

Newbie enclosure guide

Discussion in 'Vivariums and Terrariums' started by Vanisher, May 15, 2019.

  1. Vanisher

    Vanisher Arachnoprince Old Timer

    I have seen alot of question about enclosures and enclosure-sizes and how newbees find those things hard to grasp and sees all this as a problem!
    I've decided to give some tip and guidelines about the proper enclosure sizes for slings and juveniles. These are guidlines, shapes of enclosures doesnt matter much, but area size and depth does! I often see neewbees keeping slings in oversized enclosures. Putting a 0,5 inch spider in a small critterkeeper and expect it to flourish? No, It is not! It gonna eat less, grow less and be much harder to monitor. If it is not escaping threw the lid it gonna die by stress!. Feeding slings in such a oversized tank will have problems involving the feeder to. It is much more likly thatvthe feeder will stay hidden from the spider, especially if the enclosure including corkbark and other clutters, and "uncompressed loose sub like coco fibre that seems populair with newkeeper. I hsve nothing against coco fibre, but i think there are much better alternatives, like peat and topsoil! have uploaded 2 pictures on enclosures. Sizes are as follows. Left from right.

    1. 4,5 cm in diameter

    2. 12 cm in diameter

    3. 13,5 cm× 9cm

    4 12cm in diameter

    5 18cm×× 15cm

    The first vial is perfect for first instars tarantulas of diffrent speicies, exept maybe a Theraphosa sp. The smallest tarantula speicies you can keep it till it is half grown. In this vial you can keep a normal sized tarantula speicies, say a B harmorii or B albopilosum a few moults. Then you rehouse it to next, then a few moults later you rehouse it to the next and so on! When the tarantula has grown out of number 4 THEN you can put the subadult-adult normalsized tarantula in its final terrarium, lika a 12×12 inch enclosure! If it is a smaller speicies the final enclosure csn be little smaller.
    I i like to use deeper enclosures for slings and juveniles. Small area size, but little deeper so i can line it with deeper substrate. Now, is there a reason, yes there are several. 1 the tarantula can dig. 2 the substrate keeps moist for a longer time and 3, you decrease the distance between rim and sub, so a climbing spider that falls dont hurt itself! And these tall vials is great for arboreal slings, cos you can have little sub in those slim tall vials, and vertical slim corkbark or twigs. Now yiu have perfect enclisures for Poecilotheria slings or other types of arboreals!. I now will talk about substrate! My belief is that it has to je welled packt down. Why, cos it reduces burrowcollapses and the sling can more easily feel vibrations from prey insects, and the preyitems cannot dig themself down as rwadily as if one have a enclosure with loose substrate. If those criterias are met, slings have no problem finding prey if they live in a burrow! For ventilation i just poke alot of holes. Crossvent is important. but not for burrowing slings. You have to be little more smart with watering substrate though Often burrowing slings digs up soil that covers the crossvent holes anyways!
    This guide is made for "normal sized" terrestrials, say 15cm adult female speicies. The enclosures in the pictures are jyst examples on what you can use, snd their sisez are guidelines. Yiu can use enclosures that sre some centimeters bigger than theese, but for slings, one should use as smalker rather than bigger and rehouse thise as they grows! Giant tarantulas like Theraphosa sp, Lasiodora sp abd speicies like that, the sling enclosure size examples have to be increased a little!
    Hope this have made neew keeper little more knollageble!

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    Last edited: May 15, 2019
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  2. Rhino1

    Rhino1 Arachnoknight Active Member

    Awesome write up Mr Vanisher, that deserves some emoticons I will never use:beaver::cat::chicken:
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