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When to Introduce a Water Dish to My Enclosure

mp3 Andrew

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3 Year Member
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Hello everyone. New tarantula owner here. I have a 1" Grammostola rosea (Chilean rose) sling that I bought when it was .5". I keep it in a large pill bottle. This allows the sling space to move, but no room for a water dish. So far I've been misting the enclose occasionally (it hates this) and have assumed the sling gets most of its liquids from its crickets.

Am I doing this right or am I dehydrating my T? At what point should I introduce a water dish and what kind of dish should it be?

Thanks in advance.
 

mp3 Andrew

New Member
3 Year Member
Messages
7
Thanks for your reply. So I should be able to wait until it's bigger to introduce the bottle cap, or should I find a larger enclosure and do that now?
 

MassExodus

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That rosea sling will never want wet or damp substrate. They are the epitome of "dry species" . I would rehouse it in a container big enough for a bottlecap, and hide, and keep the substrate dry. If you want to give it some extra moisture before a molt, just overflow the bottlecap a little.
 

MassExodus

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Never once have I heard of a sling drowning. They seem to be much smarter than prey, who will commit suicide in a water dish(even dubia, sometimes). Plus ive seen videos of tarantulas swimming in the wild, when they had to... And one where someone put a versicolor in a bathtub, as if it was original and he was showing us something..other than distressing the spider, who seemed quite put out by the ordeal. But unharmed. I was hoping for a bite..no such luck.
 

kormath

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all T's need a water dish. they rarely drink from them, majority of their hydration comes from prey. I put a water dish in every enclosure, from the 1/4" slings on up. We found out the hard way what happens if your T's don't have water dishes. close call with my son's D. pentaloris "Hobbes"

If you're worried about drowning of the T or the prey put aquarium gravel or smiliar in the dish that they can stand on. All of my water dishes have that, except the glass cosmetic jars, just cause the roaches can't climb the sides of those to drown themselves.

That saying you can't kill a roach is untrue, let a lateralis loose in a T enclosure and you'll find it drowned in the water dish the next day lol.
 
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