With less than 2 weeks to go till I'm expecting my first clutch of the season, I'm trying to get my incubator up and running smoothly. The room is sitting at roughly 85 (I'm using a small fan space heater. I set it to heat to 80 but so far the room is still warming up past 80). The incubator is using a helix DBS 1000 and it is currently set to 96. So far, this gives me a temp of 89.1. I want to incubate at 88, so I'm going to lower the setting.

Now, I've heard of people using water bottles in their incubators to keep the temperatures stable. Does this work? I'm keeping a little log of the room temp, incubator temp, and what I have it set to, to try and achieve a steady temp of 88. I'm checking every hour or so (well until I go to work anyway). The thermometer is an accurite so even if I have to go to work, I can check High and Lo temps when I get home. I want to have this incubator stable in the next day or so because I know eggs can come early.