Quick questions about uneaten food

Hey everyone. Got a quick question for you.

With my Emp, I find every now and then I need to remove some uneaten legs, etc from the tank a couple hours after feeding.

However, with my asian forest (again, thanks for the ID) I never seem to find any parts. He usually waits and eats at the back end in his burrow (which is fine). Should I be removing his log and checking for rotting parts?

I believe he is probably eating everything, but to never, ever, find a part in the tank is a little wierd, and I fear mites more than anything, largely because I have no idea the most effective way of removing them if they appear (nuke the dirt, vinegar the tank, and hand [swab] removal all the buggers seems very unappealing to me).

Thanks in advance.

Kerrby wrote:

Hey everyone. Got a quick question for you.

With my Emp, I find every now and then I need to remove some uneaten legs, etc from the tank a couple hours after feeding.

However, with my asian forest (again, thanks for the ID) I never seem to find any parts. He usually waits and eats at the back end in his burrow (which is fine). Should I be removing his log and checking for rotting parts?

I believe he is probably eating everything, but to never, ever, find a part in the tank is a little wierd, and I fear mites more than anything, largely because I have no idea the most effective way of removing them if they appear (nuke the dirt, vinegar the tank, and hand [swab] removal all the buggers seems very unappealing to me).

Thanks in advance.

Hi Kerrby,

I believe there are better advises from the pros here but i just wish to share what i do for my AFS enclosures

Imho, theres pros and con in making a terrarium thats very natural looking (E.g. you place a hide on the substrates and cover it up to make the whole enclosure look more "natural looking"..

The pros is definitely the visual appeal and the fact that our scorpies might liked it more..

Cons is the maintenance part..

For my enclosure, the hide is simply placed on top on the substrates, so let say my afs decide to finish his meal inside the hide, i would wait for him to finish (or check the next day) and when he begin to do his "tank exploring" walk at night, i would just lift up the hide and do my little cleaning up for her..

As advised by a nice forumer here.. as we normally use crickets, removing the hind legs prior feeding it to our scorps might help too, as the hind legs often drop off while its being munched by the scorps.. and get covered under the substrates easily... tested by myself as well.. lesser clean-up required..

Hope it helps

Best way to prevent and get rid of mites is a good maintainence regime,

if you find you do have mites crawling around the tank,scorp or dead in the water dish steep all your stone furnishings in hot water with just a drop of chlorine. microwave the wooden furnishings as they will soak up the chemicals.

As for the tank clean with a ratio of 1:10 chlorine and water respectively and rinse the tank and furnishings with clean water.

Dispose of any of the infested substrate.

If the scorpion has any mites on it either take them off manually with a pair of thongs or a drop of glycerine but be careful not to get it on any of its eyes,moveable fingers or any of the joints of the legs as it causes movement difficulties.

hope this helps if you get an outbreak it always works for me when i get unwanted visitors

Hey thanks a lot guys. You've answered both of my questions perfectly.

I think I've been doing ok as I've had this fella for a long time, but every now and then I stress myself out so bad I need to come to these forums and act a noob (I'm still totally ok with doing that, as I still basically am a noob).

Tonights nightly walk I'll do an inspections really quick. My setup should be easy. I have a retile 1/2 log (looks like a U shaped roof) half buried at an angle... won't be a problem at all to remove and replace twice a week.

Any advice on the quickest most effective way to remove cricket legs? This will help with my Emp (got about a month ago) because she does tend to leave legs around.

For me.. 2 Fingers from left hand grab the cricket.. 2 fingers from right hand ripped the hind legs right off..

Opposite for lefties..

GS wrote:

For me.. 2 Fingers from left hand grab the cricket.. 2 fingers from right hand ripped the hind legs right off..

Opposite for lefties..

Best... advice... ever!

The use of isopods and spring tales will aid in the clean up of left overs in a bio active enclosure set up. Genesis is a great place to start if you want to go fully bio active.

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