Another humidity question!

[jphealy]

By switching from paper towels to repti-bark would I be able to maintain a higher humidity, by misting the substrate or whatever? I'm using a wood viv with an overhead bulb to keep the ambient temps up, so humidity suffers a bit with my setup.

[Smulkin]

Given your enclosure (is it sealed? what with?) and the bulb that is not surprising. I would tend to think it would be a continuing battle with that. Is there anyway you can ditch the bulb? I would think the easiest solution given your situation would be a good humid hide. Also how big is the water bowl and where is it in relation to the heat source?

[jphealy]

Here's a picture of my viv. It was a flat-packed thing that I assembled myself. I didn't seal the joins with silicone or anything, if that's what you mean, but they fit pretty tightly.

There's a heat mat under the warm end. Ambient temps would be way too low without the bulb. At night the white bulb goes off and an infra-red one comes on.

Since the pic was taken I added another hide at the warm end. My bp's just finishing his first shed since I've had him and it didn't go well. Still some retained around his head. I added a humid hide once I noticed he was starting a shed cycle. It didn't seem to help, but I didn't see him use it much.

I had thought the humidity was ok, but it was being measured at the cool end, where it's about 50%. It's much lower at the warm end.

You can see the size of the water dish in the pic. I now keep it all the way at the warm end.

Any advice?

[Smulkin]

You could possibly try switching to a different water bowl. I noticed switching out from the type you are using that my humidity went up about 7% just from having an increased volume of water on the warm end. I am not sure how well that success would translate in a wooden enclosure with bulbs though (mileage may vary etc). If it doesn't do the trick I'd suggest a humid hide with some sphagnum moss.