[ SECRET POST #3122 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3122 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.


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02.
[My Name is Earl]


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03.


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04.


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05.
[Veep]


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06.
[Welcome to Night Vale]


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07.
[Wes Anderson]


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08.
[Felicia Day]


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09.
[Oscar Jarjayes/Rose of Versailles]


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10.
[Holly Madison, Girls Next Door]


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11.
(Game of Thrones)








Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 025 secrets from Secret Submission Post #446.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[loracarol]

I might be getting a tarantula! I've been reading up on them, as much as I can, but I wanted to ask if anyone here has one, (I'm looking at a Chilean Rose Hair) and if you have any advice?

So far, for said tarantula, I have

- 10 gallon tank + screen top
- Half log thingy to hide under
- Special aquarium moss
- Eco Earth substrate
- A water container (it's maybe 2x3 inches? Which seems big to me, but the pet store lady told me that "they like to get in the water" and the "humidity helps with molting" (which I knew that, but do they really need that large of a container?)
- An under-the-tank heater + a humitidy & temperature gauge

I'm just so nervous; my cat was relatively easy to take care of compared to all of this!

[kaijinscendre]

Just never touch it without gloves and then touch your fingers to a sensitive part of your body. ESPECIALLY your face/eyes. Also, don't put it near your eyes.

I had a Chilean Rose Hair for 5 years. She is actually still alive back home!

[loracarol]

You have to wear gloves? :o (This won't be the first time I've been around them, and every other time the boss man has just had me let them crawl over my arms/hands without them. |D)

Ooh yeah, the eye thing, I'll keep that in mind. D:

Yeah? What's her name? :o

[kaijinscendre]

Just wear them if you plan on handling it someplace you can't wash them immediately. Or if you plan on petting its abdomen a lot.

Radditz! I was in a DBZ phase. :P

[loracarol]

Gotcha gotcha. :D Nah, usually I just act like a weird squishy tree, and let them explore. ^_^

And, I gotta say, that name sounds

pretty rad.

[(Anonymous)]

What are your plans for its food?

[loracarol]

Live crickets, probably? I'm going to stay away from pinkies; my friend told me once about how her class had tried to feed one to their tarantula, and instead the pinky had felt fur and thought "Mommy!" and the tarantula had seen pink and squishy and said "ahhhhhhhhGET IT AWAY FROM ME" only the pinky kept following it because heat+fur=mom obviously, and ever since then I've figured I'll stick to crickets. |D

[(Anonymous)]

Pinkies are a bad idea, yeah.

Crickets are a classic. The drawback to them is that they're noisy and smell bad, so some people use dubia roaches instead. Both are about equally healthy as food, though. Do you know how you're going to be keeping them? Feeders need to be fed too, otherwise they aren't as nutritious.

[loracarol]

Honestly, I live right next to two petstores (Smart & Co), and I'm technically within walking distance of both, so I was only going to get them one at a time. Do they still need to be fed special, than? Or are they good as-is from the store? (If they still need to be fed, I'll grab one of those little Kritter Keepers).

[(Anonymous)]

Insects from pet stores tend to be in pretty rough shape when you get them. They aren't going to last until your next feeding day if you don't take care of them. You need to give them food and make sure they're not dehydrated so they stay alive longer, otherwise you're going to be wasting a lot of money. Plus, your tarantula will probably be way more interested in a lively and healthy insect than in a nearly dead one.

Everyone has a different food mixture that they give their insects, but you have to be aware of what nutrients you're putting into them. Commercial cricket feeds especially often have a lot of calcium added, which is bad for your tarantula because too much calcium can interfere with molting. There are a ton of guides online about how to setup an enclosure for feeder insects (Youtube, /r/tarantulas, arachnoboards) and what to feed them, so you just have to look around and figure out what's going to work for you.

[loracarol]

Oh, I was just going to buy them one at a time on feeding day. |D Probably not the best idea, lol...

Thanks, I'll look into that!

[tabaqui]

We only bought crickets when we fed - no fucking way was i going to 'raise' crickets, and the ones at the store were plenty healthy. You don't need to have a tank full of crickets - just get one or two and drop 'em in the tank, and your tarantula will eat them over a day or two. It's all good.

[herpymcderp]

Get a spray bottle to mist the sides of the tank and the spider. They love it.

[loracarol]

I am a little worried about that causing mold. I'm in the pacific northwest, and while I'm totally going to try and keep the moisture levels up, what if they get to be too high? :o

[herpymcderp]

Most pet store tarantulas are from South America, so unless you have a desert spider, you're not really going to need to worry about the humidity being "too high".

Also if you have a good setup mold shouldn't be too much of an issue either. It's only when you don't have good airflow and things get stagnant that mold problems crop up.

[loracarol]

That is very true. |D

Hmmm, is an aquarium + screen top tank good enough re: airflow, do you think? :o

[herpymcderp]

Should be? You have more equipment than my SO did for her spider and it managed to live almost 20 years in the Pacific Northwest so, I wouldn't be that worried about it.

[loracarol]

Cool. Thanks.

[(Anonymous)]

if you are willing to host some other critters, springtails and dwarf isopods do a great job at taking care of mold. I keep a humid terrarium for a gecko and I've not had a problem with mold/fungus because I seeded the dirt with isopods who eat mold before it gets out of hand. they're tiny, and I mean tiny bugs and are barely noticeable (esp the isopods). they're great natural cleaners!

[(Anonymous)]

I have a rosie and she's been a pretty good girl. You CAN hold them, but temperament tends to vary with the tarantula. Some are totally fine with you holding them, others are kind of like "yuck can you not," while the more aggressive ones will probably try biting you if you mess around with them. Rosies are generally the most docile tarantula so they're easier to deal with. As mentioned above, you should probably wear gloves if you're not 100% comfortable with the spider and you're not 100% sure it's comfortable with you. At the Butterfly Pavilion here in Denver, their rosie (Rosie, coincidentally) is handled by visitors, including chidren, and no one needs to wear gloves since Rosie is the biggest sweetheart and doesn't mind being held/petted.

As a general rule, tarantulas are more likely going to defend themselves by sending itchy, irritating hairs at you, not biting (unless they're mean mofos, but those are not recommended for beginners). By biting you, they waste some of the venom they could use to catch food. And storebought (or self-raised) crickets are probably your best bet for food. You never know what kind of pesticides and junk wild bugs have, and you don't want to get your tarantula sick. I've heard that SOME tarantulas will eat mealworms, but mine absolutely hated them.

Everything everyone else has said in the thread is also good advice. Tarantulas prefer a humid environment over a dry one, and it's a good idea to mist the cage with a squirt bottle when you notice it's dry (not to the point of mold, though). And strangely my tarantula hates getting wet, so if I need to scare her away from the top of the cage while I'm cleaning, I barely spray it in front of her and she'll make a u-turn right away, haha.

Tarantulas are very low maintenance in comparison to a mammal. You don't feed them as often (mine eats about once every two weeks), and they're not as messy. Your daily ritual with a tarantula should be checking to see if it needs water in its dish, misting the cage if it's really dry, removing any waste (exoskeletons, mostly), and making sure there's no causes for concern in the cage (mites, mold, fungus, etc.).

[loracarol]

Oh hey, my friend was just telling me about Rosie! :D

Thanks! I'll keep keep all of this in mind! Right now the store is feeding their tarantula once a day, but I'm assuming it's just because they're probably a juvenile?

[caerbannog]

I would love pictures of when you get it and the final set up!

[loracarol]

If I can! The one in-store was a squirrelly bugger, but I'll do my best. |D

[tabaqui]

We had tarantulas. They're pretty boring in that they don't *do* a lot, but they're okay. They'd walk on you and it was so *weird* because they're legs don't move in tandem but all independently.

2x3 is pretty tiny, really, so don't let that bother you.

They eat (ours ate) crickets. That was the hardest part for me - disgusting brown crickets in a paper bag, all...*scritch scritch scritch*

Yuck. Good luck!