My Birthday Brood!

So yesterday was my birthday, and I got quite the surprise. My Emp Xerxes let me know she was indeed a female. Checked up on her and found around 12-15 scorplings on her back. I've never owned a scorpion or anything of the sort before hand (reptiles is another story) so this is all new to me! I share the same birthday as some of the newest family members haha. I had no idea she was pregnant. I joined the forum because I feel I may need to occasional bit of help here and there, and I love learning and exploring other people's set ups.

I am pretty confident I know what I have to do to help her through this, but never hurts to have the help of others. Tomorrow I am going to pick up another 10 gallon aquarium to house the scorplings in until they are matured enough to run a community style set-up in a 55 gallon I have. I am also getting a Ball Python tomorrow which will be another first for me.

Anywho, here are a few pictures I took, I didn't want to interrupt her too much.

Well I moved my new Ball Python in today, Bella. I also set up my scorpling nursery. Let me know if you think I should make any changes to their environment. It's basically going to sit the way it is for as long as it take them to dismount from moms back, then I will transfer them. I plan on picking up the flukers digital thermo/hygrometer because those analog ones are garbage.







And here is Bella for anybody interested.

Aww look at that. Congrats and welcome aboard!

awesome! congrats! I hope some of my store bought big black scorpions are pregnant too!

Looks like your emp is actually a Heterometrus, based on the telson shape and color.

Really?? It was labeled as an Emp

I just bought some Heterometrus that were labeled as emperors at a local privately owned pet shop. The lady there seemed baffled when I said they weren't emps. No surprise since inverts weren't their specialty. Well, whatever yours is, its big, black and really cool(with babies) so no worries. :-)

Congratulations on the brood and the birthday! A goodlooking Heterometrus and a gorgeous snake. Snakes are awesome. What is it like to have a ball python? It's definitely the species i'd want.

I guess I don't have an emp then lol. But thanks! And the snake is awesome, just fed her my first time and it was incredible to watch. I haven't handled her yet just letting her get used to the new surroundings first!

The scorplings have molted to 2.instar and I just moved them to their new tank! I forgot to take count (woops!) But I think it is in the area 12-15. They mostly immediately went into the little cave I have packed with moss. I left 2 head crushed crickets on top of the log to monitor their feeding, just to see if they will eat. I'm excited! Here are some pictures of their tank and a few pictures I snapped from when they were coming off mom's back.

cute little guys   

Some more pictures and update

I decided to remove that "cave" and all the moss because it's going to be very hard to monitor them with that set up. Not to mention I don't want them getting tangled in the moss, which seemed to be the case when I was removing them. They were all balled up together in spots and entangled in the moss. I counted 16 total (assuming I found them all), but one of them doesn't seem to be doing so well. I have isolated the "runt" of the group into the deli container. The rest seem to be lively and well.

Re-did their setup a bit, and added a heat mat to the side of the tank.






Here's the runt


Overview of the new set up