Then it should be close to over anytime now!

Finally caved in and bought an adult female P. regalis cause the price was right! Will post pics when she arrives.

Phormictopus cancerides molted a few days ago.


Thought this was a male till it turned less purple with this molt. See the paired spermatheca?


This post has been edited by Oldfart: Jun 26 2009, 01:28 PM

Is it still living in that mansion?
Where's the pics? Want to see how big it is now!

Nice! That thing really put on some size! Congrats!

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Added on June 26, 2009, 11:13 pmYour Fro looks shorter! But I'm sure you did well. Mispronounce Ornithoctoninae?!! No one going to notice. I doubt more than 5 people there knows what it is.

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Added on June 26, 2009, 11:15 pmNice fangs! What is it?

This post has been edited by Oldfart: Jun 26 2009, 11:19 PM

Yes- that seems to be the consensus. Wasn't too sure about this one myself cause the spermatheca looked so small. But people far better than I said it's female.

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Added on June 27, 2009, 10:07 amWell it used to look like a male but not anymore- which was why i pulled the skin to sex it.


This post has been edited by Oldfart: Jun 27 2009, 10:07 AM

Not yet- but it is getting there. This was how it looked before the molt.



Here's the current pic again for comparison


As you can see it is turning away from purple to brown.

This post has been edited by Oldfart: Jun 27 2009, 12:51 PM

Wait..
You took the pic of the girl taking a pic of you and you are in the pic too?!! Dang! You're good!!!

Enclosure looks good! Much better than mine! As for your rosie not eating, mine is about the same size- have not given her any food for 2-3 weeks. Last cricket I put in there died of starvation! Your T's butt still looks good so no need to worry. Try a cricket every week or two and see if it wants to eat.

keep feeding it- not gonna change too much all at once.

More venom....

Mty female OBT- not a great angle but it is clearer than the other ones I took.


Juvie male A. geniculata


Juvie male A. seemanni(most likely)

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Added on June 28, 2009, 11:22 pm
When you pour water into an empty cup, it does not overflow immediately. Maybe your first feeding just partially filled the cup, need to feed it a couple of times to get it to overflow.


Try a couple more times and see if there's any difference. So long as the T is still eating, it will get bigger eventually. I received a WC Chilobrachys with a very small abdomen. I fed it a bunch of crickets and her butt still looked small. Even after a roach, it did not look as big as I thought it would get considering the roach was quite big but slowly and surely her butt began to grow.

Apr 14th

Eating a roach - also Apr 14th


Apr 16th-2 days after eating the roach and a few more crickets


Apr 18th- finally a noticeable size difference


This post has been edited by Oldfart: Jun 28 2009, 11:29 PM

BTW, I read something a few days ago on one of the forums. Seems a bunch a T keepers do not think mealworms should be a staple diet for T's. I'm not saying it is bad- just regurgitating what I read and putting it out there for further discussion. A while ago some guy also did an experiment and fed a group of T's mealworms and another group crickets. I think the cricket group grew faster. The experiment wasn't very scientific, don't think he weighed the prey items so maybe one group grew faster because the prey were bigger- I don't know. Either way, it doesn't affect me cause I use crickets- just because it is simpler for me to deal with.

Depends on the personality of the T. Some will tackle crickets close to their size and some won't even try but a 2-3 inch T can take down a 1 inch cricket easily. If you are worried you can pinch the back legs at the thigh and they drop off the cricket. Or pinch it below the knee and it becomes useless.

This post has been edited by Oldfart: Jun 29 2009, 12:54 AM

Anyone ever tried to breed the local roaches down there? They used to be everywhere! I keep thinking of all the free T food running around! Catch a couple of adults and wait for the egg sacs to appear! The newly hatched nymphs should be safe for feeding slings.

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Added on June 29, 2009, 1:13 amSmall slings get small crickets.
Though I have fed them pre-killed juvie crickets or leg parts when I run out of small ones.

This post has been edited by Oldfart: Jun 29 2009, 01:13 AM

Save the rest for next week! Or if you have more than a sling, feed the legs to one and the rest to another(minus the head). A very small sling won't finish the whole thing but at least it is not a total waste. BTW, you can also freeze crickets to use later- good for slings. Just let it thaw out for a few minutes.

lol- good protein! Andrew Zimmerman eats this kind of stuff all the time!

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Added on June 29, 2009, 2:35 amYeah- saw someone pose this question recently somewhere. Don't remember seeing any replies to that thread. Haven't checked back on it recently. I'd feed my T's anything as long as they will take it but just as a treat. As a staple, i use cricks and roaches.
Speaking of other options, I've a friend that fed his T's earthworms too- the ones they sell for fishing. He said his T's take them so I tried it on mine. Some will eat it and some won't.

This post has been edited by Oldfart: Jun 29 2009, 02:35 AM

Well, it is protein but I doubt it is the same. Sort of like fish and beef- both protein, different kind of meat. If you're talking about protein content percentage- I have no clue! lol. I do know mealworms are more fatty than crickets. That's why some keepers believe it should not be used as a staple diet for T's. But it seems a lot of you guys use mealworms so I'd be interested if any of you found any problems with using mealworms as a staple diet.

Here's the link.
http://www.tarantulas.us/forums/showthread...hlight=mealworm

Here's some information about protein and fat percentages ...
http://www.grubco.com/Nutritional_Information.cfm

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Added on June 29, 2009, 5:22 am
Funny you should mention the Avic sp. "purple"- I had a sling a few months ago- it too died from a bad molt. Wonder if this is a problem common to that species?

This post has been edited by Oldfart: Jun 29 2009, 05:31 AM

Wish I could keep my T's inside the house! Freaking heatwave today- 113 degrees outside. 90 inside my T-room. Hope none of them dies because of the heat!

So far so good- temps did not go above 90 in the T room. Today thru Thurs the temps will be between 101 and 105. Not as bad as yesterday. I'll have 91 if my C. huahini and H. hainanum are atill alive. Haven't seen those 2 for about a month or two.

This post has been edited by Oldfart: Jun 30 2009, 08:32 AM