Show your communal setups..

[Loafman]

Hi guys, hope everyone is well.

As some of you will already know, I have recently set up a communal Pokie regalis enclosure. There seems to be quite a few people who are also interested in getting a communal setup going, so I thought I'd start a thread for people to show off their communal setups and share hints and tips on the best ways to do it.

I'll start! Lol! I put 10 x P. regalis slings (siblings afaik) in a single enclosure on March 11th 2017, and there seemed to be no problems, they were all bunching up and chilling out together. They were all roughly 16mm (5/8") leg span. They still appear to be getting on fine, although these guys are quite small and are getting into all sorts of nooks and crannies in the bark and hiding behind a fake plant that's on one side of the bark, and as they are quite well camouflaged (they show up much better with a flash), I am unable to do a proper count to make sure all 10 of them are still thriving

I guess until they are ready for transferring to a larger enclosure, I will not really be able to do a definitive count.. so here's a current pic of some of them in the mean time..

It would be great if others would like to add their communal pics, help and tips, as it would be great to see more of the communal setups out there. Maybe we can also generate a list of different species that can be kept in this way and any special care/precautions that need to be taken into account for different species.

All the best, Loaf..

 

[Tricocyst]

looks absolutely amazing and I love how big the abdomen is already

 

[Nicolas C]

I tried a communal with Poecilotheria subfusca (i.e. lowland i.e. sp. bara...) in August 2015. I kept ten slings from the same sack together in a deli cup. I rehoused them a first time: no losses. Then a second time in the final enclosure: my goal was to avoid a maximum the rehousings, because it's critical for them (as they have to adapt to a new environment, there are some possibilities it goes wrong and they eat each other). Final enclosure was with just one tube of cork bark and substrate. I didn't want to give them a lot of hides, because of my fear they might create some kind of clans - gangs - territories and might kill the ones from another territory. One hide means only one territory. If they keep close to one another, the risks they might fight are less obvious. Well, that was what I thought. Still, no losses noticed when I rehoused them in their final enclosure.

However, the problem was: even with only one hide, not every individuals went into this hide. Some of them stayed outside and built a burrow underground... From this point, as they were hidden most of the time, I was not able to tell how many individuals out of the first ten were still alive. I was only able to tell there was several groups.

On September 2016, I took out a mature male. On December 2016, I took out a dead female (she wasn't eaten or even wounded, as far as I could notice, just dead...). I began to notice fights between the remaining ones...

I took out and gave one more mature male and a female to one friend early 2017. Then I decided to rehouse, as the enclosure was very (very!) dirty. That's when I realized that there was only one FAT female left! Which means: 5 P subfusca were MIA.

My temps have stood stable. I always gave enough food (= ten crickets a week) to avoid fights. And since august 2016, I noticed there was always some uneaten crickets left, which meant the spiders were not starving.

For me, this experience was not a success. The communal was okay until my ts went bigger, and that's when they began to fight and kill each other. I don't know if I did something wrong, or if they have difficulties to adapt living together in captivity. Anyway, I don't think I'll try that again soon.

That being said, there is another experience told in this excellent book, and the experience was a success (with P rufilata):
TARANTULAS - BREEDING EXPERIENCE & WILDLIFE by Cleton, F., Sigwalt, Y.,Verdez, J. M. (2016)

Keep us informed how it goes for you, it's interesting to share experiences!

 

[Loafman]

looks absolutely amazing and I love how big the abdomen is already

Yeah, they are well fed.. in fairness, all 18 of the spiders I received were pretty well fed, well packed and arrived in excellent condition. So despite the delays in them arriving, I would still highly recommend the seller.

I tried a communal with Poecilotheria subfusca (i.e. lowland i.e. sp. bara...) in August 2015. I kept ten slings from the same sack together in a deli cup. I rehoused them a first time: no losses. Then a second time in the final enclosure: my goal was to avoid a maximum the rehousings, because it's critical for them (as they have to adapt to a new environment, there are some possibilities it goes wrong and they eat each other). Final enclosure was with just one tube of cork bark and substrate. I didn't want to give them a lot of hides, because of my fear they might create some kind of clans - gangs - territories and might kill the ones from another territory. One hide means only one territory. If they keep close to one another, the risks they might fight are less obvious. Well, that was what I thought. Still, no losses noticed when I rehoused them in their final enclosure.

However, the problem was: even with only one hide, not every individuals went into this hide. Some of them stayed outside and built a burrow underground... From this point, as they were hidden most of the time, I was not able to tell how many individuals out of the first ten were still alive. I was only able to tell there was several groups.

On September 2016, I took out a mature male. On December 2016, I took out a dead female (she wasn't eaten or even wounded, as far as I could notice, just dead...). I began to notice fights between the remaining ones...

I took out and gave one more mature male and a female to one friend early 2017. Then I decided to rehouse, as the enclosure was very (very!) dirty. That's when I realized that there was only one FAT female left! Which means: 5 P subfusca were MIA.

My temps have stood stable. I always gave enough food (= ten crickets a week) to avoid fights. And since august 2016, I noticed there was always some uneaten crickets left, which meant the spiders were not starving.

For me, this experience was not a success. The communal was okay until my ts went bigger, and that's when they began to fight and kill each other. I don't know if I did something wrong, or if they have difficulties to adapt living together in captivity. Anyway, I don't think I'll try that again soon.

That being said, there is another experience told in this excellent book, and the experience was a success (with P rufilata):
TARANTULAS - BREEDING EXPERIENCE & WILDLIFE by Cleton, F., Sigwalt, Y.,Verdez, J. M. (2016)

Keep us informed how it goes for you, it's interesting to share experiences!

Some awesome information there! Sorry to hear that you had the cannibal female in your group though.
I wonder how much communal tolerance varies among pokie species? I saw a video of a guy who kept 20 P. regalis together from slings right up to what looked like late juvi/sub adult stage and still had 20 going.. so I wonder if P. regalis are slightly more geared toward communal living than P. subfusca? Mind you, that's what this thread is about. To work out how different soecies respond. A very informative and interesting read @Nicolas C many thanks!

 

[Nicolas C]

Yeah, it seems according to some authors that some spp. are more tolerant than others. I'm really interested to know step by step how it works for you and your group.

And... "beware of the cannibal female"!!! (we all know a cannibal female, don't we?)

 

[MassExodus]

Yeah, it seems according to some authors that some spp. are more tolerant than others. I'm really interested to know step by step how it works for you and your group.

And... "beware of the cannibal female"!!! (we all know a cannibal female, don't we?)

Indeed..my communal scorpion experiments were mostly failures. Except for my adult groups of C vitatus and C gracilis. I'm hoping someone with M balfouri or N incei chimes in here. I think the common difficulty will be keeping track of them, keeping a count.

 

[MassExodus]

Well, I just ordered 10 N. incei "gold" at 1 1/4" to keep communally, I'll update everyone as to their progress and post pics after receiving and housing them. Probably next week sometime, weather permitting.

 

[Pasodama]

Great thread. Hope more people will share their experiences.

Am thinking of trying a communal some day. Just not sure, yet, which species I will do.

Indeed..my communal scorpion experiments were mostly failures. Except for my adult groups of C vitatus and C gracilis. I'm hoping someone with M balfouri or N incei chimes in here. I think the common difficulty will be keeping track of them, keeping a count.

Tom Moran is keeping a M. balfouri communal. Don't know if he will chime in, here, but does have a couple of videos out re. his M. balfouri communal.

 

[MassExodus]

Great thread. Hope more people will share their experiences.

Am thinking of trying a communal some day. Just not sure, yet, which species I will do.



Tom Moran is keeping a M. balfouri communal. Don't know if he will chime in, here, but does have a couple of videos out re. his M. balfouri communal.

Excellent! I keep meaning to catch up on his videos, and never got around to it. I was one of his first fans I'll check it out tonight.

 

[Loafman]

Just a quick update! Sorry I've not been around much lately guys, I recently met someone and have been staying over over at her place for most of the last few weeks.. so I've not forgotten about you guys or the forum (or my spiders!).

Every now and then I notice that quite a few of the communals are out in the open, climbing around the outside of their enclosure (a 200g instant coffee jar). Earlier I noticed there were loads of them so I had a quick count up, and I counted 9 of them. That's the most I've seen in one go since I put the setup together! They have built lots of curtains around the cork bark, so I'm amazed I could see all but 1 of them. I'm sure the last one will still be in there somewhere though.

I did try and get a picture, but none of them came out any good.

On a side note, I opened the curtains this morning and Burton, one of my Metallica's, was startled by the sudden light in the room and started running around a bit. Don't worry, they don't get direct sunlight as the curtains are about 18 feet from the spiders. But the thing that got me was just how spooked she was, because it was the first time I've experienced one of my Metallica's actually teleporting! HOW FAST?! She literally teleported.. she moved so fast that I couldn't physically see her move, she literally disappeared and reappeared about 10 inches from where she was, instantaneously! I was truly gob smacked! I've seen fast spiders before, but that was beyond comprehension..

 

[Metalman2004]

Just a quick update! Sorry I've not been around much lately guys, I recently met someone and have been staying over over at her place for most of the last few weeks..

Thats a whole other kind of communal

 

[terror_corpz]

 

[MassExodus]

Just fed the incei, saw several grab a nymph, but a few ignored them. I could only find 8 out of 10, but the missing two are probably just well hidden. One of them is the swimmer. I put extra nymphs in just in case.
I did observe a bigger one take a smaller one's dubia right out of his mouth, lol. I gave him another though

 

[PanzoN88]

I'm going to try an M. Balfouri communal after I get further into old worlds. I will be getting one or two soon, but to early to try a communal setup. The pictures all of you have posted are giving me something to think about.

 

[octanejunkie]

What ever happened with these communities?