Heating / light and other advice for my new emperors

Hi there!

I need a little advice from you guys! I've just gotten my first emperor scorpions, and I'm a bit worried if I'm doing anything wrong! Just for some info, I've gotten myself a male and a female, neither of them are adult as far as I was told. The female measures just about 17cm (pinches to stinger) and the male a tad shorter. Perhaps 12cm - I didn't measure him. They seem to be alright, in the first 2-3 days they explored the terrarium a lot, now they usually only come out (from their burrows, about 8cm down the substrate) in the night or evenings, but they both ate right from the start (fed them with crickets and zophobas,) and also a few days later.

I'm using a false bottom tank setup based on Thaedions guide, in a 45x45x45 Exo-Terra Terrarium (without the polystyrene wall.) The substrate is 100% coco-fibre, and below it, some ~~ 1,5-3cm rocks. The rocks goes about 4cm up, and then 10-15cm substrate, which varies around the terrarium.
I'm not sure how much water there should be in the false bottom. Should it reach the substrate, or perhaps a cm below it?

There's loads of airflow, perhaps a bit too much. The humidity varies from 60-80%, so I'll try and get something to cover half the ventilation in the top, to get it a bit higher. An idea for this could be a 20x45cm glassplate, and then an armature as I'll mention in a second.
Currently the light in the the room they're in, is not always on, so I'd like some light in the terrarium itself. Do you have some suggestions of what kinds of light bulbs to use? I concidered getting a 45x20 armature which fits with the terrarium, and then use an Exo-Terra 2.0 26W Repti-Glo combined with a 5.0 26W Repti-Glo.
Would this be harmful for the scorpion?

I've got a Heat Glo, 25W I think it is, but it's not a ceramic bulb - is it bad for the bulb to be inside a high humid terrarium? It's currently just on its socket and on a wire, so hard to make it point towards the terrarium otherwise. I'm also a bit afraid it will dry-out the substrate! The warm side of the terrarium (the opposite side of their borrow) is about 31 degrees C, or 87F, while the "cold" side is 28/80. Theese are the temperatures I got after I moved the bulb to just hang on the outside of the terrarium.

I've got a few live plants in there, but all in their own pots, made of ceramic or plastic (will they eat that?) - so this shouldn't be a problem?

Any tips would be welcome! I hope I'm doing alright with them

just make sure whatever you put in with the scorps is clean (pots and plastic and what not ), like boil them if your not sure.
and also make sure you use a Infrared bulb for heat/viewing light. dont use the light if its like blue because you could expose your scorps to long periods of some kind of UV light. everything else seems fine to me, but im a noob myself.

post pics to show what you got

Sounds pretty good overall! A few comments, though:

Are you sure you have a male / female pair? Who sexed them?

The easiest way to determine if an emperor is an adult or not is to look at the telson (the last segment of the "tail" that bears the sting) -- if it's white, the scorpion is a juvenile, cream = subadult, and brown = adult.

Water level in the false-bottom doesn't really matter so much as long as the substrate is damp (but not soggy) to the touch. Unless you have a really good humidity gauge placed directly on the substrate, most humidity gauges won't be of much use (analogs are pretty sub-par, and anything more than an inch above the ground doesn't represent the humidity where the scorpions are located). So long as your false-bottom is supplying adequate humidity then you don't need to worry about airflow (more airflow is actually better, if possible).

Lighting in the tank is unnecessary -- scorpions are nocturnal, and prefer not to have a constant light source. The red heat lamps don't matter because those wavelengths are not visible to them.

Also regarding the heat lamp, as long as you have enough moisture supplied by the false-bottom, you don't need to worry about it drying the substrate out to quickly. The surface can even appear dry as long as it's nice and humid in the burrow.

Oh, and welcome to the boards and to scorpion-keeping!

IHeartMantids wrote:

Sounds pretty good overall! A few comments, though:

Are you sure you have a male / female pair? Who sexed them?

The easiest way to determine if an emperor is an adult or not is to look at the telson (the last segment of the "tail" that bears the sting) -- if it's white, the scorpion is a juvenile, cream = subadult, and brown = adult.

Water level in the false-bottom doesn't really matter so much as long as the substrate is damp (but not soggy) to the touch. Unless you have a really good humidity gauge placed directly on the substrate, most humidity gauges won't be of much use (analogs are pretty sub-par, and anything more than an inch above the ground doesn't represent the humidity where the scorpions are located). So long as your false-bottom is supplying adequate humidity then you don't need to worry about airflow (more airflow is actually better, if possible).

Lighting in the tank is unnecessary -- scorpions are nocturnal, and prefer not to have a constant light source. The red heat lamps don't matter because those wavelengths are not visible to them.

Also regarding the heat lamp, as long as you have enough moisture supplied by the false-bottom, you don't need to worry about it drying the substrate out to quickly. The surface can even appear dry as long as it's nice and humid in the burrow.

Oh, and welcome to the boards and to scorpion-keeping!

They were sexed by the breeders I bought them of, a girl and a guy who both looked through their scorpions together to find me one of each sex - they even gave me a look myself and explained me what to look for, even though I already knew. I'll check their telson whenever they choose to come up to the surface again, as I haven't seen them outside their burrow for about a days time now. As a sidenote to this, I got them home saturday morning.

As I've read, it's only positive that they're in their burrow most of the time, is right? I kinda pre-dug the burrow myself beneath some swamp-wood, but they dug it even farther/deeper in too.

The substrate and their burrow - which goes alongside the terarrium glasswall - is indeed very moist, and there's even damp on the glass down there. I covered about 90% of the top ventilation - which covers 90% of the whole top - with plastic wrap, as there is also ventilation on the front side of the terarrium. That leaves just about 5x40cm ventilation in the top, and 40 holes of 1 by a half cm of holes in the front. When I open the terarrium, the air feels very wet, warm and tropical - and the hygrometer at the surface is on 90% now - so wether the humidity gauge is working or not, it all seems like a working solution to me!

Now, about the light, it was more for myself to be able to see them. I suppose the infrared heat lamp can be on 24/7, so that would also supply enough light for my own sake. Is it OK for them to be directly exposed to this light?

Thanks for the answers, and the welcome, and feel more than free to keep tips coming! I'll post pictures as soon as my sister comes by with a camera

sounds good! welcome to the forum.

Everything sounds good. The light for your own sake isn't too helpful because of how much time they spend in their burrows (yes, it's normal and a good sign). Exposing them to the red heat lamps isn't a problem.

IHeartMantids wrote:

Everything sounds good. The light for your own sake isn't too helpful because of how much time they spend in their burrows (yes, it's normal and a good sign). Exposing them to the red heat lamps isn't a problem.

Oh alright, well then everything is fine. For me, red light in there is fine too! I just didn't think it was good for them in longer durations.. I were also a bit worried that I haven't seen them in 48 hours, but I guess that's normal too, and they might have been up while I've not been home / present

Cheers!

I go weeks at a time without seeing my emperors come out. Every few days I'll shine a blacklight down the burrow to check on them.

Hihi, yeah, I can see them from the side of the tank if they're in that burrow, and they look fine too ;D

^That's also a good technique I forgot to mention -- I like to make starter burrows against the glass so I can see them if I like. (Only problem is, with my adult / subadult tank, the glass the burrow is against is adjacent to another tank! )

I set a hide up near the glass in my tank, works really well, except when he likes to use the moss covered side... kinda funny when he hides under the moss.

There are 3 burrows in my tank, but they've never used other burrows than the one up against the glass yet ;D

The telson of my male, the smallest, was white, while the other one was a bit darker but not completely brown

Sounds like the male is immature and the female is a subadult.

That's what I thought too. I haven't seen them for a few days, but when I came home today, there was a hole about the size of a big coin, in the end of their terrarium with the deepest substrate (up to 20cm) - think that's a scorpion burrow?

Yep, that'd be a burrow!

While on the subject of your scorpion digging a burrow. Mine dug a burrow then coved the hole up. So all that could be seen was a ditch . I got home and I thought he got out of the tank! I went crazy! Started looking under my bed around the house.. Then i started checking under the water dish and the hut.. Nothing.. Then I noticed that ditch was pretty big and deep.. so i started to dig around it and sure enough he came clawing his way out. Just though Id share.

Stressmynte sounds like your scorpions like the place if they are digging burrows. Are they both in that one burrow or are there 2 burrows?

Haha, funny way they made that burrow. There's a round piece of bark which makes an entrance to pre-made burrow - 5 cm from that, they made another borrow.

I just saw my male for the first time in 4-5 days, his telson is definately completely white, and he's about 12cm. Looked calm and healthy ;D it's nice to see them come up to the surface.

Can you post a shot of them? 12 cm seems awfully big for one that's not even a subadult.

Hard for me to get a photo taken, as my only camera is a 0,3 mgpixel phone, and when I got a better camera available, they might not come to the surface.. hmm.

Safety, I don't know if they both use the same burrow, there are loads of places to hide in their tank, and I rarely see them around.

So, how do you feed them when they're below ground so often? Do you just let a cricket walk around the terrarium for a few days until it magically disappears?

Usually. If it doesn't disappear within a few days, then they're not hungry.

How are they with noise? I understand they get easily stressed. How about music in the same or a room close to their terrarium?