About a week and a half ago I received an A. Avic through the mail. He is presumed male but has not hooked out yet. He was missing a leg when I recieved him. The first four days I had him, he was not in good health, but had a sweet disposition. He seemed to enjoy being handled, he moved slowly, and he would sit with me for as long as i wanted to hold him. Then he started eating, and being a bit more active, but still a good-natured pet.

The problem I have is this - I have him in my bedroom. My house has an INCREDIBLE central air system, that seems to pump more cool air into my bedroom than any other room in the house, but the bedroom is the only safe room, as I have cats that mess with anything in a tank. I also have my G. Rosea in there (she's an ill tempered meanie) and she does fine in the cooler and more dry conditions, of course. But I know that AVicularia are tropical, and the A/c in that room tends to battle it out with the hydrometer.

How often is too often to mist? I have read that it should only be done every three days to a week. I have saran wrap over 80% of the mesh top of the tank which helps a bit, but no matter what I do, even misting lightly once a DAY, at some point in the day I find the hydrometer dropped to 60 percent. Since I started misting more often, he's gone from docile and sweet to attacking the spray bottle every time I go to mist. He seems overall happy, he eats well, I think he needs a molt because he has the missing leg, but I'm afriad that will be his maturing molt so I'm not in a hurry to get him there. But I know they're tropical and enjoy over 70% humidity at the very least. How low can it get before its dangerous to him? How many times is too many times a week to mist in there? He's starting to hate me, and I don't want him fearing my hand in the enclosure, because he was an awesome handling spider, and I sure don't have that relationship with my "most docile beginner species" Rosie (yeah, yeah.)....I don't want to lose my little friend because I try to keep him happy!

Hopefully someone can help..

Congrats on your Avic!

I've found with most Avicularia frequent misting is not required. Most of the care sheets you read on this genus are going to tell you to keep them tropical, which usually leads to folks keeping them *too* wet and over-stressing about providing the correct amount of humidity.

Covering the mesh screen is a great start to holding in ambient humidity within the enclosure itself. Do you have a water dish for him in the enclosure? If not, get one. Misting does almost nothing to raise the humidity in the enclosure itself for any sustained period of time. A dish full of water, allowed to evaporate on its own, will do much more. If you still want to spray a side of his enclosure a couple of times a week for him to drink from, that's fine (I have many Avicularia that would rather drink off the walls than dip their faces in a water dish - even an elevated one), but you need not mist daily. No matter what, do not directly mist your spider, either. That's a sure fire way to tork him off.

What kind of substrate are you using? You can use a mixture of peat and vermiculite (or peat and coco fiber) to help with humidity issues. Wet the substrate until it's damp (just damp, not swampy), and allow it to dry out before wetting it down again. Peat tends to hold moisture better than most substrates, so mixing it with whatever your using and wetting it down will help keep the ambient humidity better. Like the open water dish, this will be a slower evaporation into the enclosure itself.

What kind of hygrometer are you using? Is it digital or one of those plastic discs with a dial? The digital ones are much more accurate, or at least, that's what I've found in my own experience. I had one of the discs in a bone dry tank once, and it was reading 80% humidity.

Hopefully, some of these tips will help you and your little friend out a bit. Avics are a lot tougher than most folks give them credit for, especially as adults. If you have any other questions, please feel free to shout them out! There are lots of folks here that are happy to help, and I'm sure if I've left something out, someone else will chime in.

Good luck!
Jen

Thanks a lot
Let me see....
I use eco earth and a bit of peat moss on top, which seems to stay wet for a while.

I do have one of those cheap dial-esque hydrometers, and I can't say that its accurate for sure, but it does move up and down with the conditions in the room, so I feel like its at least relatively on target.

I do my darnedest not to mist him when I mist the enclosure, but its almost impossible to avoid getting him at least a little bit. But I can certainly cut back on the misting.

I do keep a water dish. Having been a pet owner of all sorts of animals my whole life, it goes against all of my natural instinct to not give a water dish to something, even if they never use it. His is down on the floor, mostly because there really isn't anywhere higher to put it.

I'm just glad I don't have to worry as much and I can stop harassing him with the spray bottle for a while. He was such a good natured little guy, and I really don't want to condition him to see my hand and go on the defense. Thanks again!

Arboreals are elevated in the wild, which means more airflow, and they aren't as used to as humid or moist conditions as many terrestrials. Avicularia tend to stay in their nests and not wander often; I also think a water bowl should be in the cage, but an Avic will probably get most or all of it's water from water drops on the silk.

Your biggest challenge is the A/C in your room. Cool/cold air is going to slow a tropical animal's metabolism down and may effect it's health. A wet cage will make it worse, but it needs a certain amount of humdity. What's the temp in your room? Is the cage exposed to a vent?

Of course you know, no spider 'enjoys' being handled. It's all a matter of what they'll tolerate; some draw the line sooner than others. This is sometimes interpreted as 'liking' or 'disliking' the mysterious giant hand that occasionally scoops them up. Not a natural event that occurs in the wild. Nor do they have the mental capacity to understand what kind of lifeform you are or what you're trying to accomplish when you pick it up.

A deep substrate which is kept, in this case, damp will release humidity. The "trick" is to adjust the ventilation to encourage airflow, but keep the humidity higher than most ambient room temperatures. Personally, I often dump water down the side of the enclosure, or via a tube/pvc to soak the bottom of the substrate upwards. With arboreals, I flood upwards to within 10% of the surface. The surface then stays bone dry (less annoyance from mites, spring-tails and fungus gnats), yet makes water available to the atmosphere inside the enclosure. I couple this with a water dish near the tube web, or two, and usually have great luck with arboreals.

The advice you are reading here, is great, but if you'd like to see more, the *retired* user "Frank" and "Warpig" both had excellent photos of Avicularia enclosures and care tips.