How to Keep Your Tarantula Healthy?

How to keep your tarantula healthy? Part of proper husbandry is making sure that they have a clean enclosure. You don’t have to clean it every day or every week. It’s ideal that you do it at least twice a year so that you won’t disturb them too much. How to keep your tarantula healthy? Spot cleaning regularly is entirely up to you but this may not be advisable if the enclosure or tank is too big or if there are lots of ornaments inside because your spider will get disturb. 

How to keep your tarantula healthy? If ever you do decide to spot clean the cage, you can do this by temporarily placing your spider to another holding container. Remove all the contents of the tank, wash and sterilize the tank inside out, replace the substrate, clean the water dish, and sterilize all the items inside the tank before replacing them or putting them back. You should also ensure that the temperatures and humidity levels are at the appropriate range. There are many cases of spiders dying from inappropriate levels of temperature and humidity. Molds or fungus could begin to grow in your pet’s cage if it is too moist, this in turn could start contamination and infection on your pet. 

Tarantula Environment

Tarantula spiders are mostly arboreal creatures which mean that they would prefer to stay up on their enclosure’s wall. Tall kinds of cages work well for arboreal creatures especially for matured or adult Tarantula spiders. Some keepers prefer to get a horizontal size cage that is quite wider and deeper. Either way, it’s best that you get a taller one because it will act as an exercise opportunity for your Tarantula since they also like to climb up and have that arboreal quality.

How to keep your tarantula healthy? If you plan on acquiring a sling, it’s best if you start it off with a small enclosure so that you can easily monitor its temperature and humidity. Huge enclosures will not be ideal for baby spiders, just transfer them to taller and bigger cages once they reach maturity.

It’s best if you house Tarantula spiders that are the same size or it’s much better if they are siblings. Taller cages will also be ideal if you’re trying to save up space in your enclosure so that it’ll make room for others if in case you want to add more than one sling or spider.

Tarantula Habitat Tips

Tip #1

How to keep your tarantula healthy? When it comes to durability, it’s better to buy a slightly expensive one if it means that it’s of good quality because it can be used for the lifetime of your pet Tarantula. More specifically a 10 gallon glass tank. You can also buy a plastic enclosure if that’s what you prefer but glass tanks are much more durable in my opinion. The downside of glass tanks is that it’s quite harder to clean and/or relocate. Nevertheless, it’s a good place for your pet. Make sure to also buy something that has a secure and easy to open lid (for you) to ensure that your Tarantula spider doesn’t escape.

You can also put a decoration or a background like a poster that you can buy from pet stores so in that way it can look nicer and can blend in at your house like a display. Getting a glass tank is much easier way for you to observe and monitor your pet spider from time to time.

Tip #2

Even if Tarantula spiders tend to just hang out at the back of flat tree barks or rock crevices, it’s best that you still provide them with enough substrate as it will resemble their natural habitat in the wild. They won’t spend as much time on the ground like ground – dwelling spider species but a substrate will provide humidity levels inside the cage.  Try buying an orchid bark. It’s a wood chip kind of substrate that’s easy to clean, use, and also much cheaper compared to other types of bedding. After pouring in about 2 inches thick of bedding, you can add some coconut bedding for humidity purposes. After pouring it all in, you can start mixing them up, and ensure that the coconut bedding is properly distributed with the orchid bark substrate to form a nice layer.

Tip #3

How to keep your tarantula healthy? Tarantula spiders love to just flatten their long legs on the wall, rock crevices, or under tree barks. That’s where they set up their web and chill all day until a prey comes close to them. When setting up ornaments inside the cage, you can opt to buy a piece of tree bark that resembles a log.

You can set it up in away where you can see your pet spider. Simply put the flat bark or log against the glass so that you can actually see where they are at the moment. Spiders usually want to hide in places where its dark so make sure to put the log where the ‘privacy’ of your pet will not be entirely compromise.  You can also choose to buy a large cork flat with like a hollow space in it, and just put it against the side of the glass so that they have other hiding options.

Tip #4

The enclosure should at least have a temperature of 18 to 25 degrees Celsius. The temperature will highly vary depending on where you live. If you live in a warmer region, you can keep the cage quite cool but make sure that you’ve provided them with a heated area to go to. Keep in mind that what you want to achieve is to mimic the humidity level of the wild inside the cage, and you can do that by providing them with a nice and humid cage. Add more sphagnum moss to increase the level.

You can just set it up anywhere in the cage best if it’s away from its main burrow area or perhaps on the sides of the cage. This way you can get the moss wet without necessarily destroying its web. The ideal humidity level is between 60 and 70%. Some Tarantula species will do well even in 50% level humidity.

Tip #5

How to keep your tarantula healthy? Lightly spraying water into your pet’s enclosure is beneficial. Should humidity levels increase too much, just try to even out the situation by leaving out any introduction of water to the space for a few days until the humidity levels are just right. Just keep in mind that the warmer you keep your Tarantula spider, the faster its metabolism will be.  They will have greater appetite, and they will grow faster but this may also mean that the substrate will dry faster and they might be more prone to dehydration.  Use your best judgment, and pay close attention to what seems best for your individual Tarantula spiders. Mist the cage to ensure that your pet is properly hydrated.

Make sure that you check on your spider daily to make sure that it doing the normal things it does. Inspect its tarantula enclosure and give all sundries a check, making sure to see that all is in place and is functioning as it should. Want to know more about tarantulas as pets? Check out this video below: