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Recent content by Dave Jay

  1. Dave Jay

    False Bottom

    Yes, you have grasped the concept completely, it's when keeping desert animals that you get the most advantage but it's an easy way to keep most animals at their desired moisture levels, not to mention that you can go on holiday for a month or so and not worry that enclosures will dry out...
  2. Dave Jay

    Some sad news.

    It doesn't sound good. Our a thoughts and good wishes are with you and your family, I hope things turn around.
  3. Dave Jay

    Should I worry?

    By now you would have realised that they are joking about touching her fang with a finger of course! If you get too worried you can gently blow on her, use a spray bottle near her or touch a back leg with a paint brush, these should get some reaction, but sometimes not. Pre-moult can certainly...
  4. Dave Jay

    Substrate Choices

    Sorry for the late reply. I certainly will incorporate charcoal into my next substrate mix, your reasoning is very convincing. I usually don't have a problem with mould, it usually is a short lived "boom" if it does occur, although these tanks had a lot on the surface, more than I am comfortable...
  5. Dave Jay

    Substrate Choices

    It certainly sounds like you are going the extra mile! I make false bottom set-ups and vary the coco peat : sand ratio according to localities, and also vary the sand itself to an extent but that's about it. Incorporating clay may be my next experiment I think. I too find that a mix with sand is...
  6. Dave Jay

    Substrate Choices

    Thanks Enn :)
  7. Dave Jay

    Moving

    Hi all, I wanted to explain that I am in the process of moving house atm, so while I'll check TF briefly when I can I can't catch up with the notifications, I'm not being rude, just busy, and at my daughter's house I can't get internet reception most of the time, normal transmissions will be...
  8. Dave Jay

    Australian Pie-Dish Beetles

    They are about 2cm long. I hope to breed them, usually it's the "grubs" that can be fussy about food from what I read, not the beetles so there could be other factors involved. The deaths were really too soon after they arrived to be a food issue imo.
  9. Dave Jay

    Some sad news.

    Terrible news, I was dreading reading the end of that message once I started, but while it doesn't seem like it now it could have been worse. We have noticed his absence, tell him he has been missed. It's touching that he thought to let us know the situation. Best wishes to him, and of course...
  10. Dave Jay

    Australian Pie-Dish Beetles

    No, not related to ****roaches, they're a species of Darkling Beetle, in the same family as mealworms and superworms. I've had three die though but I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, the guy I got them from told me everything sounds good and he doesn't put as much effort in and has no problems...
  11. Dave Jay

    My first scorpion! - Smeringurus mesaensis

    I would think it's probably getting ready to moult. I don't know the habits of this species personally, but it's not unusual for a burrowing species to avoid both the extremes of winter and summer by sealing themselves in their burrow for a month or two, but usually juveniles use the time to...
  12. Dave Jay

    Fossil spiders with glowing eyes

    It's amazing that they can tell that much about a 1" spiders eyes from fossils, although I guess the specimens in Amber were used as a baseline.
  13. Dave Jay

    Pulchra Finally Turning Black

    I guess it depends on your room temperatures, with 2 heaters on in the loungeroom my enclosures rarely went over 15c all winter, they probably dropped below that some nights, definitely when we had power cuts, it was very cold in the house. While I didn't have tarantula deaths, I didn't have any...
  14. Dave Jay

    Tarantula import / Risk Assessment

    The risk assessment usually is most about whether a feral population has established in other countries. When banning cichlids (fish) in South Australia it had to be proved that pet trade escapees or releases had established a feral population elsewhere in the world, for us, basically if an...
  15. Dave Jay

    Help! Mites!

    To be fair though, I don't have enough personal experience specifically related to tarantulas to say he's wrong, it may be that tarantulas are much more sensitive than other animals to "harmless" mites, but years of experience keeping other animals tells me that they generally aren't much of a...
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