Jumping Spider Vivarium (Easy & Beautiful DIY Setup)

so i'm just sitting here minding my own business after running some errands typing up some stuff on the computer or i should say i'm sitting here typing up some stuff while being judged by ted guy does it all day it's my cat eye mantis by the way but i'm sitting here typing up some stuff and i see something moving out of my peripheral and it's driving me absolutely nuts because i looked it stopped turned away it starts doing it again and probably about the third or fourth time i looked over i realized that these plants i just picked up the leaves on the one were moving around and i take a closer look and it looks like there's a fly moving around on them i'm like great so i go to take a closer look and it's actually something completely different and i was really excited to find out what it was and initially i was just gonna let it go outside but i'm like you know what i've been thinking about keep warm for a little bit so why don't i give it a try that of course would be this jumping spider here not judging by its appearance and the spiders i know that live in my state i'm fairly confident in saying that this is a bull jumping spider these are not a very large spider typically they'll max out at roughly about a half an inch long give or take depending on whether it's male or female the females grow slightly larger this one isn't quite yet full grown so i can't tell for certainty whether it's a male or a female but my initial gut reaction is that it's a female for a small creature they also have a pretty decent lifespan on them usually living for around one to two years truth be told i'm really not a spider guy at all now i don't know if that will change the longer that i keep this one perhaps it will kind of turn over a new leaf for me but really anytime i see them in my house or outside or whatever i'm not particularly drawn to spiders i never really have been although i do think it's fascinating how they can make webs and that sort of thing however there's always got to be an exception and for myself and many others that just so happens to be the jumping spider now i would have to imagine for most people it's probably that cute little face i mean look at that thing it's just absolutely silly looking but for myself it's sort of the way that they move the way they jump around it's just i find it really cool to watch and not that i feel particularly threatened by other spiders but there's just something about the way that this one is that for me especially i find it sort of endearing now i'm sure you know what all of this is segwaying into and that of course is that we've got to build a proper enclosure for this one when i do my projects i'm usually thinking about the enclosure or container first so in this case what would be an appropriate item for the build right now i have the spider in this little display case which is actually a great long-term solution the only thing with this is that this one is kind of small so i would like to do something bigger for its long-term setup and i do have this larger one here but the issue that i have with this is that it's top opening now it's not necessarily a problem but the issue that i foresee with it is that the spider is going to make its webs or at least some portion of them up on the lid so every time i open it to feed it or do maintenance i'm actually going to be ruining the webs and i'd rather not do that our other options of course are jars of any kind whether it be a latch top a glass lid a cork a screw on you know there's so many different options but again these have the same issues that this one do where it's opening from the top and of course i could put it on its side but that will make it hard to access and that sort of thing so i'd rather not use a jar i did however find this little acrylic box which i think is the perfect solution i like this one for a number of reasons most importantly though is that i can put it in a vertical position like this and open it from the front which is exactly what i wanted it also stays shut quite well without any sort of locking mechanism so no modifications needed there and we also have a little crack on this side which in some instances might not be ideal but for this one it is because we won't have to modify for any other sort of ventilation it's also nice that it's a more vertical setup because that's going to be ideal for the spider they like to climb up tall surfaces to get a vantage point for prey the only thing though is that i'm gonna have to add a small substrate dam here on the bottom that's an easy fix though to create the substrate dam i have two things first is a piece of expanded pvc i already cut this down to the desired size and i'll secure it to the piece with some clear gorilla glue so i'll simply apply the glue to the edges like so and i'll press it right into the bottom of this here we are the next day the glue is all dried and ready to go for the remaining steps the nice thing about the way that this glue secured the pvc in place is it actually created a bit of a seam on the back so that way we don't have to add silicone or anything else to waterproof it which is great because we can move on to the fun part and make the background for this one i'm going to use some cork tiles these are scraps left over from the belt i did about four years ago and the nice thing about this is it's pretty inexpensive and they're readily available and you can just rip off sections and stack them up to create definition on the background the thing is though is that this container is not really that deep to begin with and as soon as i start adding this cork in there it really takes away from it so i'm actually only going to use a few pieces and really just utilize these fissures to create the definition i don't need to be super exact with this i can just eyeball it and i'm thinking if i cut it here and here and then fit in other pieces around that that should be good [Music] something like this will definitely work i'll just put another piece here and down here and call it good after a few adjustments this is what i ended up with i think it looks pretty cool but it will look even better once i put a piece of paper behind here to black out the background and really bring that crevice look full circle all i got to do now is just put some glue on the back of these and get them into the container the glues have two hours to set up which means it's time to add the paper nothing groundbreaking here i'm literally just going to tape it on here's how it looks now i really like how it turned out we're just about ready to start scaping it but you may have noticed this little hole that i cut out on the back i made that hole earlier to account for this flexible usb light i'll attach this as well as the usb extension cord to the back to get it on the back here i'll once again resort to this glue just put a dab there [Music] hold it for a second a few hours later and we're looking good the glue is set up and the light looks perfect on this setup provides just enough light and now we're finally ready to get escaping i have an assortment of branches here that i'll connect together as needed with super glue and i'll also use this to secure them to the background i'll start off by just placing a few items to get an idea of what i like [Music] i've come up with something that i like so what i'm gonna do is i'll actually glue some of these pieces together first [Music] i've got the main piece put together here and i'll put it in here and just check for placement one more time looks good there to secure this in here i'll just check for the contact points i see one down here at the bottom one here and one here i probably can get away with just doing these two so i'll just lift it up put a dab of glue down lift it up put another dab and that should be good i'll do the same for this piece as well we're in the home stretch now time to add the false bottom and substrate going with sand for the false bottom on this one as well as my standard substrate mix for the false bottom i really just need a super thin layer of sand this setup is not going to be overly wet so we really don't need a whole lot down here as for the substrate i'm doing the usual i'll slope it up toward the back to create depth now i don't need a whole lot down here because i'm not going to be planting anything that's going to be demanding in this department and it's primarily just going to serve as a home for the cleanup crew [Music] i've got this beautiful selection of moss that i just gathered from around my pond i have some hypno moss some fern moss and some batch moss i'll place these throughout as i normally would in a way that sort of creates texture and definition so i'll put this taller one in the back here to act as a background plant [Music] i think this looks great nice and simple but beautiful and elegant at the same time now i thought it'd look cool if i put moss in the cracks in the background but i decided against it because it would take away from the work that i did and i also feel that the spider's gonna make most of its webs up in there anyways so it'd kind of defeat the purpose i have a little bit of leftover moss though so i'm going to go and put this back outside and then i'll come back and finish up the build so this is all done the only thing left that i got to do is add the clean up crew these here springtails for those of you who are unfamiliar with them what they'll do is eat any decaying matter they'll also eat any mold that will pop up and they'll clean up after the spider so that's why i call them the cleanup crew so i'm hoping this last part is pretty easy i gotta get the spider into here wish me luck all right so my plan here is just to kind of crack the lid and encourage it to crawl in success this is so cool it's already making a web up in the corner which is exactly what i expected now i'm seeing that it may have put a little bit on the door so that might create a problem but at this point there's no going back i think i'll set up a time lapse and we can just kind of watch it make its web and then we'll feed it a little bit later on and that my friends is the new jumping spider vivarium i really like how this one turned out i wanted it to be kind of simple give the spider a lot of room to crawl around make its webs that kind of thing and i think this is absolutely perfect for it in the short amount of time that i've been able to sit here and observe it i gotta say i think i'm hooked it's just so cool to watch it crawl around watch its behaviors and things i even threw a cricket in there to give it a proper meal and i gotta say i was amazed at how quickly it was on it it jumped onto it and it's still eating it right now and i think that's going to do for this one as you can tell i'm dipping my toes into inverts here and there and i'm really enjoying it got the mantis got the spider got a few more on the future lineup that i know you're going to enjoy so stay tuned for that if you liked the video leave it with the thumbs up if you haven't subscribed yet do that too to help support the channel and as always surprise squad take care and peace [Music] you

Channel: SerpaDesign

Views: 1,613,930

Keywords: jumping spider, pet jumping spider, spider terrarium, spider vivarium, phidippus audax, terrarium, vivarium, custom, diy, do it yourself, spider

Id: 67H2EizAyFs

Length: 12min 53sec (773 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 25 2021