It's been six months since my last post on Marcos (I was rather preoccupied this summer), and a lot has happened...
First off, he grew up, and fast. Subcommander Marcos is now about 10 months old and has nearly quadrupled in size since May.
Secondly, he moved into a new home. Back in September he was clearly too big for the 10 gallon tank, so I constructed a new one for him out of poplar, glass, and brass hardware. It's a 69 gallon, screen-top, vertical habitat, measuring 20" X 20" X 40". I added many windy vines of ranging diameters up to 5/8", as well as a number of plastic and silk hanging plants.
I let him go a little long in the old terrarium, and probably should have moved him at about six months old. The move was not a smooth as I had hoped. He sat completely dormant for nearly 48 hours without opening his eyes, and caused a bit of worry. But after a couple days, he started moving around, and before I knew it, he was scaling the walls, chomping crickets, and talking up a storm.
My Brooklyn apartment is about as dry as can be now that we are heading toward winter and the heat is turned on. Thus, I added some all-natural sphagnum moss as a substrate to keep the humidity level up. The interior of the terrarium hovers around 55% humidity, which is about 5% less than Michael Novy specified for adult Bicolors. Marcos seems happy and healthy however, and I continue to mist him regularly in the mornings with distilled spring water.
Marcos has graduated to 5/8" to 3/4" crickets, which he is fed between 6 and 10 a day - on a loose schedule of four days on, one day off. I continue to dust the crickets in 3 parts Rep-Cal Herpative to 1 part Rep-Cal Calcium with Vitamin D3.
There's more to report, but will it save for other posts -- which I'll try to be more on top of.
