Mould issue

[shaun]

Spotted some mould in A.gen enclosure.
On examination, the cork hide was covered in it.
Have rehoused but it's a concern.

 

[Konstantin]

Hi
While unsightly mould most of the time does not pose heath risk to your tarantula.
You can add some(not too much couple of rows should do it) top ventilation to increase air movement. Also at that size you can keep A genic considerably drier let say moist a corner and swap to different one once it starts drying up.Flooding the burrow most of times will cause mould on the cork due to further restricted air movement in the burrow try to moist away from it.
It may be just bad batch of coco fiber.I have one atm that goes mouldy as soon as water touches it despite of good ventilation on the enclosure and previous batches had no similar issues.Now I swapped to sedge peat mixed with vermiculite for my enclosures with moist substrate.
Regards Konstantin

 

[shaun]

Hi
While unsightly mould most of the time does not pose heath risk to your tarantula.
You can add some(not too much couple of rows should do it) top ventilation to increase air movement. Also at that size you can keep A genic considerably drier let say moist a corner and swap to different one once it starts drying up.Flooding the burrow most of times will cause mould on the cork due to further restricted air movement in the burrow try to moist away from it.
It may be just bad batch of coco fiber.I have one atm that goes mouldy as soon as water touches it despite of good ventilation on the enclosure and previous batches had no similar issues.Now I swapped to sedge peat mixed with vermiculite for my enclosures with moist substrate.
Regards Konstantin

Thanks for the great info.
I just assumed that mould would be dangerous, glad to hear that it's not a huge issue.
Cheers,

 

[Gizalba]

Hi
While unsightly mould most of the time does not pose heath risk to your tarantula.
You can add some(not too much couple of rows should do it) top ventilation to increase air movement. Also at that size you can keep A genic considerably drier let say moist a corner and swap to different one once it starts drying up.Flooding the burrow most of times will cause mould on the cork due to further restricted air movement in the burrow try to moist away from it.
It may be just bad batch of coco fiber.I have one atm that goes mouldy as soon as water touches it despite of good ventilation on the enclosure and previous batches had no similar issues.Now I swapped to sedge peat mixed with vermiculite for my enclosures with moist substrate.
Regards Konstantin

Thanks for that tip about not dampening near the cork bark. I did wonder about the mould not posing a risk to the tarantula - are there certain types of mould that do pose a risk?

 

[Konstantin]

Hi
cork bark is actually quite mould resistant as it doesn't soak water very well but often there is a residual bits of wood from the branches its grown on that are on the underside and those mould easily in moist environment.
Regards Konstantin

 

[octanejunkie]

The issue is airflow. Ventilation holes alone aren't enough.