Setting Up a Tarantula Cage

Video Transcript

"In this clip, we're going to talk about setting up your tarantula's home. So there's a lot of stuff that you need, but it's really easy to get started. First off, you're going to need an enclosure with a tight fitting lid, so something that will definitely cover the entire top of your enclosure, like this ten gallon aquarium with the tight fitting lid, so that we don't have anybody escape. If you have a large tarantula, a ten gallon tank is going to be a perfect enclosure. If you have a smaller tarantula, a smaller enclosure, something like this with a lid will be great. So what we'll do when we set up our aquarium, is we're going to need to fill it with a substrate. Now substrate that you can choose to use is a coco-fiber potting soil, which is a scratchier soil but great nonetheless. A regular potting soil that hasn't been treated with any sort of chemicals, or vermiculite. Vermiculite is a soil additive that holds moisture really well. So if you have a tarantula from an area that requires a lot of moisture, vermiculite's a great product to use. But I think today we're going to use potting soil, so all you do is fill your enclosure, just smooth it out a little bit. That looks great. Another thing that you're going to want to add is something for your tarantula to hide under, a broken clay pot from your garden, or a hollowed out piece of tree bark. What these are used for is a nice place for your tarantula to seek safe haven. And last but not least, we're going to need a water dish with a rock in it, definitely for hydration of your animal but most importantly we want to add a rock into our water dish. Why a rock? A rock so that we can make sure that our spider doesn't fall into that water and drowned. So we're going to put some water into that water dish, not too much, and now it's time to put our tarantula into it's enclosure. We'll put her in there, close up the lid and let her have some time to acclimate. Once she acclimated, kind of made herself at home, done a little remodeling, then she'll definitely be happy and healthy in her new enclosure."