Finally!!

Most people I've spoken to here know about my ongoing and painstaking search for a H. Swammerdami. I finally have one!! It's too young to sex and is in premolt but is beautiful! The pics dont do it justice. THANK YOU fellow member for helping me!!! I'm extreamly greatful. If anyone has any advise as far as care goes for this young, premolt scorp, please feel free to offer it.

-Stephen

 

You're one lucky dude man! Congratulations.

congrats hope that didn't slim your wallett too much.

Thank you!! I definitely feel I lucked out! You know my wallet took a hit but it's worth it. Now if I were to try and buy an adult.. :-/

Ah. Lucky you. im still looking for a male. Glad ya found one. Yeah my adult female put a whole in my wallet. Lol. But it was worth it.

They are awesome scorpions. I would love to get an adult female, but one step at a time.. I'm happy with the young one for now.

Grats on getting your H.swammerdami!

Congrats on your addition!

I hope you have better luck than I did with mine. Mine unfortunately had a bad molt that it never fully recovered from and ended up dying not too long after.

Thanks dakuan!

Scorpion, can you inpoint anything you could have done differently to have avoided the loss? I want to learn from others experiences.

Other than knowing what to do if a bad molt happens instead of frantically typing on a keyboard for help at 4 in the morning? 

Well, I did notice that this species does have an extraordinarily slow growth rate and metabolism compared to other species I've kept. I'm talking borderline Hadogenes slow. I was expecting a slower growth rate as it was being kept by itself, (scorps raised in groups have faster growth rates) but not THAT slow! I suggest keeping it at a slightly higher temp than you normally would during its early instars; this should speed up its metabolism, thus its growth rate should increase somewhat. I also noticed that it was especially fond of moisture.

So basically, keep it hot and keep it humid.

Scorpion19981000 wrote:

Other than knowing what to do if a bad molt happens instead of frantically typing on a keyboard for help at 4 in the morning? 

Well, I did notice that this species does have an extraordinarily slow growth rate and metabolism compared to other species I've kept. I'm talking borderline Hadogenes slow. I was expecting a slower growth rate as it was being kept by itself, (scorps raised in groups have faster growth rates) but not THAT slow! I suggest keeping it at a slightly higher temp than you normally would during its early instars; this should speed up its metabolism, thus its growth rate should increase somewhat. I also noticed that it was especially fond of moisture.

So basically, keep it hot and keep it humid.

Ok good info. Do you think a lack of humidity was a factor in your case? It sounds like I'm doing all I can now. I have it situated by a heat lamp and it is almost always sitting right by the lamp. On the other side I have a shallow water bowl and the substrate on that side is kept moist.

It might have been, the substrate was a little drier than usual as I had just gotten back from being away for a couple days. I'd actually try to keep the entire enclosure pretty moist and not concentrate on just one side. I'd also notice that if you did spray the tank, it would come out of it's little burrow to walk around.

Well so far it hasn't shown much interest in venturing to the moist side of the tank. Not that Ive seen anyway. Its quite humid on that side so she may not need to go clear to the other side. I just want it to be comfortable.

Alright then.

Keep us posted.

Will do.

UPDATE:
Hey people, yesterday when I came home my H. Swammerdami was molting. Obviously I was worried since theres always a worry it will go bad but it went very well! I could only get one pic to load though. Here it is!

Nice!

Thanks!

Nice find and congrats on the successful molt. Looks great!

stingray wrote:

Nice find and congrats on the successful molt. Looks great!

Thanks!! Im very happy with how it went.  

Well my swammies molt went well last week only for it to pass away sometime between last night and this morning. Im pretty bummed about it. Its frustrating because I have no idea what went wrong. This is my first scorpion loss and it stinks. I waited a long time to find it and only had it for two weeks. Im going to try to get an older one and hopefully Ill have better success with it.

So sorry man. Loosing any scorpion in the collection sucks, but loosing a rare one hurts. Definitely get another!

Bayss wrote:

So sorry man. Loosing any scorpion in the collection sucks, but loosing a rare one hurts.  Definitely get another!

Thanks man. It hurts for sure but Ill get a second one sometime soon.