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We received our first sling 3 days ago, a Brachypelma albopilosum (Curly Hair) 1/2-3/4" spiderling from jamiestarantulas.com alonig with their sling enclosure and a starter colony of B. lateralis (rusty red) roaches.
We setup the enclosure per instructions, didn't use the cork hunk as it seemed too big, and introduced our sling without issue. Within the first night, the T created a burrow and has been seen outside of it several times, but mostly seems to remain inside the burrow. The enclosure is in a low-traffic area of our apartment and has no direct light shining on it. The substrate still seems moist but haven't yet added any additional water to the enclosure.
Finding our T at the mouth of the burrow this morning we decided to try to feed. A dying pinhead red was placed at the mouth of the burrow and seemed to disappear after about 30 mins. Rather than offering dead food we poked the nymph with tweezers, incapacitating it, and left it immobilized and expiring as to gain the attention of the T - seemed to work.
Our questions at this point are:
-how often should we offer food?
-how often should we moisten the enclosure: how much moisture and what method (dropper, sprayer, etc)?
-which water should we use: conditioned tap water, mineralized RO, 100% RO?
FWIW, we have been "gut-loading" the roaches with mango peels and Soilent Green protein gel by Repashy
NB: Jamie from jamiestarantulas.com was great to work with; very patient and extremely accommodating. I can highly recommend her as a vendor and captive breeder A+++
We setup the enclosure per instructions, didn't use the cork hunk as it seemed too big, and introduced our sling without issue. Within the first night, the T created a burrow and has been seen outside of it several times, but mostly seems to remain inside the burrow. The enclosure is in a low-traffic area of our apartment and has no direct light shining on it. The substrate still seems moist but haven't yet added any additional water to the enclosure.
Finding our T at the mouth of the burrow this morning we decided to try to feed. A dying pinhead red was placed at the mouth of the burrow and seemed to disappear after about 30 mins. Rather than offering dead food we poked the nymph with tweezers, incapacitating it, and left it immobilized and expiring as to gain the attention of the T - seemed to work.
Our questions at this point are:
-how often should we offer food?
-how often should we moisten the enclosure: how much moisture and what method (dropper, sprayer, etc)?
-which water should we use: conditioned tap water, mineralized RO, 100% RO?
FWIW, we have been "gut-loading" the roaches with mango peels and Soilent Green protein gel by Repashy
NB: Jamie from jamiestarantulas.com was great to work with; very patient and extremely accommodating. I can highly recommend her as a vendor and captive breeder A+++