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water/humidity

Nada

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3 Year Member
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Location
Arizona USA
Let's talk about water/humidity.
All tarantuals 3" or larger need a water bowl or a dish. Desert species included. Your tarantula will not drown.
A shallow water bowl is just fine. Do not use spounges, or water pillows. All these Items do is create and breed bacteria. Not a good thing for a spider. you may put a small stone,rock,pebble etc in your water dish/bowl. This does nothing for your Tarantula directly, It keeps crickets and/or roaches from drowning in the water, which helps keep the enclosure clean.
Slings can and will drink from a spray.

Humidity: Spraying an enclosure does not make it humid. It makes it wet. The simplest way to create humitity in an enclosure is to overflow the water bowl with warm water, and let the water absorb directly into the substrate. However, the most commonly used enclosures for tarantulas, Aquariums and Kritter Keepers, do not hold heatr or humidity well at all. This can be remidied in a number of ways. 1) My preferred way, is not to use them, I use sterilite and rubbermaid totes, shoeboxes, and sweaterboxes. Unfortunately they're not as clear as glass so some people do not like this option. 2) You can cut a piece of plexi-glass to 3/4 the size of your enclosure and a width that lets it rest on the Aquariums lip. this will help to keep some humidity in, but it isn't perfect. You will lack ventilation. 3) you can wrap the screen top, or KK top in saran wrap, and poke a few holes in it, or better yet, drill some holes in the side of your KK (do it carefully) and wrap the top completely.

For Dry species: a basic tank or KK is fine, with no modifications. but tropical species IMO should not imo be kept in a tank or KK. For arboreal Tarantula, there are a number of food storage containers available at most food stores, that are clear, and with a little drilling make great permanent enclosures.

Drilling: If you're drilling holes in an enclosure , it's important not to drill the holes at the top of the enclosure. Drilling hules at the top of the enclosure allows heat and humidity to escape, and makes it very difficult to keep consistent levels.
Drill the sides, that allows humidity to be trapped while still allowing enough air flow to keep mold, and fungus from growing.

When all is said and done, you want to see condensation in your Ts home not water drops.
Questions,comments, criticisim all welcome.
 
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