Invertebrate Housekeeping: Quarantining a New Arrival, Cleaning the Enclosure, and Finding an Escapee

A tarantula, a scorpion, a mantis, a millipede, a stick insect, a cockroach colony, a jumping spider and a hermit crab share three housekeeping problems: what to do with a new animal before it joins the others, how often to clean an enclosure that never looks dirty, and what to do when one gets out. The answers are close to identical across all eight, with a few species exceptions, and they cover everything around a move between enclosures rather than the move itself.

Quarantine: Kept Apart, With Its Own Tools

Quarantine is one of the measures a new invertebrate may need, and it has no set number of weeks: the length is set by watching. Any new addition lives away from the rest of the collection, ideally in a different room, with its own set of tools, until it has been seen to feed, drink and settle, and for longer if it was wild-caught. A long wait for an animal that arrived looking fine is the point. The problems that come in with a new invertebrate are slow. A mite population builds over weeks. Mold takes hold in a damp corner. And the worst of them, oral nematodes, turn up mostly in wild-caught spiders and show as white material round the mouth and a falling appetite. A vet can remove the worms under anesthesia, sometimes over several sessions. If the spider has to be euthanized instead, that is a vet's job too. The humane method is an overdose of anesthetic, injected or inhaled, and freezing is not humane on its own: it is used only on an animal already anesthetized.

Quarantine for a solitary invertebrate is simple. A plain enclosure with paper towel or bare substrate, a water dish, a hide, and nothing shared with any other animal: not the tongs, not the water bottle, not the hands between enclosures without washing. Feed lightly, watch the molt if one comes, and look at the animal, the substrate and the prey remains every few days for anything moving that should not be. The health guide for tarantulas covers what each of those problems looks like on the animal, and the emergency and shipping guide covers the first days after a shipped arrival, when a dark, quiet enclosure with water matters more than food. The move from the quarantine tub into the permanent enclosure at the end of quarantine is the rehousing guide.

Cleaning: Weekly Spot Cleans, and a Substrate Change You Can Count in Years

An invertebrate enclosure is not cleaned like a hamster cage, and the mistake new keepers make is cleaning it too much. The routine is a weekly spot clean for droppings and prey remains, uneaten live prey out within 24 hours so it cannot stress or injure the animal, a shallow dish of fresh water kept filled, and a deep clean that means new substrate every 6 to 12 months, or sooner if mold appears (stick insects are the exception, with substrate changed about weekly because their droppings mold fast). Between those, leave it. A burrowing species has built its home in that substrate, and a millipede or hermit crab may be molting inside it, which is the one time disturbance kills.

The reason the interval can be that long is that the enclosure's problems are all downstream of two things: prey remains and dampness without airflow. Mites are kept down by pulling prey remains quickly and balancing the humidity the species needs against airflow, and mold by avoiding standing dampness and keeping the enclosure ventilated. An enclosure with the remains taken out and the air moving does not grow either, and the substrate lasts.

Two species-level notes. A hermit crab enclosure has deep, damp substrate by design and crabs buried in it for weeks at a time, so its substrate is never dug out on a schedule, only checked for flooding and mold at the surface. And a millipede molts underground for weeks, so exotic vets give a simple rule for its substrate: leave a buried millipede undisturbed until it re-emerges. The millipede enclosure setup guide covers the depth that makes that possible.

Mites, Mold and the Fly in the Water Dish

Most mites in an invertebrate enclosure are scavengers living on prey remains, and the cure is the clean-up above. The ones that matter are on the animal: clustered round the mouth, the leg joints or the book lungs of a tarantula, or riding a millipede's underside. Invertebrate mites can be harmless or harmful, and a vet is the one to choose a control method. Nearly every product sold to kill mites kills the pet too, which is why the invertebrate pesticide hazards guide rules out treating the enclosure yourself. A spider or scorpion with mold on it goes into a clean, well-ventilated, dry container with a water dish, and to an exotics vet if one can be found.

Small flies hovering over the enclosure mean the same thing as mites: something is rotting in there. Find the prey remains or the soaked corner, remove it, and the flies leave within a week.

Escapes: Where It Went and How to Get It Back

Prevention first, because the recapture is the hard part. Every enclosure should be sturdy and sealed, with locking lids and doors, and ventilation holes small enough that the animal cannot fit through, which for a spiderling or a mantis nymph means holes smaller than you would think. Most escapes happen during care, with a lid set aside for a moment, and a mantis or jumping spider takes the moment.

When one is out, close the door of the room first, then let the search follow the animal's habits. A ground-dweller is searched for low, under furniture and in corners. Tree-dwelling species such as the pink toe climb instead, so their search is walls, curtains and bookshelves.

A jumping spider breaks every one of those rules. It hunts by sight in daylight and heads for height and light, so the search is up: ceilings, window frames, the tops of shelves and the backs of picture frames, with a flashlight picking out the silk draglines it leaves behind. A thick silk hammock found in a high corner during the day usually has the spider inside. If it vanished mid-handling, look first for the spider hanging on its dragline from your hands, and leave its enclosure open overnight, since it may walk back to a familiar retreat. Its escapes come through vent holes, door hinges and gaps round the edges, or through a door left ajar during maintenance, so the habit that prevents them is keeping eyes on the spider the whole time the door is open.

Recapture is a container and a card. Set a clear cup over the animal, slide a piece of stiff card underneath, and carry it back to the enclosure upright. No hands on a tarantula, scorpion or centipede in the open, for its sake as much as yours, since a fall from waist height ruptures a tarantula's abdomen. The handling guide for tarantulas covers the cup method in detail, and it is the same method for a scorpion or a mantis.

The Takeaway

Quarantine apart with separate tools, whatever the animal looked like on arrival. Uneaten prey out within 24 hours, remains and droppings out weekly, substrate replaced every 6 to 12 months or at the first mold, and no other cleaning. Lids that lock and holes the animal cannot fit through. And when one is out: close the door, search low for a ground-dweller and high for a climber, and bring it home under a cup.

Sources & Further Reading