PVC Pipe okay for hide?
Hello all,
I have a question about appropriate hides for my P. imperator and my P. cavimanus. I find that keeping the humidity up in their enclosure can often lead to the substrate becoming much too wet and I recently lost one of my two Emp scorplings (2 inches from head to telson) to the toxicity of an undiscovered growth of anaerobic bacteria, at least that is the only thing I can attribute to his unexpected demise.
Last week, I went to do a cleaning and, after digging into the soil to aerate it somewhat, got hit in the face with a terrible sulfurous odor. I soon found the much smaller of the two Emps (though they were the same exact size when I acquired them, the difference in size after molts and growth etc. leading me to think I had a male and female) very lethargic without the strength to even pull apart a cricket . It passed a few days later. It's tank mate is fine and healthy and she is as plump as a Christmas goose and I'm relieved for that.
Anyway, I now have on the way from Ken the bug guy a red claw about 3/4" (w/o tail) as Emps are almost impossible to find now. To prevent yet another loss I've reduced the amount of substrate from about 8 inches to only a few inches (while they are still so small) and placed in their individual hides a long piece of PVC piping. I'm hoping they can utilize it as a hide w/o the threat of any toxicity if the substrate doesn't dry out enough. I am worried, though, that the PVC will prevent any benefit the moisture from being physically in contact with the substrate might provide for them.
I'd like to enclose some pics to help but have yet to figure out how to do that on this site. Any help with that is also appreciated. The best I could do was to use the pic of the PVC pipe as my Avatar.
I've also sectioned off the tank into two separate enclosures with a short piece of Plexi for now, in case the two would fight, the P. cav being more aggressive than the P. imp., although I did make some calls to LLL reptiles and JR and both told me that the two can co-habitate communally if numbers are low and enough hides and food are available. I don't plan on adding any more to my collection anyway, well, that's a lie. lol. Maybe a bark or a desert scorpion of some type, (any suggestions for a good first variant would be appreciated).
Thank you in advance,
Kelly
