Tarantulas make beautiful and interesting pets, but like all exotica they require a responsible owner. Before buying a tarantula, ask yourself a few questions; do I want to hold it or keep it just for display, do I want to keep a colony or just one, how much time am I going to spend on it. This will help you decide what type to buy.If you want a spider you can hold, I’d suggest only a few species.The Mexican red-leg (can be a bit pricey, but beautiful and calm), the rose-hair (one of the cheapest and my personal favorite because of size and temperament), the Chilean fire or also known as Chilean flame tarantula (beautiful, but not as calm as a rose-hair), and the pink-toe tarantula (a vary attractive species, moderately priced and another of my personal favorites). If you have little children around you should keep the spider to a moderate size, do not choose a king baboon, a giant bird-eater, or a Goliath bird-eater as these 3 are among the largest in the world and are all very aggressive.
Most scrub land species require a lower humidity and warmer temperatures.Popular types of desert/scrub land species are rose-hairs, flame tarantula, and Mexican red-leg. Arboreal species or rain forest species need a higher humidity to help their molts. These include pink toe tarantulas, most types of baboons, and bird eaters. The scrub land species will usually live about 20 years and the arboreal species live 2-5 years. Once you have chosen a species you now need to consider housing.
Spiders in general are moderately sized, so the size of the enclosure may be as small as a ten gallon tank. Ten gallon tanks are inexpensive and can make a beautiful enclosure. To keep a colony you must invest in a larger tank. A ten gallon tank is easily large enough for one average sized adult.If you have a larger species (any type of bird-eater or one of approximate size) a larger enclosure is required. For substrate, you can use sand, gravel, vermiculite, perlite, bark, dirt, or plain paper towels.
The substrate should accommodate the type of spider you have. If your type requires a high level of humidity use a substrate that can be moistened, I would suggest vermiculite or perlite.
Tarantulas are escape artists, if you do not have a good lid for the tank they will get out. If you buy a plastic aquarium from a pet store, it will usually come with a snap down lid. If you have a glass tank, use a good lock down lid with a screen center rather than a glass center although glass centered locking lids hold heat and humidity better, ventilation is poor and in a dirty tank can cause diseases.
For scrub/desert spiders set the tank up as a desert or a scrub land. For arboreal tarantulas set the tank up like a rain forest. You must always give the tarantula a place of refuge. You can give it something to hide under or enough substrate to make a burrow. The easiest way is to take a wide hollow tube or a large plastic cup and cover it with substrate leaving an opening at the surface of the substrate. If the tarantula has no place to hide it can get stressed and die. GIVE IT A HIDING PLACE!!!
Tarantulas need an alternative heating source.You can use a light or under tank heating pads, they work equally well. If you use a light make sure to keep it off the lid to keep the tank from getting to hot. Typically keep the tank from 76-84 degrees F. This is safer for the spiders. Stay away from heat rocks as they heat the rock area only and can burn the spider.
It is best to feed the spider daily or every other day and only as much as it will eat. This does not mean you have to visit the pet store every day, you can buy a dozen or two dozen crickets a week and keep them in a separate container. Remove a few every day to feed the tarantula. The reason for this is that keeping live insects in the tank can stress the spider, You can feed tarantulas food anywhere up to about 1/8 their size or as small as 1/16 their size. If you feed your spider something too large it can be hard for the spider to ingest it after being captured. You can feed your tarantula almost any type of insect. Insects that are readily available in pet stores year round are crickets, meal worms, king meal worms, and super worms. The best stable diet for the tarantula is crickets. When you are keeping the crickets feed them lettuce, oranges, apples or a commercial cricket feed. Remember that what the cricket eats is what the spider eats as well. Do not feed the spider anything that has been around insecticides. A spider is an insect, and insecticides kill insects, therefore insecticides WILL KILL your spider. Only feed meal worms to your spider as a treat.They are not a very wholesome diet for spiders for they lack many vitamins and minerals that a spider needs.
Give the tarantula water using wet cotton balls or a wet sponge. Spiders can drown in a water dish. Make sure that your spider has water. The second easiest way to accidentally kill them is to dehydrate them. Check the water every day.
If a spider is not eating, it usually means that the tank is too cold or it is getting ready for a molt. Some times, the spider will fast for unknown reasons. Usually the tarantula is getting ready to molt. Often when the spider is in a molt it will flip onto it’s back and stretch out it’s legs. If this occurs, DO NOT touch the spider. Moving or even touching the tarantula is usually fatal. The outer exoskeleton is no longer a part of the spider and it can cut the new exoskeleton, causing the spider to bleed to death. The best thing to do is mist the tank 4 or 5 times a day, this moistens the outer skeleton and makes it easier for the spider to break free.
Most known disorders are caused by dirty tanks or wet tanks with not enough ventilation. These are usually fungal infections that can be fixed by drying the tank out and providing proper ventilation. When your spider is ill it will curl up with its legs underneath it. There is not much currently known about spider’s illnesses. The only thing you can really do is heat the tank and check humidity and hope.
Disorders such as bald abdomens and missing limbs will usually correct themselves after molting. The bald abdomens only take one molt to be corrected, but missing limbs usually take multiple molting, but if the spider lives long enough it will regenerate the missing leg. When a spider gets mites, the best way to get rid of them is continuous cleaning of the cage and taking a q-tip and dipping one end into Vaseline and pulling the mites off the tarantula.The only other insects worse than mites are ants because they can consume a whole spider by attacking it in force.
Article by Tom Bowen Jr.