Hi, I'm Jennifer from Florida

[JenniferinFL]

Haha, the more I read the more undecided I am.. It will take me forever to decide on a species.
Oh well, at least I found the guide about terrariums, so I can at least get my tank started with a false bottom, plants and decaying live oak leaves to get it all going.. At least I already have the pothos, bromeliads, a few 'spider' plants and plenty of local native tillandsia's(?) to put together a decent planting.. But, it looks like before I do any kind of water feature I will have to have the species decided since apparently some love water and some would drown.. Hmm..
I love the idea of getting diurnal frogs, though, I'm regularly up at 3 am, so I could probably see the nocturnal ones up and around anyways.
Thanks for the welcomes!
I'll probably be putting my tank together sometime this week, so I'll post photos to figure out if I'm heading in the right direction with it.
Thanks again

[Jace]

Welcome to the Forum. Can't wait to see some pics and hear about which species you are interested in. Definitely not an easy choice. Just wondering: what kind of tarantulas do you have? Could you post some pics?

[googie]

Hi Jennifer:

Welcome to the forum. You'll find that members will be able to help you with most any question you have. I 've been member for only a couple of months, and I can not say enough about the help and advice I've been given. It is a great place to share and learn. Keep us updated.

Best of luck.

Chris

[JenniferinFL]

I don't keep many tarantulas at the moment, I'm down to just 9.
After some soul-searching, we decided we didn't want to deal with breeding tarantulas. Originally we had bought a few of each one to guarantee having females to eventually breed, but, we recently sold off enough where we only had one of each remaining species.
We had a major die-off a couple years ago where we lost 20 in a single week, not sure if the neighbor sprayed pesticide, if we got contaminated crickets or what happened. BUT, that pretty much cured me of the desire to try to breed them. It takes years for most species to reach maturity, so it's just a lot of time invested in a pet that can die so easily. We had spiderlings we'd been growing for a year that just got wiped out when that happened including a couple juvenile females we were really excited about.
Fortunately now we live far enough from the nearest neighbor where we shouldn't have a problem if they do decide to spray. So, we do plan to get a couple of our favorites again to be able to just enjoy watching them. Don't get me wrong, we've had a couple losses in the last couple years, but at least they were losses that mostly made sense. Like mature males dying, or a couple bad molts, and then one that got nematodes somehow. At least no husbandry mistakes or mass die-offs from chemical contamination.
Right now we have the following species, just one of each except the L. Parahybana which we still have two of..
Brachypelma emelia
Brachypelma albopilosum
Grammastola rosea
Grammastola aureostriata
Psalmopoeus pulcher
Lasiodora parahybana
Pterinochilus murinus
Nhandu chromatus

I did take more recent photos of them, but my two prettiest ones, the P. murinus and P. Pulcher are both about impossible to photograph. Just too fast with running back into their hides when the camera comes out.
I'll probably start a new thread with their photos for you, Jace.

[Jace]

Wow-that is very neat. Sorry to hear about all your losses, though. I can understand how that would be frustrating. I am thinking of getting a Pink Toed tarantula, so I am trying to get as much information as I can before actually taking the plunge. If you have the chance, photos would be great, thank you. How is the frog decision going? Do you have it narrowed down to a couple of dozen yet??

[JenniferinFL]

I haven't really been able to narrow down the frogs at all.. lol.. I keep looking at them and as soon as I'm sure I like one I find another I like just as much.. Are there any really good frog books out there? I may just need to go get a book for easier browsing through the species..

Tarantulas are really about the simplest creatures to keep. The only significant drawback to them is their sensitivity to pesticides and so forth if you have a neighbor that treats their lawn a lot or is otherwise crazy with the bug sprays. We've eliminated pretty much all pesticide use because of them. The only pesticide we still use is the topical frontline/advantage for the dogs and cats. There's some disagreement about whether or not they are sensitive enough to be bothered by that just in the same room, but, to be safe the dogs and cats aren't allowed in the room the tarantulas are in just in case. But, I imagine that there are probably frogs that are just as sensitive to that stuff.
The other nuisance-y thing is that as of now there's no 'treatment' for simple things like a nematode infestation because the stuff that would kill nematodes would also kill tarantulas.
But, in captive bred animals, that's pretty rare.
Aviculara's grow pretty quickly, so a well fed spiderling will be decent sized in a year or so.
Probably I would say most of them are for sale as .5" to 1" spiderlings as far as captive bred ones go. That's a TINY spider. But, feeding them isn't complicated like tiny frogs would be, you just cut up a cricket if you don't have small enough or just give them a cricket 'drumstick' (leg) and they'll eat that. Because small ones molt frequently and they are completely defenseless after a molt, it's best to feed prekilled crickets because they can easily bite a hole in a newly molted tarantula. If your getting a tiny one, then housing is easiest with one of those little plastic cubes you can buy at Michaels craft stores. You can either drill air holes in the cubes or melt holes in them with a small, hot nail, but if you melt them do it outside, wash it very well and let it air out for at least a week before housing anything in them.
You can do a false bottom with them because they like humidity and their enclosures mold up really easy otherwise. Just a 1" or so layer of those little I believe they're called hydroton? balls, then a layer of sphagnum and then coconut fiber if you like.. Most people don't use false bottoms with them, but, it really makes sense. I never used them with my arboreals either, but I plan to on my next rehouse just to help prevent the bottoms of the enclosures from getting too stagnant.
Spiderling enclosures should be more utilitarian and basic, a stick to climb on for arboreal species and once they get a solid 1" in size, they can have a tiny water dish, like a milk jug lid. Otherwise they get moisture from their food or sometimes from drinking misted water off the enclosure. Once they get to 2" juvies, you can start making their enclosure fancier if you wish.
Too big of an enclosure and they will starve instead of going to get food, at least when they're small. Bigger juvies and adults don't seem to have as much of a problem with that.
Pretty much though, really simple, if you can keep frogs happy and healthy, then tarantulas shouldn't pose much trouble. Arachnoboards.com is a great forum for talking about them. I've bought a lot from sellers on there too, there's some selling wildcaught, but a lot of people selling captive bred too.
I only feed my adult tarantulas about once per week and they're all chunky. Small spiderlings though you can feed a couple times per week.

[Jace]

Wow, thanks for the info. The Pink Toed I am looking at is at least a couple of inches now-it's been at the petstore for a few months now. They say it has molted at least twice since they have had it. I have a plastic 2 gallon sitting empty, but I also have a 5 gallon aquarium I could use as well. I am doing research on how to sex it (I would like a female), but I'm finding that to an inexperierenced person, I have a very low chance of being able to tell. Oh well-as long as it is healthy, I don't much care. I'm just worried about humidity as I live in a desert climate and my house has low humidity....all my frogs require mistings several times a day to keep them moist.

[Kurt]

We've eliminated pretty much all pesticide use because of them. The only pesticide we still use is the topical frontline/advantage for the dogs and cats. There's some disagreement about whether or not they are sensitive enough to be bothered by that just in the same room, but, to be safe the dogs and cats aren't allowed in the room the tarantulas are in just in case. But, I imagine that there are probably frogs that are just as sensitive to that stuff.

Frogs are more sensitive to toxins in the enviroment.