Some Questions (with story)

Whats up guys, just got my scorpion last weekend (Emperor) and I had a few questions that I haven't seen answered here when I searched.

I didn't intend for this to be in story form or so long, but that's how it turned out...SUMMARY AT BOTTOM

I bought him from a guy who said he's about a year old, he had him on bark substrate and had been feeding him small crickets. I had him in my car for a while in direct sunlight before I put my jacket over him to keep it dimmer. He was active while I was moving him around and settling him into his new home. Little did I know the heating pad that came with the 10 gallon enclosure he was in well...sucked (it worked, but it wasn't all that warm). He must've had him in a damper, warmer room than mine. He sat over that pad all night out of his hide(which I didn't realize wasn't over the heat pad), it got cool that night and the air in my room was probably around 63, and the enclosure he's in only has a screen top. He wouldn't take food either, I put some small crickets in there(all the petshop had) and dispite some initial reactions, he didn't eat or seem interested. The next morning I got up to check on him and he was in kind of an awkward position with his right claw kind of angled out to the right and the other in the natural position, tail curled in but flat. I feared the worst, so I gave him a little nudge with some forceps and he perked up pretty quick, not what I would call lethargic but far from quick. So I immediately drove to the pet store to get a new heating pad. I set some rectangular pieces of glass my dad found on top of the enclosure to keep in humidity, making sure there was plenty of airspace. I put it under the tank (only a third of it, as I had read was alright) and he seemed to perk up after a while, he moved into his hide (a half log) and even had his claws sticking out the front for a little bit. Should I move it to the side even if it only covers 1/3 of the bottom?

I'm a college student so I didn't have time to completely change over the bark substrate, and I didn't want to put any more stress on him during the move so I just put some properly dampened coco fiber about an inch deep over about 1/3 of his cage. I bought a hygrometer (which I now see was possibly a waste, but my room gets DRY) and a thermometer and before I left for school for the week, and the hygrometer said 75% which seemed about right, as there was a some condensation on the sides, and the thermometer was around 65, but it was closer to the top, his hide is probably in the mid to high 70s range at least. I've been getting updates from my mom(yes my mom), who is looking after him with my dad out of town, she said the first night with the new heat pad and substrate patch he was out on the coco fiber and trying to climb the glass, which i've learned from here is pretty normal. Its impossible to tell if he's eating, as those small crickets can probably disappear pretty easily in the bark, some are still spotted once in a while, but there's no way to take a count. Apparently he spends most of the day in his hide, which is a good sign apparently. I thought this was good news that he had recovered but then my mom said today she thought he was dead as he was "in a weird position and not moving" but later he was back on the coco fiber moving around tonight.

SUMMARY/Qs:
Bough 1-yr old emp with crappy enclosure-heater-substrate, he got pretty cold first night
Bought new heating pad, put under 1/3 of tank, is this OK?

Laying still in somewhat unnatural/awkward positions, normal behavior?

OTHER Q's:
Thinking about getting some red lights, i'm assuming LEDs are OK as long as they aren't UV? Is it true that they can't see red light?
Bought some of this stuff (LINK) didn't really know what I was buying other than coco fiber, any use for it?

For artificial burrows, I see alot of people talk about using PVC, is this OK, any way I should treat it to be better for him?

Thanks a lot for any answers guys, I tried not to repeat anything that's already been asked. i'm very excited/anxious and don't want to mess this up so i'm trying to figure everything out before i make a mistake and end up costing my scorp his life.

I'll try not to write a novel next time, just don't know whats important and whats not important yet.

Heat pad = BACK SIDE

NEVER put a heat mat on the bottom. Scorpions burrow to get away from the heat when they are too hot and so putting it underneath is going against their natural cycle and will cause them undue amounts of stress and could kill them.

Scorpions are negatively phototactic meaning they do not like any types of light. However, you may use a red bulb at night to view them as they cannot see red on their spectrum.

Your scorpion was acting normal. You should give him a few days to a week to settle in before feeding him. That is why he refused to eat. The position he was in was fine as well. They often like to sit right next to the heat mat because they know that's where the heat is so why sit anywhere else?

Hygrometers are useless. Just pour (don't spray as it is ineffective and won't last long) some water onto the coco fibre substrate so that it is damp but not soaking and that will give you perfect humidity (80%-90%) for about a week or two before you do it again.

Oh and by the way, emperors are "pet holes" and will burrow so you need to add about another 3 or 4 inches of coco fibre, 1 inch isn't enough.

On a side note: When you feed, only give him a couple of crickets or three if they are small at a time and that will do for an entire week. You don't need to feed anymore than that.

If you've anymore questions feel free to ask

Thanks man, I don't know if it was clear in the story but the coco fiber that's in there now is just temporary until I get back this weekend.

what kind of supplement or feed should I get from the pet store to gut load crickets, I'm planning on getting some of the bigger crickets and fresh fruit and vegetables might not be an option.

Actual food is always better to feed to your crickets than that bug grub stuff.

Fruit, potatoes, other vegetables like salad, cucumber etc.

But the good thing is they will eat just about anything.

That's what I use but maybe the others on here can tell you what they use. I'm not 100% on this one because I can't remember where I read it (it was ages ago) but someone said they fed their crickets cereal. Now I'm not sure how nutritious it is nor do I have any experience feeding it to my crickets but perhaps someone can back this up in which case it might be of help.

"You are what you eat" is a good thing to remember here. The better you feed the crickets, the more nutritious the dinner your animals will get. This is called "gut-loading". With that in mind feed your crickets ground up (in a nut chopper) dry cat food and dog food a lot of the time. you can also get leftover iguana salad (chopped veggies and greens). You can also feed them fish flakes, oatmeal, other meals, etc. Anything nutritious that you have laying around. The ground up leftovers in the bottom of (non-sugary) cereals works too. Crickets will eat just about anything, just make sure it is nutritious. For liquid you can give crickets slices of orange or some "cricket water". Oranges are better than water because they are packed with Vitamin C and the crickets can't drown in it. Don't put a dish of water in there because you will have lots of drowned crickets. They hop in and can't hop out. you can also use the "make your own" water crystals that you add water to.

if you want to breed crickets...this might be a good read for you


http://www.anapsid.org/crickets.html