now before you lose your minds and go
crazy down in my comments hear me out
first
[Music]
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
[Music]
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
[Music]
and of course it wouldn't be a tarantula
collective enclosure without a skull
[Music]
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
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
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
[Music]
i feel like that's looking pretty good i
think we're about ready to move in these
spiders
[Music]
so
[Music]
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
[Music]
so we'll go ahead and get that one moved
in
[Music]
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
[Music]
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
[Music]
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
[Music]
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
[Music]