre Juwel aquarium. I used to keep tropical fish, but a busy work schedule and bad home life balance meant that I unfortunately didn't notice when the filter packed in, and it eventually killed everything in the aquarium...

Webster wasn't really due for a housing upgrade, if I'm entirely honest, but somebody bought me this amazing enclosure from Tarantula Cribs and I had to decide who to put in it. As it is an arboreal enclosure, that meant that the slings in arboreal pots were the only ones it was really suitable for - Lucifer, Asmodeus, or Webster. I am not putting my fingers into the enclosures of Asmodeus or Lucifer for all the Cribs in the world. As such, that left Webster. The benefits of putting Webster into this enclosure were mainly aesthetic. Firstly, Webster likes to web, so seeing it all webbed up will look awesome. Secondly, as Webster grows he will change colour, going from blue to purple, red and green. These colours would look amazing when backlit against the purple acrylic. And to be fair, his arboreal keeper was pretty boring, although he had made a rather impressive tunnel web in it. As with most of my recent rehousings, I opted for the natural look again. However, I did ...

Another rehousing! This time it is Ziggy (previously Poe). Ziggy was getting to the point where he could almost span the entire floor of his enclosure with his legs, and to be honest, his enclosure was pretty boring for an arboreal species. He was housed in the small Arboreal Keeper from the Spider Shop, but it really wasn't appropriate for him at this point. As he is an arboreal species, I wanted to get him something similar to what my mantises and jumping spiders are in, so again I turned to Amazon to get him this : Like my other enclosures, it was a flatpacked acrylic box that I needed to assemble myself, but it's top opening and has a nice strong magnetised lid so that he is unlikely to get out. Cork bark, spider plants, and moss for humidity are fast becoming my favourite decor items, as they offer a more naturalistic environment for the spiders. Yes, Fred has a castle, skulls and a coffin, but to be honest it is wasted on him as he tends to sit up in the corners far ...

Another rehousing! This time it was Anansi, who was desperate for a new house. Not because of his size - he is still a large spiderling rather than a juvenile. However, following his admittance to the "Spider ICU", he had several more instances of mold in his enclosure. I came to the conclusion that coco fibre just wasn't for him. He's a more arid species, who likes it a bit drier, and so I set out looking for a sand based substrate for him. I didn't want to get just any old sand, in case he decided to burrow and it collapsed in on him. Instead, I opted for an arid tarantula substrate, which was sand based but clumped, allowing him to dig, mould, and shape to his hearts content. I added a small skull shaped hide for him, which he does use, and some moss which I allowed to dry out. He does get water, but I only put it in his water bowl, which I allow to overflow so that he has more of a humidity gradient. He can choose where to be in his enclosure accordin...

There are going to be a few of these posts going forward - many of my spoods are either beginning to outgrow their initial containers, or I've decided that they deserve nicer, fancier ones. Incy Wincy finally molted, and just look how fluffy he is!! It's a far cry from his scraggly naked butt. I love it! But now that he has molted, it's time to transfer him to a larger enclosure. As he is similar in size to Big Spood (albeit skinnier!) I decided to get him the same enclosure from Amazon . It was a very basic rehouse - I have started buying substrate and hides in preparation for the number of rehousings that I have coming up, so I was able to give Incy Wincy a lovely piece of cork bark to hide under. It's more important for him to have a hide than Big Spood, as he is a spood that likes to hide rather than be on display. The spider plants are baby plants that have been growing off of the mother plant in my bedroom - I included them and some moss to try and maintai...

Big Spood finally has a new house! The posts on this blog are buffered, meaning that - in order to maintain a regular posting schedule, I write my posts in advance and schedule them to drop at a later date. This means that while it appears that a lot of time has passed since getting him, I actually ordered his new house the day after he arrived, and then rehoused him the day after that. He was in the Braplast tub for three days, in total. That was three days too long really, as he really didn't have a lot of space in there, but I promise he wasn't in there for the weeks since my last mention of him. In looking around for a reasonably priced enclosure, I happened upon this acrylic terrestrial enclosure on Amazon . It was reasonably priced, and came with an inbuilt hygrometer and thermometer. It was just the right size for Big Spood, and ought to last him a little while. (I don't know why it shows a beardy on the image - it is definitely not large enough to keep a bear...

Big Spood seems to be settling in nicely. He has eaten a cricket, started laying web mats down, and is moving around his enclosure. As such, it's been easy to tell that his legs have successfully detangled themselves, and are nicely straightened out. He just needed a little bit of space. Unfortunately, it is also clear to see that he does not have enough space in the braplast tub that he is in. When he stands to eat, he almost touches the lid, and it only takes him a few steps to walk from the front of his house to the back. Getting Big Spood a new house is now a priority, so watch this space for updates.

Unfortunately, my largest original spood appears to be sick. Since I moved Anansi to the larger braplast tub, I have been having problems with retained humidity in his enclosure. He is a desert species, and while he need a certain amount of humidity to successfully molt, he does need mostly dry conditions. In his previous enclosure, I filled his water bowl to the point of overflowing so that it dampened the substrate around it, and that was all he needed. Since I moved him and I had to rehydrate a new block of dried coco fibre, the substrate just hasn't dried. I tried everything that I could think of - from wiping condensation away twice daily to putting him on a heat mat, and even mixing dry substrate in with the damp to try and spread the moisture out. But unfortunately, it didn't work fast enough and two nights ago I discovered a fine fuzzy mould growing on the surface of his substrate: Checking on Anansi, I found him to be sluggish and unresponsive. He didn't rea...

Diablo's new tank arrived on Friday. It is the Exo Terra large faunarium. I don't actually feel that it is big enough, but it is the largest that I can fit into my room, currently, so it will have to do. I have read online that most people keep their forest scorpions in 10 gallon aquariums, so I have been window shopping and have earmarked a very nice glass tank, with cross ventilation, front opening, and a padlock, here . When I move, he will be rehoused again into that. For now though, Mister Grumpy will have to make do with what I have. I was very anxious about the idea of removing him from his tank for this - while I know that his sting is likened to a bee or a wasp sting, I don't actively expose myself to bees or wasps. I don't want to be stung, at all. Nor do I want my daughter to be stung, so she was removed from the room while I was doing this. I needn't have worried, however. While he was a little wary of me, and clearly did not want to be handled,...