I ended up letting my tarantula go today in my back yard, something's been happening to her here lately; a growing patch of missing hair on her back that had some liquid coming from it for a couple days. The leaking subsided but she was still real defensive, I didn't dare put my hand down there as she was biting at my forceps. I don't know, mites? fungus? She was still eating well, wasn't skinny at all. I thought maybe she was getting ready to molt but 14 days later nothing. It had to have been the environment. I used pure peat moss, offered her food daily, gave her a water dish; she had plenty of room to romp. The atmosphere was fine, 77ish degrees 24/7. Pretty let down by it all really; I don't know guys, any suggestions/opinions?
Sadly, that's a problem plaguing tarantula keepers, an abscess forming near where the urticating hairs grow.. Nobody really seems to know what causes it. Some argue it may be an urticating hair that broke off and became embedded in the skin, others argue it could be from too much humidity. Aphonopelma (the species you had) doesn't like too much humidity, but still it doesn't seem to be environmental. prior to molting, tarantulas will flick off all their urticating hairs. You can tell they're about to molt, because the skin on their abdomen will change from flesh-colored, to dark blueish-grey. Because the general public doesn't care about spiders the same way they do about dogs or cats, little real research is done on arthropod diseases, outside of species important to man, like honeybees.
I was hoping she was just molting but that patch never made a change in color. Oh well hopefully she'll live on in the woods makin tons of spider babies behind my house. I've actuall been thinking about getting an emperor scorpion, they seem much more resilient while remaining docile; that and they're very neat to look at.
Actually, emps can be a bitch to care for. They require a moist warm environment, and good ventilation. Aside from that, they are fairly hardy. I get pissed when i visit a pet store and see them on sand with water gel. X(