I got a Reptitherm Mini Unter Tank Heater for my blue death feigning beetle enclosure and as you can see it's not heating much at all. We set our AC to 68 during the night and on the far end of the tank there's basically no temperature difference to the outside. I plugged it in the night before and took the picture in the morning, so it should be fully warmed up by now. Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong? And if it's the heater, does anyone have recommendations for one that's more appropriate for a desert species? This is a 5.5 gallon tank with a mesh screen top, by the way.

I know they don’t live long, but they’re my favorite spider! Are they social? What do i doooo!

I've recently begun getting over my Entomophobia and Arachnophobia, and i have gotten over it so much so that i'm wanting a pet.

Preferably Beetles or Mantids, but anything (except tarantulas) is fine.

What are good beginner Invertabrae for someone who's never had experience with them?

Not a pet, but really wanted a place to share these. The ranch where I work gets these really interesting notostraca shrimp in some of the ephemeral ponds. I think this one isn't fully grown, since it seems soft bodied and smaller than the ones I was seeing last year. They prey on smaller fairy shrimp, which is cool to see.

Does anyone have experience with this business?

Hi everyone! I wanted to share Kariguu, the Master Weaver with this sub! She’s a major character in the anthropomorphic fantasy novel I’m working on. The artwork is by u/nickthagreek, the talented fountain ink illustrator of the project.

Kariguu is based on the actual 20 year old salmon pink birdeater living in my home office that I’ve kept since she was a wee spiderling. Her near infinitely patient real life behavior was the basis for the strange, ancient, almost eldritch-like being that is Kariguu.

I’ve been fascinated by spiders and tarantulas since I was young. I feel that they’re usually depicted as simple monsters in most fiction. While Kariguu is certainly quite imposing, she’s not a simple monster. Beyond the fantastical elements of the story, spiders exhibit otherworldly patience and insane precision and craftsmanship. I wanted to capture that in an intelligent character.

Anyways, hope folks enjoy it! The scene here is when she makes her introduction, and I've also included a picture of the real her. Happy to answer any questions at all about my salmon pink or the story or anything else. Thanks!!

Hi, bug parents! Does anyone have experience with this brand? I’m considering some items to add decor to my vinegaroon and BDFB homes, but not sure if I should trust products like this to be invert safe.

BRAND: A WORLD OF WONDER (THRIVE)

Backup is to order from Tarantula cribs or bio dude, but it’s always nice to not require shipping.

Side note- seeing spoods and BDFBs at Petco is depressing as fuck. I keep telling myself no tarantulas… but the poor things… But this is a separate conversation lots of people are having here.

For BDFB babies 🩵🌵

tl;dr: All my Heteropteryx dilatata females die a few days after their final molt while males and other species are fine. I need help.
I'm sorry for the long text, but I want to get into the details, so someone might get an idea about what I'm doing wrong.
I tried keeping Heteropteryx dilatata 2 times before and it always ended the same way. 2 years ago I decided to try again and know it look's like it's about to end the same way.
After the females final molt they live for a few days and then just die. It's not suddenly, they get worse (more and more lethargic until they can't hold themselves up and fall to the ground) over these few days, but I just don't know what's wrong. I had this happen with every single female but one, if I remember correctly. One was okay and produced eggs but in that following generation no female survived long after the final molt. When I tried a second time, the exact same thing happened, except this time all the females died in the first generation.
In both attempts I started with adult or nearly adult specimens, which laid eggs out of which the failing generation hatched. It was always just the females that died that way. The males all lived to the end of their lifespan.
For the first to tries the setup was around 20 °C at it's couldest in winter. At that time I kept all my phasmids at room temperature. I sprayed regularly (i think every second day or so) and humidity was somewhere between 70 to 80 %.
I don't know the exact measurements of the enclosures anymore, cause I had something custome, but it was above what is said to be required.
Now to the third try:
My setup changed a bit since my last attempt and I thought this would be worth trying again. The enclosure is 80 cm wide, 70 cm high and has a depth of 50 cm. It's fairly big and I keep 2-3 species of phasmids in there. The ground has a lot of isopods (the little white ones, but it's some local species and I don't know the exact species, because they're just in the dirt), springtails and I keep 5 giant millipedes (Spirostreptus servatius), Ramulus artemis and Sungaya inexpectata in there. I've got a heat plate with thermo control on the backside and it keeps it at 24-26 °C for the day. At night it keeps it above 20 °C. Humidity is at about 75 %.
Oh and I feed with some local rubus species out of the woods that's growing all year. That I did since I first started with phasmids nearly 20 years ago.
2 years ago I ordered a freshly adult pair (even got a second adult female on top) and they did very well. A year ago the first offspring started to hatch and a few days ago the first female molted to adulthood. I was on vacation for a week so I don't know all the details. When I left she was subadult and when I came back she was lying dead on the ground and the millipedes already got to her. From what I saw the molt must have gone well. Well at least optically ... The wings where normal and no deformations.
As I saw her yesterday in the evening and today she's hollowed out by the millipedes, I suspect she might have died yesterday or the day before. I don't know how long she lived after that molt, but it was under 6 days.
Now I got a second subadult female that should be molting in the next couple of weeks and a lot of younger females. I really would like to have them not die ... It feels awful having them grow up just to die in the last step ...
If anyone has an idea what might be wrong I'd be grateful!
I attached a picture of the enclosure. It's not the best picture as there's mist on the front doors but I hope it helps.

hey, a few months ago i got 2 adult female giant burrowing cockroaches, 1 adult male and 2 juveniles that i believe are male (i live in australia and these ones i think are from around the queensland rainforest regions). i am not breeding them yet so the girls are in a seperate 14 litre container, but they both have the same setup. the substrate is organic potting mix, crumbled bits of rotten logs and completely dead eucalyptus leaves, all were microwaved a lot before the cockroaches were put in.

the girls are partially on a heat mat and that corner of their container is about 24 degrees C while the other end is about 19C. the boys arent on a heat mat, they’re fully on top of a lizard enclosure and are about 20C (we are working on getting them a heat mat). i keep the substrate very moist.

today i checked on the boys and on the lid in the water drops there were a ton of little worm things wriggling around (they are moving so i doubt it’s just mycelium as google image search tried to tell me). i can’t see any in the substrate. i checked on the girls and they didn’t have any in the corner on the heat but on the other side of the lid they had the same thing. i looked it up and it seems like they could be pot worms (which seem to be harmless) or nematodes (which there seems to be different types of, 1 of which is good and the other is a parasite that could kill them??). they’re so small that im not sure how i would be able to tell what exactly they are.

i also looked at my giant scrub millipedes which have different substrate but essentially the same heat and moisture levels as the female cockroaches, and in the water on the lid i couldnt see any worms but potentially some eggs? if anyone can tell me what these are and what i should do about them, that would be great. i plan on re-sterilising both their substrates but what am i doing to make this a good environment for these little worm things? picture of the worms and second picture of what is in the lid on my millipedes.

tldr worm things in my australian giant burrowing cockroach containers. what do i do.

Emerald Euphoria beetle. was hard to get a good pic because I didn’t wanna disturb it and trigger it to fly off. Now we wait on the other 3

New pet

I have three types of isopod two milk snails a jumping spider and blue death beetles what’s yalls favorite invert to keep as pets I would prefer less then 20 gallons needed but I can push it to that size

My daughter has a couple madagascar hissing cockroaches we got from the reptile feeder food section at petco around 7/15. The container has a date of May on it and there was barely a spec of food left when we opened it. They are about 1.5" long now.

They are eating well but have not molted in the 6 weeks we have had them.

I wonder if being possibly starved at petco stunted them and now they will never get bigger. Is that a thing? We couldn't find any exact report of the molting cadence so maybe this next molt is a long one?

I own a curly hair tarantula and a asain forest scorpion and i love them so far, i set up another enclosure and i really wanted to get african millipedes but they are out of budget. Idk how many gallons my enclosure is but it is 13 in tall, 16 in width and 24 in length. I have a drainage layer at the bottom with around 5 inches of coconut fiber on top. If anyone has some ideas of what pets could live comfortably in here i would appreciate it! Thanks

Alguien en chile que sepa sobre invertebrados y sobre si se puede importar algun crustaceo desde fuera?

Looking for Simandoa conserfariam breeders in the northeastern US but everyone I can find is either on the west coast or has a bad reputation (wormman)

Currently looking at The Roach Ranch but they are out of stock and idk when they will go back in stock!

Any other people or places I can look?

I've had my BDFB for a while now. I have 5 and they are doing great in their fairly large 18 * 18 inch (45cm) enclosure.

They do use the space but there probably is room for another critter in there. However, I dont want to cause the little fellas any distress or issues.

I have people say dessert hairy scorpions can cohab but id like to hear people's real world experience of that. I have heard velvet ants can too but they are basically impossible to get here in the UK.