# Ugh..Spiders



## Ashli (Aug 28, 2005)

I have a 36x18x36 vivarium that I finished about a month ago. Twp Benedicta call it home

At first I thought the webbing was just a fungus or mold. I couldn't find any spiders, so I moved the frogs from their old tank to the new one.

Last night I peeked at night with a flashlight and found a tiny spider in a web. I grabbed a turkey baster to try and grab it. I'm pretty clumsy and it managed to run off before I could do anything.

Tonight I peeked again and now I see at least 3 of them. 2 of them are super tiny (the size of melos) and the other is maybe 3x the size of those. They seem harmless enough and were interesting to watch, but they do give me the heebie jeebies.

They are brown, and the biggest one has some cream markings. They are very shiny and they seem to have more of a sheet type web. 

If they are likely to stay small I'm pretty okay with them staying. My main concern is that they are going to get bigger and make a meal of my frogs.

What should I do? I could try to vacuum method, but I am a little paranoid I might suck up a frog. Removing the frogs is an option, but I'd like to avoid it. They both are great at hiding when they want to, and I don't want to cause unecessary stress.

Help?


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## ZookeeperDoug (Jun 5, 2011)

Kill it with fire!!!!!!!!



All joking aside, a while back I had some of these get into a Viv. Stopped feeding for a while and they ended up food.


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## oddlot (Jun 28, 2010)

I hate spiders in the viv.When they get big enough to see I just squish them.I wouldn't use the vaccuum.You would feel terrible if you sucked up one of your little ones.


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## clifford (Oct 17, 2008)

I was actually just going to post about spiders...although the spiders I'm seeing in my viv are far too large to be eaten-- I was wondering if anyone had ever had a frog eaten by a spider? The giant european house spiders (and several other species) on my property are plenty big enough to take a frog, and can get through pretty much any gap air can, unfortunately. 

I've seen my frogs take small spiders, so I agree with Doug, they eat small ones readily (at least tincs, I haven't seen one of my thumbs do it yet) and I've not experienced any problem with that. If it isn't thead hijacking (sorry!), has anyone had problems with large spiders as well as small?


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## oldlady25715 (Nov 17, 2007)

Put some moist rolled up cardboard with fishflkes or yeast on it, in the tank for a few days to gather the springs. Remove it and the frogs, store each somewhere while you Co2 bomb the suckers in the tank. Repeat as necessary.


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## oddlot (Jun 28, 2010)

small spiders get big.Usually the tiny baby spiders get in through the screening and fatten up on the frogs feeders ,then get too big.Even if they can't eat the spiders,the frogs will be competing with the spiders for food which is enough for me to get rid of them.As we all know depending on the species of spider,they can be poisonous enough to kill or badly injure humans,never mind tiny frogs,so in my opinion it's not worth taking a chance leaving them in the viv.

It's easy to squish them by hand and keep up on them .This way you will have little to no stress to the frogs and you don't have to move them.


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## oldlady25715 (Nov 17, 2007)

oddlot said:


> As we all know depending on the species of spider,they can be poisonous enough to kill or badly injure humans....It's easy to squish them by hand and keep up on them .


Hmmmm. Do you wear gloves or something?


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## oddlot (Jun 28, 2010)

Nope,I probably should,the fat juicy ones pop like a grape


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## macadlo (May 14, 2010)

About a half year back I had a major problem with these same little bastards. I was away for a couple of weeks and my father was taking care of the frogs but he did not see these little invaders slowly settling in. In the couple of weeks that I was away they established a large colony in almost every viv and in the springtail cultures I had running. When I came back I couldn’t believe the disaster. I was fighting them every day for the next 2 months. The speed they reproduce is incredible. The large female is capable of producing 3-4 cocoons full of eggs every week. My springtail cultures got overrun and were fully decimated as well as the micro fauna in every viv. They hide and make their nests in the leaf litter and feed on the micro fauna. My advice is to kill them all!!!!!!!


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## Enlightened Rogue (Mar 21, 2006)

Nothing like the weekly spider post.

John


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## jacobi (Dec 15, 2010)

Enlightened Rogue said:


> Nothing like the weekly spider post.
> 
> John


John, you've won a free trip to Australia!


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## Ashli (Aug 28, 2005)

Enlightened Rogue said:


> Nothing like the weekly spider post.
> 
> John


I did a search first and didn't really find anything about tiny spiders..just lots of posts about jumpers and larger ones.


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## Dendrobati (Jul 27, 2012)

Whenever I see a spider in the tanks I call Brad to kill them...works really good for me!

Marta


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## Enlightened Rogue (Mar 21, 2006)

Dendrobati said:


> Whenever I see a spider in the tanks I call Brad to kill them...works really good for me!
> 
> Marta


Whenever I see a spider I scream 
Like a teenage girl who lost her cell phone

John


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## oddlot (Jun 28, 2010)

Enlightened Rogue said:


> Whenever I see a spider I scream
> Like a teenage girl who lost her cell phone
> 
> John


Haha,now I know what to get you for xmas John


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## Ashli (Aug 28, 2005)

Well, the fiancé and I did a search and destroy. We killed the biggest one and 2 tiny babies. I also tore down all the webbing.

And when I say we, I mean he did it because I couldn't. Something about their shiny, puffy bums just gives me the willies.

Not even an hour later and another tiny one is respinning it's web. Now I am wanting to hulk smash the whole tank.

So frustrating.


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## macadlo (May 14, 2010)

Ashli said:


> Not even an hour later and another tiny one is respinning it's web.


As I sad earlier - kill them all


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## Ashli (Aug 28, 2005)

I plan on killing them all. It's just a matter of hunting them all down. I'm not willing to remove the frogs and bomb the tank yet. I just moved them in there a month ago and I don't want to stress them.

I'll continue to take the stalking by night approach for now. This morning only the one web had been started up again. Hopefully I will find all of them soon.


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## oddlot (Jun 28, 2010)

Ashli said:


> I plan on killing them all. It's just a matter of hunting them all down. I'm not willing to remove the frogs and bomb the tank yet. I just moved them in there a month ago and I don't want to stress them.
> 
> I'll continue to take the stalking by night approach for now. This morning only the one web had been started up again. Hopefully I will find all of them soon.



One thing I can tell you (from being an avid spider hunter) that if you can't see them,they are usually at the highest point of the tank above the web,usually near the black lip.When I do a web cleanup,I search the top lip and can find them 90% of the time.


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## ZookeeperDoug (Jun 5, 2011)

When I worked at the El Paso Zoo, we had a huge Black Widow problem. Something about a room full of neodesha, racks, displays, feeder crickets escaping, etc. 

Needless to say we had weekly roundups with Dustbusters. We became quite good at hunting them down. Something that works great are glue traps. Obviously you can't do this in a Viv, and they're a risk if a frog gets out, but a fresh glue trap laid down near webs will usually catch a couple spiders overnight easily.

Anyone know about this peppermint oil? Obviously I wouldn't introduce it to a Viv, but I might consider dipping a rag in the solution and wiping down surfaces in the frog room and spraying under racks, etc.


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## Ashli (Aug 28, 2005)

oddlot said:


> One thing I can tell you (from being an avid spider hunter) that if you can't see them,they are usually at the highest point of the tank above the web,usually near the black lip.When I do a web cleanup,I search the top lip and can find them 90% of the time.


Crap. It's an Exo with glass siliconed into the top. I guess I'll have to cringe and just reach up and use a paper towel. As long as nothing crawls on me I will be fine.

I had Troy go into the tank last night to kill it and it had disapeared again. >_<


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