Spider Pharm’s D.I.Y. Foam Arena
Foam arenas are simple window box cages, made by sandwiching open cell foam shapes between glass or clear plastic. These foams can breathe, hold water and provide rough surfaces for walking clinging and attaching silk. Ports can be punched around the edges to hold vials for food and water and for introducing mates and contestants and the foam can be shaped to provide crevices, retreats, burrows and other features.
The first arenas were designed for orb weavers quickly imagined and found many other uses may also be used for many other kinds of spiders and insects.
These cages are simply a sheet or ring of polyurethane foam, fiberfill or whatever sandwiched between two sheets of glass, acrylic or even shrink or cling wrap. Ports feeding and water tubes as well tubes for introducing contestants, potential mates or prey are punched.
Spider Pharm’s D.I.Y. Maggot Media
Spider Pharm’s methods and media for raising flies has been evolving over the more than 3 decades, changing in response to a wide variety of problems.
- Active Yeast Culture, with no added antibiotics
- We start with a readily available dog food, which provides most of the essentials, then add some extras, which seem to be important for the flies and our spiders. You may want to modify this and add additional ingredients to enhance the flies the for your animals.
Cautions
Flies should be raised in open and shallow containers to avoid the build-up of carbon dioxide and the media should be well-aerated to minimize anaerobic culture, which can smell bad and may be toxic to the flies and spiders.
Preferably, keep the media fresh by feeding them daily and only giving the maggots what they can eat in a day.
Recipe
- Baker’s yeast
- 1 part Purina Dog Chow
- 3 parts boiling water
- 1/6 part sugar
- flax seeds
- Carrot
- Slices of lime
- Olive oil
- Egg
Preparation
- Prepare a slurry of yeast in warm water, stirring periodically
- Mix everything else, except the wood chips, at high speed in a Vitamix or blender until you have a uniform liquid soup.
- Allow the media to cool to lukewarm
- Portion to smaller containers if you you make more than you need in one and store unused protions in a refrigerator or freezer.
- Stir some of the yeast slurry into fresh media, set aside and stir again an hour later if you have time. You want to see good bubbling, a sign of fermentation, after the second stir.