New to forum, 1st scorpion

Got my first emp last week =). He got a 20gal tank with some plants to have fun with.









Tell me what you guys think. Questions? Advice?

First couple of days he'd come out when i'd turn off all the lights, but now I haven't seen him come out in about 3 days.

Since its a big tank should I let the crickets walk around all the time or should I take em out after 24 hours?
Benifits of either?

Thanks

It is sub adult just to let you know, you can tell by the colour of the telson.

Don't worry if he doesn't come out, its completely normal.

How many molts do you recon he got left? He isn't that big right now =)

wouldnt that cactus bother it if it tried to climb it?

I think he has been smarter than that... don't think animals are that stupid in nature to continue doing something that clearly hurts. He used to squeeze behind it sometimes while exploring, but not anymore. Didn't seem to bother him. Crickets love to climb it and then jump down though.

well, I wouldn't consider the cactus part of his natural habitat anyways and if I know scorpions like I know my own, they'll try to climb objects over and over again.

I usually leave one or 2 crickets in the tank since I'm not too fond of chasing and getting them out of the tank. The bad side is that if you leave in female crickets they'll most likely give you a bunch of little ones. I've also heard of crickets harming scorpions after molting but I'm not too sure of this. Hopefully your plants can survive in the cocofiber as well, but overall nice setup

I would guess at a couple molts left.

My Venus fly trap seemed to not like something, so it's suffering a little. The aloe is still recovering from the re-plant the cactus is getting better and the weird leaf-y thing seems to be Really enjoying it and growing fast.

Actually on the coco fiber packs that I bought it said that it's great for plants and very nutritious... so we ll see in a bit =)

Just spotted couple of cricket legs, removed them right away. Then saw a couple of mites in that area. About a foot from the burrow.

A problem? Something I should do to get rid of them or control them?

There are a lot of very useful non-dangerous mites.

If they were small and orangish in color, there's nothing to be worried about.

Setup looks decent in terms of the scorpion -- maybe adding another couple inches of substrate would be good, and the emp has precisely one molt left.

As for the plants -- that habitat can not support any of them. Cacti are desert plants and require vastly different conditions than emperors. Venus flytraps require swampy conditions in nutrient-deficient soil and bright sunlight, as well as a winter dormancy period.

Coconut fiber is not nutrient-rich; in gardening it's mostly just useful as a filler.

Check out this site to care for the venus flytrap, if it's not too late for it: http://cobraplant.com/index.php?main_page=page&id=8

Thanks for your guys' input!

The mites WERE in fact small and orangeish

As about the plants:

Cactus was doing worse before, as the pricks started to turn yellow, but since i've put it in here it's gotten much nicer and most of the pricks have changed color back =)

As for the Venus fly trap, I've tried to give it good conditions ( the soil around it is what it needs ) but after it ate two cricket things turned for the worse...

Aloe is still as it is and the weird plant as I said is REALLY liking it.

As for the scorpion, today I unassembled his cave, I made it too well and deep that I never kinda realized that I'll never see him like that. So I remade it and put it against the glass so I can see him =) I think it's even nicer than before.

For the age and molting, I know in the pictures it looks MUCH darker, but in real life his stinger thing is more of a creamy white with a little red to it. Girl at the store said he is maybe 8months old =\, not sure how sure she was though.

With the flytrap, even if you make it a swamp around it (they need to be in 2" of standing water as long as it doesn't cover the crown of the plant -- did you read the link?) the water will be drawn to the surrounding areas. There's also no way you can provide the necessary winter dormancy without killing your emp. It also takes a lot of energy to digest a bug and too much "eating" can overstress it. Besides, do you really want something competing with your emp for food?

A final word on live plants -- emps tend to be little black bulldozers. Most plants will end up being uprooted eventually.

Never trust the people at a store, they usually don't know what they're talking about. And that stinger color still sounds subadult to me (one molt remaining).

Thanks for the input =)

I really thought this guy was younger, he is still quite small. Oh well, as life goes we'll see

yes, the coco fiber doesn't do much if anything for the plants. What they say on the packaging is a lie.

Mr. Mordax wrote:

emps tend to be little black bulldozers

I'm liking the description

Today come home from work, guy is chilling on a rock...never ever did that before. Being all protective. if i bump the table a tiny bit he gets angry.
Could he be pissed about me changing his stuff up yesterday?
Molting?

He spent all night and morning in the new hide.

Scorps are just weird sometimes. Most of the time nothing's wrong; new keepers just panic easily .

when i bump my desk, my scorps run back really quick to their community burrow!
they panic at the smallest vibration :p

gromgroms wrote:

when i bump my desk, my scorps run back really quick to their community burrow!
they panic at the smallest vibration :p

same my scorpions run back and hide.. specially when i try to handle them, they run!

I guess my guy is a tough guy lol.

Yesterday I changed up the tank one last time, now I'm not gonna bother him. Doubled the coco fiber like you guys said, threw out the Venus fly trap, made the big rocks unburrowable. Added a little hill. He seems to like it. Pics soon.

hi. the light is for the plants?

Correct. During the day I got a 100W Sun Glo and at night i have a 75W InfraRed bulb on =)

hows the temperature of your tank?