Hetero...
Something I discovered when I made my pokie setup. If you place deadwood into the water and cover the deadwood with green moss that you find in pet shops. What happens is the same effect as when you place a rope into water to water a pot plant. The moss drinks the water when it is saturated the moss next to it consumes from it and so on. With airflow in the tank it dries the moss at the top so more water is required.... Evaporation effect. I'd leave the plants out and stick moss to a deadwood with gluegun glue. This can be achieved by melting the glue stick with a lighter if you don't have a glue gun. The humidity in the tank is always 70+. I also water the substrate for added humidity.

As you can see humidity is at 88% mostly due to the moss evaporation effect. By the way this pokie tank has a mesh lid so maintaining humidity should have been a problem.

What prevents you from having the grid submerged in the reservoir? That way your T can drink, feeders can still climb out. You can not avoid stuff to get to water, the T will have to drink.

In the same line of thought you then might as well have the reservoir be shallow and not a deep one.

I must say I like the idea very nice.
I would diffidently suggest having a removable reserve, nothing worse that you end up cleaning whole cage out ever time you need to clean the water out.
you could even go as far to heat the water supply, this will give great humidity in the tank.
Along with great air flow.

You could even go as far to make a glass water fall against the glass :lol: .

I would not worry about the reservoir, with regards to the feeders fallen in there, Crickets can swim and so can roaches. But your spiders should eat them up before this happens and the feeder are not just going to jump in the water.
Secondly you will be removing any un-eaten food the next day, as this is common practice.
I would say you will have to treat it the same as a water dish just on a larger scale, your spider throws dirt into the dish anyway and some times the spider will throw it bolus into the water dish(like a couple of my spiders do).
Still have to do cage maintenance, so meaning you will have to take the reserve out and wash it and put fresh water back in.
Covering it wont stop dirt from fallen in unless you cover it with a solid cover but that will not help the design. and the cost will increase if you have to buy a plastic or none rust material to cover the water reserve.
Just add something inside the reserve if a cricket does fall in that it can get out if the water level has dropped.
Or something like a small ramp in the middle as you suggested.

I don't think it will lighten your work load, if anything it will increase your cleaning times, to remove one reserve wash out and replace it will take you a couple mins longer. but you will save time on refilling the reserve far less than the water dishes.
As for the crickets I think it will be part and parcel of the design.

The only thing that I would worry about will be the glass wall that will separate the substrate from the reserve, you should keep an eye on this as the Tarantula could hurt it self on the piece of glass sticking out the substrate, even if the piece of glass is scored it can still hurt a spider if it climbs over it or fall onto it.

+1 Cascade

Few questions for HS:
1. Why would you have a reservoir in an arboreal enclosure?
2. What if your specimen falls on the protrusion, injures itself, lands in the reservoir, unable to climb out?
3. Why would one change designs that's been working for all the top dogs in our hobby? (WHO's T's ARE PRODUCING ALL THE EGG-SACKS)

Lastly, what might look beautiful to us as KEEPERS might be a LETHAL trap to our TARANTULAS.

KEEP IT SIMPLE!!

Again, thanks for all the feedback everyone.

Thanks cascade for all the comments, I'm not too worried about the little glass separator, I mean we all have wood, rocks etc as different hides and tank accents which a T could also fall on and hurt itself. But it might be a good idea to glue some plastic plants or something across there to soften a fall if it happens. I've already had a whole bunch of new ideas so this design may change quite drastically.

Yes in the bigger versions you could definitely install a small aquarium heater which would not only warm the tank slightly but will definitely increase humidity in a big way and the rising warmth would increase airflow due to the layout of the vents. Hot air would rise and suck fresh air in at the bottom.

With the reservoir, one can also use a small piece of fish tank tubing to syphon out the old water and add some fresh water once every so often. But I'm starting to think adding a drainage hole on the front corner will be a better idea, just remove the plug, drain the water and replace it. The fact is, because the reservoir holds much more water than a small water dish, you will have to change the water far less, so it will save you time in the long run.

@echodive, nothing is stopping you, a grid could also work and is a good idea, but I think a simple ramp will do the trick too.

@Usumbara
1: As mentioned in the first post, this mission is mostly to see if I can create a more stable environment in terms of humidity and airflow for Avics or other "sensitive" species. Sorry the title is a bit misleading because it says arboreals, but it's more for the sensitive arboreals.

2: Same as would happen if it fell and hurt itself into a water dish and could not get out. The reservoir is not huge, if the T injures itself so badly that it can't climb out, I am doubtful if it would survive anyway.

3: I'm not aware that I'm changing any design or that there is a design that the top dogs are using?? The breeders I know use plastic bottles because it's not financially smart to keep 200 newly hatched slings in professionally made tanks. These tanks are for the people buying slings like Avics and that are having trouble raising them due to their humidity and airflow requirements.

Also, every place I walk into sells the regular tank with the vent on top, which damages all the T's webbing every time you open the lid to feed the T or remove food bolus's. The design I'm working on is very common I'm just making it with glass and adding a decent water reservoir to try keep the humidity consistent. I don't know of anyone selling tanks like this locally? If you do, please supply the details coz i would love to buy some.

This is a great discussion

HS