now before you lose your minds and go

crazy down in my comments hear me out

first

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welcome to the tarantula collective my

name is richard and today we are setting

up a large communal for the nia hetheli

nc now if you've been around the

tarantula hobby for a while you know

that there are a few species of

tarantula that can be kept communally

the most popular of course is the

monosyntrophys balfouri or the socotra

island blue baboon they seem to do very

well in communals but they can be kind

of expensive another popular species is

the postal ethereum metallica but again

they're a little pricey and it's a

little iffy on whether they're communal

or they just tolerate being in close

proximity but there is one species out

there that the hobby seems to kind of be

split down the middle some say it's not

a communal species others have had some

pretty good luck with them now recently

i recorded a podcast with dr linda rayer

she is a professor in the entomology

department of cornell university and she

specializes in social spiders during our

conversation i brought up communal

tarantula species you need neopolithila

insane that's a communal i've always

been a little cautious about i'm glad to

hear that you've been having so much

success but i think there's like two or

three guys that i saw on youtube that

tried to keep him communally and it went

bad and they end up separating them back

out and like lost half of them but i saw

when i was in virginia beach tanya was

having a lot of success with with her

communal there they came for me i have

enough to populate the us

right now i might have to hit you up

because i think i've only got one right

now one little individual hanging out

and seriously if you want nc i got nc

okay

you just cover the shipping and i will

send them to you not miss you that

sounds like a good deal i think it'd be

fun to have a an nc communal down here

now if you'd like to hear the entire

podcast i will be sure to link it at the

end of this video but she sent me a

communal in the mail and they just

arrived today there's probably about 15

or 16 nia hetheli insist in here uh

looks like there's some adults some

juvies i even think i saw a little

spiderling walking around now before we

go any further i want to take a second

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now i gave her a call we talked on the

phone for a little bit i really wanted

to pick her brain to figure out what

type of enclosure i should use because

searching on google you see amongst the

people who do keep them communally

there's still some conflict as to how

best to set them up some suggest they

need to be kind of kept compactly in a

small enclosure that way they don't get

territorial and fight others say they

need a large enclosure so they have

plenty of room to spread out so i went

straight to the source and talked to dr

rayer and she suggested that i put them

all in one large enclosure and keep them

similarly to how she has her enclosure

set up she provides plenty of hides as

well as a lot of vertical cork bars so

they have plenty of anchor points for

webbing their tunnels but we'll get more

into that in a second right now we're

going to set up this enclosure and get

these spiders moved into their new home

now i'm using a large exoterra 18 by 18

by 24 enclosure i'm going to set it up

semi-arborally so they do have plenty of

substrate to burrow but there's gonna be

a whole lot of room for them to web up

and kind of give each other space and to

take things up a notch i'm gonna set it

up bioactively as well that wasn't

really my intention from the beginning

but i had a whole bunch of like half

empty bags of substrate i had half of a

large bag of ruptur soil i had some

jungle mix and i had some bio dude tara

sahara substrate there's no rhyme or

reason to it i didn't i didn't do this

intentionally i'm not suggesting this is

the best substrate for this species it's

literally just the open bags i had

laying around that build up the

enclosure but since i'm using that

biodude substrate i mean it's dirt but

it isn't dirt cheap huh

ah what do you know it's a bioactive

substrate and i didn't want to waste it

so i threw in some springtails and some

dwarf isopods and took some clippings

from the plants and my other bioactive

enclosures to plant and hopefully this

is going to be a beautiful setup now

luckily i just got in a large bulk

shipment of cork bark and if you want to

see where i got it from i'll link that

video up above so we're going to go

ahead and put in all of the different

cork bark and wood and get the plants

planted then after that we'll move in

the spiders now what i did is i took

those large cork bark rounds that i got

a few days ago and i've cut them up into

small little pieces dr rayer suggested

coconut shells make great hides for them

but i didn't have any i used the last

ones i had in my dart frog enclosure but

the concepts the same the nice little

places for them to go in web up hide and

kind of separate so we're gonna lay

those out in the enclosure i got some

large tall pieces that we're gonna put

along the sides so there's gonna be

plenty of places for them to anchor

their webbing and hide and retreat and

it's i think it's gonna look cool so to

start off i'm putting all of the the

long tall pieces in the large pieces

first and this is a front opening

enclosure so i don't want to get them

too close to the door because i don't

want to wet the door shut

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now i might actually get a couple more

tall pieces because that really doesn't

provide as much cover as i thought but i

got another couple pieces of wood too so

for right now we're going to add some of

these other like kind of hide type

pieces

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and of course it wouldn't be a tarantula

collective enclosure without a skull

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all right i think that looks pretty good

they got plenty of places to hide plenty

of web anchors i guess now it's time to

get the plants in now as you can see

this is just kind of a hodgepodge of

plants got some uh different types of

pothos that i pulled out of a few

enclosures i'm not even sure what these

plants are they're in my uh leopard

geckos enclosure and we got some

wandering jew i'm sure there's a

scientific name that's not nearly as

offensive but i don't know what it is

i'll put it down below these are nice

because they're going to grow and wrap

around stuff give them even more places

to hide and more places to anchor their

webbing

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now we got all the plants in i'm gonna

do a little bit more decorating we'll

add some like just different leaves and

that actually has two purposes one it

looks cool it gives it more of a natural

appearance but it's also food and

shelter for the isopods and the

springtails that are in there but before

i do that i've got this i've been

putting this it's called stone deserts

by exoterra it's mainly like scorpions

and and desert reptiles but i sprinkle

some of my enclosures on the top and it

really kind of looks cool

sphagnum moss i just like to shred it up

break it all over there and i use both

the white and the green kind i also like

to shove it in any cracks or crevices

just gives a more natural kind of look

and just mix it up a little bit with the

substrate

now put in some leaves

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i feel like that's looking pretty good i

think we're about ready to move in these

spiders

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so

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so all the plants are watered everything

is set up i put the lid on the enclosure

the only things left to do is to move

these spiders in now you may be nervous

i'm a little nervous but dr rayer

assures me that this is going to work

well and these are all from communals

that are like multi-generational so

their whole life they've known nothing

but living communally so maybe the fact

that it's generation after generation

after generation of being kept

communally maybe they'll be more adapted

to surviving this type of enclosure and

hopefully it goes really well so we're

gonna count how many we have get them

set up in here and i'll keep you updated

as time goes by you know just kind of

let you know how the communals go and

how everybody's doing but if it works

out anywhere near as well as dr rayer's

enclosure probably gonna end up having

tons of these in no time soon so let's

check out these beautiful tarantulas get

them moved into this nice new home up

first this is uh just says five or six

neo from another group plus one young

baby

oh wow they've already started webbing

up this little deli cup far i don't see

anyone i mean i can't not right on top

at least i can see them like in through

the sides and stuff

so that's one down see another big one

right up here see if we can get it to

come on in

so we've got three in so far i just

found the fourth one

all right i found the fifth one and the

little spiderling

oh wow that one's big

that is cool

definitely get a picture of that

so far we've got five two that are solid

adults at least and one little

spiderling now this one says eight and

they all look to be pretty good size

they're dwarf species so they're not

very big this enclosure has given them

more than enough room i think they're

going to be really happy in here the

difficulty with rehousing communals is

that there's so many of them you got to

have the doors open to get them in so

not only are you watching the spiders

that you're moving out of the deli cups

into the enclosure you also have to keep

an eye out for all the spiders that are

already in the enclosure that may try to

come out the front door and this is

they've already webbed this thing up

shut there's one right up on top so i'm

gonna try and get this lid open oh it

also looks like it molted not too long

ago look at that beauty

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so we'll go ahead and get that one moved

in

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gotta be very thorough make sure

nobody's hiding these paper towels

i see two right next to each other look

at that they're like they're cuddling

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now these are actually

both color forms it looks like there's

the normal color form

and the gold color form which is pretty

impressive

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well

and it's on me

uh-oh

yeah i got you

oh what were you doing you're not

escaping me

let's get you back in your home

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so a huge thanks to dr linda rayer from

cornell university for sending me all of

these spiders and i will keep you all

updated on how this communal progresses

i'm going to give it a few days for

everyone to settle in start webbing

things up and take some more video

because i really have high hopes this is

going to work out well and it's just

going to look amazing now if you want to

listen to the conversation where we

really dive deep talking about social

spiders and communal tarantulas just

click this thumbnail right here and if

you want to see my other videos about

communal tarantulas just click this

thumbnail right there as always i

appreciate you watching subscribe if you

want to see more like this video if you

like communal species and i will see you

next tuesday

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