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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cjh" data-source="post: 48445" data-attributes="member: 3937">lol.Pink toe tarantulas MUST have a light cycle, like a plant.  I remember when I first got my pink toe tarantula. I spent days reading about the thing. I still look for any new anything educational to learn about the thing, except things about breeding it because I just find that repugnant.  That is the joy of the hobby, having the spider to study. To appreciate the spider is to know all you can about the spider.  Asking questions on forums like this aren't as much fun as reading the answers and researching the validity of those answers. The first few months she settled in nice, I even caught her first molt with us on camera. I then found out that mine likes to eat in sporadic intervals after fasting as long as two or three weeks. She likes to web and from what I understand, she eats it, although I haven't seen her do it. So since she is fasting I figure something isn't quite right with her habitat.  I have her in a huge over a foot tall clear cookie jar with lid I leave cracked open. She stays to her web mainly or crawls on her glass. I have aquarium gravel which is a natural stone without dyes, brackish water in the gravel for humidity. If she gets down there she can stay safe from the water or get her feet wet.  Now I am going to increase her habitat temperature to improve the humidity. I changed the habitat from a terrarium with orchids, peat from earthworms, with earthworms because I ran into an issue because of the meal worms. I didn't realize meal worms and crickets loved to eat orchids and the meal worm food crumbles would create mold. I also ran into some issues with spring-tails, just where there is dirt there is a little part of the ecosystem that goes with it, in this case the peat moss I introduced , not what the earthworms introduced, introduced spring tails or what looked like spring-tails, and while the spider loved it,  the humidity was perfect, just a great environment for her, her food, just got the place messy. She didn't devour the earthworms all, just left them ragged and partially digested and envenomed, my conscious couldn't take that sight or that poor little fearless wiggler being partially digested and still moving. The mold wrecked havoc on my orchids, none of which survived it,  it was white and liked to left me witless.  So this is why it is now aquarium gravel and brackish water, closer to salt water.  After I cleaned her habitat I figured a little salt-ish water with aquarium salt, gravel and time would end any mold cycle left that regular cleaning might of missed. I read about her location in the wild and brackish water should be fine once in awhile for humidity just not consistent. As soon as that habitat changed she devoured about 6 meal worms of about an inch in two days.  I won't feed crickets again if I can help it. She eats the whole meal worm. There is waste with crickets. So, just with what I have tried, I have found the higher the humidity the larger the fast. If I change the habitat humidity and heat and from brackish to regular water there is a benefit of personal ease and laziness with an assumption she has more to actually drink that way if she wants to. Mine seems to eat better and do better with humidity from brackish water.  I have found all out salt water also improves her want to eat and need to web. I guess mixing it up just works best with mine. Changing the temp also. She can get as low as about 65 degrees f and is still very quick. If I increase that temp and humidity she begins to fast and webs. With all that I have found further that about 12 meal worms in a month is on the low end of her munching.  Otherwise she is a creature of her environment and I do let her get to the point of being able to munch on that web before I just let her gorge herself and sit. I buy a 32 count tub of meal worms and she does fine. Each one may be different. If I see her chewing her feet like a baby I mist her cookie jar a little with fresh water so she can get a drink. I do avoid misting her web now that I know she will abandon it completely if it gets wet.  She will abandon parts that meal worms chew and make new sections of web. She will avoid parts of her web that her food lingers in too long and if a meal worm dies in her web, she avoids that. I had a meal worm crawl out and land in the water so I put it in her web, apparently it was in the wet side too long and drowned, I realized later when I checked. SO I watched. The spider does not like deceased things in her web. I am assuming they can smell with their mouth, the tarantula or perhaps her book lungs and the smell of a dead meal worm apparently repels her, perhaps scares her. SO keeping the cage clean is important because they do react to dead food in their habitat. She seems to enjoy a spray but will avoid the area if she gets sprayed there with a mist. She will avoid it for awhile. Pink toe's are not a beginner spider it seems, but they are listed as a beginner spider in some places. Real finicky arachnid, but precious. I didn't say I was right. I am learning. Loving to learn leads to a tarantula collection for a great many, but personally, my one pink toe is just enough spider. There are plenty of insects to learn about to satisfy that need to know something else, she does after all eat insects. I wouldn't communally house her, because, I do think she might actually attack another spider. She does have a long wave black light, just a black light for a poster, lol, long florescent bulb, a   t bulb fixture, I read about that, read it should be fine. She does seem drawn to the thing, her food certainly is. If you have anything to give like pointers or tips great I welcome that, if you tell me that I am doing it wrong, sorry but I might not listen well. My spider is doing very well. I do plan on raising the temp to about 78 degrees perhaps 80. Keeping that consistent, I don't think would be good for her. I think 65 at night 78 during the day. Books give a lot of information . There is still a lot of trial and error in tarantula keeping with the intermediate species.  So far, I haven't lost a tarantula yet to anything other than escape or old age.  She is my second tarantula, my first arboreal. I assume with these spiders, the light cycle triggers different processes in her systems that keep her living.  The light spectrum used is debatable, but, I cannot argue. Right now the black light I have is really doing her wonders. Those little eyes of hers, they do more than just see, they are vital to sensing the light and triggering different bodily process speed and regulating her temp, in my opinion. I also think that with a proper day and night cycle, these animals digest better and are able to utilize the humidity better. Just a guess. I did read however that the day night light cycle is essential to their health and longevity in a tarantula keeping book. Mine is stunning in the sunlight with shade inside. It is too hot for a sun lit window, the reason for the black light. When I go to warm her up and keep her 68-75 then she goes under the 3,500kelvin light temp t bulb grow light florescent fixture with the plants and settles in there for a few weeks like it's summer, gets a long night cycle then back to the black light and lower temp 60-68 like it's winter. Considering the areas she is native to and that she is a pet, she can take adjustments when done every few months, like this. It isn't really anything more than a hobby and she suits the interior decor with the location changes and it is good for her, I think. It is just how I enjoy mine and all the interaction I give it. She does like to be petted, so she does get a pet on the back for tolerating all the change. Using a make up brush that is clean suits best. I do also remove the web she makes when I clean her habitat. The cleaning isn't done unless there is a mess. Pink toes do shoot fecal material at their prey and to distract or get attention, whichever is which, and they can get messy. That kind of mess doesn't need to sit. In the wild they can get away from it, as a pet, they can't .  So the water in the gravel has to be tested occasionally and changed anyway or I let it evaporate, but the excrement, that has to be cleaned, just wipe it off with tissue if it is on the glass, otherwise it will harden and you'll have heck getting it off. I find that using watered down 3% peroxide on the spot works fine for a glass spot clean, also to clean aquarium gravel.</blockquote>

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