I was reading Stanley Shultz's book and was interested to see that keeping the subsrate dry in enclosures have not been proven to be harmful to the T's in general or during moulting. I was getting sick of mold and the occasional mites. I have been keeping my subsrate dry for about 5 months now and no problems at all and also no mold, mites, fruit flies. etc. And they still moult without trouble. My G rosea especially hates wetness under his feet. The T's used to sit on the side of the glass now they are on the substate. I now only supply them with water bowl and on really warm days mist very little into the enclosure.
Do any of you do the same or have any thoughts on that ?

EvaB wrote: I was reading Stanley Shultz's book and was interested to see that keeping the subsrate dry in enclosures have not been proven to be harmful to the T's in general or during moulting.

The general state of hydration of your tarantula will determine whether a moult is successful or not. If the tarantula is dehydrated before the moult, then it will have difficulty moulting.

EvaB wrote: My G rosea especially hates wetness under his feet. The T's used to sit on the side of the glass now they are on the substate.

G. rosea's are from the desert, so that's why they don't like moist substrate. If your tarantulas constantly sit against the side of the glass (off the substrate) it might be an indication that the substrate is too moist.

If you decide to keep your enclosures' substrate dryer, all you need to do is supply a water dish and make sure that 1 corner of the enclosure's substrate is moist. This will ensure that the tarantula has a choice of dryer or moist substrate, and it will help with humidity.

Of course this is not recommended for Avicularia and other tropical rainforest species

Keeping the substrate dry does not mean the entire level of substrate must be bone dry. There must be some humidity from the bottom, the lower level of substrate should be a bit moist. The top level can be kept try and a corner, which I prefer.
You can inject water into the substrate to keep the bottom wet and still keep the top part dry.

I've kept my T's substrate dry for the last couple of years with no side effects, but like Ceno says, I do have water bowls in all the enclosures.

Cenotaph wrote:

EvaB wrote:
Of course this is not recommended for Avicularia and other tropical rainforest species

For Avics, I find a shallow waterbowl, a little heat and some plants keep the humidity around 80%. Should the humidity drop, I lightly mist around the plants.

How big has a T have to be before one ads a waterbowl?