Meet the Member
Water Receiving Caps and Nozzles
Three Red Pygmy Heating Bulbs
Humidity Gauge Hole
Lift Up Half Deck
Trap Door Access
Deck Ventilation Holes SECTIONAL PLANS OF ARBOREAL & TERESTRIAL HEXAGON TERRARIUMS Fig 2
Water was initially pumped up into the terrarium through the central column using 4mm clear tubing to be distributed to each compartment.
The new designs utilise the same control unit, but this is not connected directly to the terrarium, but placed away below the counter unit, with the water and electrical supply brought up to and through the central column top.
Two methods of water distribution where used one had a distributor valve where one 4mm pipe supplied six 4mm pipes each connected to a brass nozzle and the other had the one 4mm pipe connected to a special chamber into which where connected the six brass nozzles. The arboreal terrarium had the six pipe method and the terrestrial terrarium had the chamber method.
The control panel timer dial allows the 12 24
volt water pump to be activated between 3.5 and 60 seconds giving a flow rate between 50 and 220 ml or 3.75ml / second, a water container was available for each terrarium and the final water feed rate per day being greater for the arboreal unit was achieved by controlling the water returning back to each container for the same period of time that was selected.
The base of the terrariums was made of melamine and the terrestrial one had six grooved columns for the six glass sides with MDF top lids and lower Perspex decking. The need for the lower ventilated decking was to have a safety level to prevent initial spider escape and to capture the water from each nozzle and allow this to flow downwards into a 50mm diameter reservoir cap and then into the compartment itself.
Ventilation is provided by multiple decking holes and the three larger holes in the central column cap where these can also be
closed if required to trim humidity value.
Access to the tarantula is by first removing the compartment lid and the then the front portion of the Perspex decking. In the arboreal unit a special hinged trap door was made for access, and to further restrict escape of these rather fast spiders.
A considerable amount of time was spent in the design and the making of these units but the benefits have been substantial, I have not recorded the data required but I do know that the tarantulas that have lived in these hexagon terrariums have had a longer life span compared to the ones that were previously housed in individual units were the humidity was controlled by manual spraying in water when observed to be needed.
With this hexagon design a considerable amount of space is saved rather than have an individual unit for each spider especially
The water container for the hexagon unit holds 1.85 litres and this will last 50 days supplying two compartments. There are only now two tarantulas left in the six capacity unit and should one die this would be wasting the full capacity, so I decided to design and make a single triangular unit to house one spider, which is of equal volume and size to one hexagon compartment. The same control unit will then be connected to this single unit and the six compartment unit dismantled. The new single unit is shown above and is made using plastic tubes for the corners through which at the rear one tube carries the water supply and electrical cable. The lid has not been shown in order to enhance this detail.
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