Tex

I thought I was never gonna get babies! Sure, it's a nice surprise when they finally put the prom dress on but I want to be a grand Pappy! I got 6 small/med nymphs February 2015 and exactly one year to the day I finally found babies, felt like Christmas morning! Few months later now and a few more females popped cause now there's 100's! Happy Birthday to me!

I love em! There seems to be plenty hanging out in plain sight until I open the bin then most run for cover under the leaves and bark. Fun to handle, multiply like mad, and as it has been said before CUTE!

I keep them on 1-1/2" coco husk, that's the coarse stuff, with several layers of bark and leaves on top. I add enough water each week to keep the coco moist. This creates a nice moisture gradient, stays dry up top. They stick tons of ooths between the bark in the lower layer near the moist coco and the little ones like to hang out there too. The larger nymphs and adults prefer the upper layers. I keep it right around 80 deg F and they are breeding like crazy! So much so that I'm considering moving them to a cooler area. They are eating hardwood leaves, apple, various squash, and I occasionally put in a small dish of dog food, sometimes gets eaten and other times not at all. The apple and squash are devoured readily though.

I feed mine cooked meat as well, fun to watch the frenzy! They seem to favor beef and pork over poultry though. When I have leftovers that are about to get tossed I'll cut it into small chunks, trim all fat, rinse under hot water, toss in the bin and watch the madness!

i give mine small bits of cooked meat occasionally. When I have beef, pork, or chicken leftovers I give most to the Orange heads and it drives them into a frenzy then the Ivories, they love it too but not as much as the latter, then the caves but I'll have to check on them the next day to check for their leftovers. If they have leftovers then it goes to the Orange heads, they'll never turn it down.

Go to McMaster-Carr.com as stated above. The 30 mesh I am referring to is there. 30 × 30, Opening Size: 0.0268", Open Area: 65%, Wire Diameter: 0.0065", Item: 9230T28. There is 100 and 120 mesh in the “Corrosion-Resistant Type 304 Stainless Steel Wire Cloth” category. Prices on this site are also about half of the site you referenced. Just a note, 120 mesh is a size commonly used to contain fruit fly cultures.

Lemon Guava is a tough sell at my place!

So far the 30x30 works for fresh new babies of Shelfordella lateralis, Periplaneta White eye and normal, and Therea petiveriana and olegrandjeani. I haven't tried it with Gyna or Surinam yet. I'll also try with Green Banana and Pale Bordered field roaches in the near future. FYI The lateralis babies walk right through the standard 18x16 aluminum window screen, though I do use it for larger species.

That is standard window screen which is 18x16 mesh size, same as what you can get at your local home improvement store. It's cheap so you don't really need to buy100 feet of it. Most likely the fiberglass screen you are already using is also 18x16. So the holes in the aluminum window screen will be the same size as fiberglass screen. You mentioned some of your nymphs slipped through, red runner nymph walk through this size mesh as well. Do yourself and your wallet a favor and buy a smaller quantity at any home improvement store to try out or better yet get a smaller mesh size as I mentioned in the posts above.

Found this lady in the bin today, thought it was worth sharing!

I too am interested in building large colonies of B. giganteus, A. tessellata, B. fusca, and B. dubia.

I would love to have some B. Giganteus. Please pm me if you are interested in selling some or trading for some tarantulas!

I just received them from Kyle as well, 3 days ago, along with some question marks and glowspots. I love getting new editions!

Thanks for the confirmation Dude! Do you have any tips on husbandry? Any special needs, temp, humidity, diet? I have them on moist coco fiber/husk mix with rotting oak and oak leaves at 80-85 deg F. I havn't had them long enough to figure favorite foods. Thanks

Good day. I have only had these for a few days and I can't seem to find any specific information regarding Pseudomops septentrionalis nymphs. I would like to confirm if the nymphs can or cannot climb glass or smooth plastic. Everything I come across on the net says they are "good climbers" I'm assuming that is just adults as my breif observation of the nymphs is that they cannot. Thanks

So it's three years later now, so tell us, did the standard aluminum window screen work out for those species?

Just go to McMaster-Carr.com and type "screen mesh" in the find box. This will bring up a wide variety of materials and grades, even precut discs. The "High-Volume Lightweight-Particle-Filtering Stainless Steel Wire Cloth", aka bolting grade in 304 stainless seems to be the best bang for the buck. Keep in mind though that most if not all of the 20x20 metal screen will have bigger openings than your 20x20 fiberglass because the metal wires used will be thinner than the coated fiberglass. I'm have some of the 30x30 with .027" openings that I described in the first post and so far works great for the lateralis babies. I place some lateralis and Periplaneta americana oothecai in condiment cups covered with the mesh and placed them back in their respective containers to test. I'm still waiting for the americana to hatch and I will be doing the same with a gravid Gyna and Surinam as well as some Therea oothecai.

Wire mesh is available in many different materials, grades, and sizes. All else equal the material is going to dictate relative price. Among the fine mesh sizes suitable for this application plain carbon steel and 304 stainless wire are most economical followed by brass, other copper alloys, and other nickel alloys. The most common grades are mill, market, and bolting grade. The standard for each grade dictates which wire diameter and mesh count combinations are available for that grade. These combinations give a verity of % of open area for air flow and mesh aperture sizes. These are the characteristics along with cost that I am looking to optimize for everyone's benefit. So please , EVERYONE share your experiences, good or bad, regarding mesh size e.g. "I tried window screen, 14x18 mesh, and my oriental babies walked right through." or "I use 50 mesh mill grade and even springtails can't get through" So far I have found 304 stainless bolting grade to be most economical now I need some collaboration to determine what the maximum opening size is to contain even the smallest roach nymphs. I found a 30x30 mesh with a .027" opening size and 65% open area. Of course I could get 100, 200, etc, mesh but that would be overkill, air flow would be reduced, and cost goes up. So is .027" a small enough opening to contain small nymph species? Will something a little bigger, .041", still do the job? Is .027" too big, need to go smaller? Thanks for the feedback

Yes, so the reason I mentioned Gyna as well is that I am adding a vent at substrate level to increase circulation. Do you use fine mesh on anything? If so, what size?

I have some 304 stainless 30x30 mesh screen. The openings are .027" across and .038" diagonally. It looks to me that it will be sufficient to contain tiny babies such as Gyna, Periplaneta, Therea, and Shelfordella lateralis. What say you?

I cut my aluminum screen .5" larger that my opening to get .25" overlap all around. Then I use a soldering iron with a woodburning attachment to melt the screen edge into the plastic. Good solid install, the screen will tear before the edges ever let loose!