Housing
The typical set up I use for an adult female is a glass tank size 12 inches wide 11 inches front to back and 11 inches tall.
For substrate I use a mixture of peat and vermiculite, 60% peat 40% vermiculite.The peat is sterilized in the microwave before use, then mixed with well soaked and thoroughly squeezed vermiculite. This mixture works well for maintaining moisture and does not collapse if it dries out. Half fill the tank with prepared substrate, then add a piece of cork bark for climbing and burrowing under. Then add more substrate to ensure the bark is secure and to provide a higher level . Adding artificial plants give some interest for visual display and also allows for the spider to hunt through the leaves as they would in the wild. Ensure that the plants have no sharp pieces that could damage the spider, aquarium plants are best as they tend to be softer.Your spider will ultimately re arrange the tank to suit what they want, and it is very interesting to watch them. For a hide a coconut shell cut in half is very good and has a natural look, though a plant pot cut in half works just as well, though if there is sufficient substrate they will use the underneath of the cork bark for a hide. Once the tank is set up check it is not too wet or too hot before putting your spider in, microwaved substrate can stay hot for quite some time, it should not feel hot to the touch nor should it be wet to touch. For maintaining humidity there are different ways to achieve this. You can keep a damp corner in the tank , or the preferred method is to supply a wide shallow water dish, plant pot stands are great for this, keep this topped up with fresh water, my personal preference is filtered tap water due to the chlorine additives in normal tap water. It should not be necessary to spray the tank. Maintainence Cleaning of the tank should only be necessary to remove unwanted prey remains, remove any remains when you see them to avoid out breaks of mites. It is not necessary to change the substrate every year, as long as there is no problem, you can keep the same substrate for years. In the wild a female will live in the same burrow for all her adult life unless forced to move. So when rehousing your spider to a larger tank it seems to help them settle if you use some of the substrate from the old tank, as this contains web. Just put some in one corner of the new set up they will usually settle in more quickly.   For males I would use shorter tanks as they tend to be more active and tend to be more clumsy, all else is the same.   Spiderlings and juveniles Spiderlings are usually housed in 60ml size tubs , substrate is mostly vermiculite as this tends to be easier to maintain, fill the pots ¾ full as all spiderlings like to burrow. They will stay in these pots until their leg span is half the width of the pot. Then they move on to larger tubs, plastic storage pots are good, 4 inches square is a good size.Half fill these tubs with substrate and small piece of cork bark for climbing, then put the substrate from the pot into the tub and the spider into the tub.Again when the spiders leg span is half the width of the tub they are ready to move into the next size.
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