Humidity Question

[new2herp]

I got my first BP last Wednesday, a cb male 4-month old from NERD. Now that I have him at home, I am having problems with the humidity. I have a glass terrarium with a screen top, but was told that, with a humidity chamber, my set-up would be fine. He hasn't gone near the sphagnum moss filled tupperware container I have set up. Perhaps if I just cover most of the screen top with plastic the humidity will rise, but then I wouldn't be able to use a basking light in addition to the under-tank heating pad. Am I just a worried new owner? Do I need to buy a special cage designed for reptiles? Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

[Marla]

You probably don't need the light at all, and they are humidity killers. What are your temps and humidity and how are you measuring them?

[JLC]

If you need an lamp in addition to the UTH to bring the temps up high enough, then you can cut a hole in whatever you use to cover the screen that will accomodate the heat lamp. Like Marla said, having those lamps makes it more challenging to keep humidity high enough...but sometimes a UTH just isn't enough. (I have that problem with my snake, but fortunately for me he doesn't need any extra humidity!)

[iceman25]

How big is the cage and how big is your Ball? What do you use for substrate?Have you fed him yet? And we want pics :mrgreen:

[JLC]

Here's a good thread about screen tops and humidity, including a nice picture of one way to deal with it:

http://ball-pythons.net/index.php?na...t=1564&start=0

[new2herp]

Gee wiz! What terrific responses and so fast! Thanks to all. I guess not everybody has contracted March madness as I have.

He is about 20 inches and I have him in a 10 gallon tank. I have a larger one, but I read that it is better to wait until he grows a bit. He has eaten. I am using newspaper for substrate. I have one zoomed thermometer toward the cool end which reads 70 without a lamp, 81 with it. I know I should have thermometers at both ends and a humidity sensor so I'll get them soon. At this point, though, I can tell that I need a lamp and that it is extremely arid in there, so I am much obliged to all.

Don't worry, you will see pictures soon! :wink:

[Marla]

The stick-on thermometers can be off by 20 degrees or more, so your best bet is to go get a digital one, like the indoor-outdoor thermometer/hygrometer combo discussed in another thread which is available for ~$15 at WalMart. One quick trick to try to raise humidity is to use a ceramic or glass dish for your water dish and keep it at least partly on the heating pad. That can give you a several point bump in humidity. Another one, as in the thread Judy pointed you to, is to cover (most of) the top with anything from duct tape to aluminum foil to contact paper. Between the two of those, you ought to be able to get your humidity up by as much as 20%.

[SheSkweezes]

We put our rather large (8"d) water dish on top of the undertank heat pad, and once in a while I mist the inside of the tank. its a 20g high. my humidity is usually between 40-50%. i run a heat light 24/7...bright for day, red at night as well. our ball Lucy never soaks in her dish but she has never had a hard time shedding.. she usually does it in the middle of the night..remember that balls in the wild are grassland/underground hunters in Africa.. not the rainforest