Elaborate set-up for Deathstalker Scorpion

[KBeard]

Hello everybody. I am on a mission to "upgrade" the habitat for my Deathstalker Scorp. I haven't seen alot of pictures on the internet on set-ups for scorps. Anyone want to share?

I'm thinking about mixing sand and coco-bark this time (instead of all sand). For housing, instead of broken pieces of terra cota pots, I thought about building several "platforms" made of river rock (leftover from my other tanks). I'm just very concerned about coco-bark. The associates at PetSmart have assured me the coco-bark will not retain any moisture that could potentially hold any humidity. Has anyone used this substrate that could give me feedback?

Also, what about plants? Maybe a cactus? He's housed in a 10 gallon tank.

All help is appreciated

[Pavel]

Have no experience with coco bark, sorry.

However, as far as plants go......... Keeping plants in the viv is not likely to work out well unless you are willing to switch the plant out on a regular basis. Cacti in particular have a very high light requirement that is generally difficult to provided in a viv/terr. And if you do manage to provided sufficient light it will result in a great deal of heating of the viv. Don't know if it would get too hot for the scorp. If you are willing to rotate the cactus out of the tank on a regular basis you might be okay. ('Regular" being only a week or two in the tank then at least that long in ideal light conditions out of the tank.)

A possible alternative might be some of the tillisandras. You would have to mist them on a regular basis but they can handle lower light, some have a "yucca" like appearance, and they are often relatively inexpensive.

[JohnEDove]

I have a dry set up 10 gallon aquarium for our local Centruroides vittatus that I caught this summer who are just a little smaller than your L. quinquestriatus.
1. I started by placing a straw in the front corner so I could later water the cacti I was going to plant.
2. I poured in a 2.5 inch layer of anthill gravel.
3. I placed two sheets of nylon window screen over the gravel. Two layers to help keep the sifted sand from sinking down before it dried.
4. I sifted about 5 gallons of local sand and watered it until it was completely wet wet wet.
5. I spread a 1 inch layer of wet sand over the screen.
6. I tipped and braced the aquarium so it sat at about a 45 degree angle.
7. I used wet sand and stagger stacked flat stones to create a wall at the back of the enclosure to about 4 inches from the top leaving the front half of the enclosure at the original sand cover level.
8. Once the sand dries it becomes kind of hard so I used a chopstick to open some of the spaces under the flat stones in the wall while it was wet.
9. Then I threw in some Woodlice to hollow out some nice spaces for the scorps to live in in the future.
10. I waited for everything to dry out. The primary indicator that it had dried enough for the scorps and Cacti was when the Woodlice died off since they need soil moisture to survive. I also placed some fishfood in the enclosure for them to feed on as well while they were doing their job.
11. Once it was completely dry I added about an inch of Cactus soil, 3 Cacti, covered the surface with maybe a quarter inch of sifted loose sand and added the Scorps.
12. Lastly I placed the unit on my desk and watered the enclosure by siphoning about a quart of water into the straw inserted at the very beginning.

I now water the cacti through the straw about every 90 days just enough so the moisture shows in the bottom of the sand.
Hope this helps you.

Edit: Also it is cool to watch the scorps climbing around and over the Cacti.

[KBeard]

Awesome. Thanks for your feedback! I'm excited to get started!

[JohnEDove]

Oh poopy, I just read Pavel's post which reminded me to add that I placed an 18 in florescent plant grow light on the screen top of the aquarium and the Cacti are doing great under it. The plant light is on a timer that allows 14 hours of light per day. The light was about 6 inches above the shortest cacti when I planted them but they have grown a couple of inches since I planted them back in May or June.
Also the light does not seem to bother the scorps, they even come out while the light is still on some days.