Questions about SPIDERS

18 years ago

Ok, I'm sure most of you remember the "spider horror story" I posted last April. The post has had surprising longevity in this forum.

I have bad news. Somehow, through cricket shipments, many large (1"), fat spiders have taken up permanent residence in my terrarium room. Also, they have MOVED INTO MY TERRARIUMS. Around the time I noticed the spiders, I found that two of my baby RETF's were dead. One day the frogs were eating and healthy...the next day they literally dropped dead. There were at least 4 spiders living in their cage. In my opinion, the deaths were caused by the spiders. Is this plausible?

The spider webs are a pain!!! They are literally ruining my terrariums. Unfortunalty, those spiders that live in the terrariums have found ample food and water, and they are breeding. In fact, the RETF cage had 3 spider egg sacs in it. HOW DO I GET RID OF THE SPIDERS? This is literally my worst nightmare!

Thanks in advance for your help.

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Comments (6)

noob_master_flex
18 years ago
i wouldn't doubt the spider killed your frogs to get rid of them i would use a stick or paper towels to safely removed them but since your frogs are dead i would kill the spiders out of rage thats just me though
iliketerrariums
18 years ago
I wish Iknew what to tell you!? I had a couple of ideas but it all comes back to the fact that they are in the room too, if you did manage to get them out of the tanks (or room) the chances of reinfestation are great,no matter what you do I think it is a huge job that will take some time! Removing the vivs from the room runs the chance of introducing the little critters to the rest of the house, but, even if you do this, removing the spiders from the vivs is in itself a brain breaker! you will have to remove the eggs and live spiders and hope you dont miss any, spray the entire room, then wait till it takes affect, air out the room, and still have to be extremly carefull with residue from the spray! Im sure there is an organic spray on the market, but will still be very carefull using that,place the vivs back in the room and hope for the best! or if your room is pretty much reptile proof, you can buy a few geckos and let them go to town! buy one for each tank and a few for the room, just make sure to check out which type of gecko will be a good tank mate for your frogs. Id go with the geckos, unless someone comes up with a better plan that doesnt involve poison, which Im sure someone will! ) I hope you solve this problem as I have had a problem with small moths in my tank and have yet to get rid of them!
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iliketerrariums
18 years ago
Guess what! I mentioned above that I was having a problem with tiny moths in my terrarium and mentioned that you should try geckos for your spider problem, well....I placed three Bahama Enoles (not geckos) that were born in my bigger terrarium into the terrarium with the moths and oh boy! They are going to town on those moths! I think that soon my moth problem will be history! and when their done Ill just pop them back into their orig tank! I think you should give it a try, unless your frogs are really small, as in,"mouth size" (enole mouth that is!) just be sure they will be OK together before you try it. cya!
lucy
18 years ago
Yes, but moths don't have poisonous bites!
iliketerrariums
18 years ago
Lizards/enoles/frogs eat plenty of insects including spiders that are poisonous, not that I would want to lose an enole but,I would rather risk an enole than risk losing all of my frogs =)
paul_
18 years ago
Actually rather unlikely that the spiders harmed your frogs directly. Unless your frogs were absolutely, ridiculously small & the spiders huge to boot [at least 3 inches across] or were blackwidows, that they attacked your frogs is highly doubtful at best. More likely-- if anything-- they may have outcompeted the frogs for food. Otherwise you may have had another problem that you have yet to ID.

Btw, do research carefully if you do decide to add lizards or other herps in w/ your frogs ... many may decided to snack on the frogs.

Questions about SPIDERS

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noob_master_flex

iliketerrariums

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