Humidity keeps dropping

[Enve]

So I seem to have a problem, my humidity keeps dropping gradually. I get it up to about 55% and it keeps dropping down to below 49% after a couple hours. It was steady for about 4 days when I first setup the tank now all of a sudden it's all FUBAR'd! My setup is as follows 10gal critter cage, UTH on the warm side, Infrared heat light in the middle (which is causing my humidity problem), 2 thermostats, my temps are 93.2 & 82.4. I was wondering if it would work if I put another UTH on the cool side and set the temp to stay in the low 80's with the thermostat probe on the heating pad like on my warm side, this would allow me get rid of the heat light which I needed originally because my cool side temp wouldn't go above 75.

[lord jackel]

What substrate are you using? If you are using a wood substrate more then likely it is drying out...which is common. If you can maintain 49% I wouldn't worry about it...if it continues to drop then you may need to mist daily to offer humid period each day.

As for your question about the UTH, yes that will raise the surface temp on the cool side but it may not raise the ambient temp much...only way to know for sure is to try it out.

You can also put the water bowl right under the CHE which will cause more evaporation and raise the humity (a larger water bowl can also help with this)

[Enve]

i'm using cypress mulch, the problem is i'm having to mist about 5-6 times a day to keep it above 49%. When I leave it overnight it drops down to almost 45%. If take out some of the cypress and really moisten it would that do the trick?

[lord jackel]

i'm using cypress mulch, the problem is i'm having to mist about 5-6 times a day to keep it above 49%. When I leave it overnight it drops down to almost 45%. If take out some of the cypress and really moisten it would that do the trick?

Cypress is really wet out of the bag and will dry dramatically the first week. You don't want to over moisten it as they can lead to skin issues for your snake.

I would suggest - cover some of the top with plastic wrap which will help hold in some of the humidity, get a larger water bowl and place under the CHE to create more evaporation. Then let it settle and see where you land.

[Enve]

i just picked up some sphagnum moss i'm going to try throwing a little in and seeing how that does. I have some of the top covered with tinfoil and duct tape already so hopefully this will work Thanks for the help

[sophia]

What substrate are you using? If you are using a wood substrate more then likely it is drying out...which is common. If you can maintain 49% I wouldn't worry about it...if it continues to drop then you may need to mist daily to offer humid period each day.

As for your question about the UTH, yes that will raise the surface temp on the cool side but it may not raise the ambient temp much...only way to know for sure is to try it out.

You can also put the water bowl right under the CHE which will cause more evaporation and raise the humity (a larger water bowl can also help with this)

So can I take this to mean that if my humidity is too high it might be helpful to use aspen shavings instead of newspaper?

[/end hijack]

[Kristy]

I don't know if this would work for a BP setup. I use it for cresties.

With screen tops its really hard to keep the humidity right, its either too high or way too low with no in between.

Misting my cresties tank heavily at night it would drop to almost 30% by morning. So by accident I put some non adhesive shelf liner on top of the tank leaving about 3 inches of screen exposed on one side. It was perfect. The liner has holes in it so you get really good ventilation but the humidity doesn't drop drastically. So I mist at night, then put the liner back on top and it drops to 55% by late morning and stays that way all day.

So maybe that would keep the humidity at the right levels for you bp.

[2Devious]

I was having the same problem with my screen topped tank.

Here is what has been working for me:

I use two paper towels, folded over, spray them down until they are damp and place them on top of the screen in the back center. I then cover the entire top with a towel.
As humidity begins to drop I fold back the towel, pick up the paper towel and remist it till damp and recover with the towel.
If the humidity is too high I simply fold one of the corners of the towel back to expose some of the screen and then cover it all back up when the humidity is at the desired level.

[Enve]

Well I added in the moss and my humidity is 56% and has been for about 4 hours now! All seems well for the time beeing, we'll see in the morning I guess Thanks again guys/gals 2Devious, i'll deffinitly keep that trick in mind once winter hits.

[MelissaFlipski]

We are having similar problems. We have a UTH on the warm side as well as a 40 Watt bulb in a lamp (aims to side of tank). Our humidity was fine, but temps were too low on both warm and cool sides. So we got a CHE in a lamp above the warm side. At first, it was in a lamp that couldn't handle 100 Watts, but temps and humidity were good, with temps only slightly lower than ideal.

But now that we installed the proper lamp that can handle up to 250 watts (with metal shade to keep heat in better), the temps are getting high on warm side and the humidity drops like crazy. We have the cool side covered to keep in humidity (water bowl on that side) and added a small ceramic dish of water on the warm side to aid humidity in evaporation. Usually we turn off the 40 watt now and turn down the UTH slightly. My husband has the UTH on a dimmer and is thinking of adding the CHE to the dimmer, too (he can do electrical work). We have a "true light" fluorescent light, as well. Our substrate is fir mulch that came with the "reptile critter" 20 gal tank we got.

This is what happens, temps rise to about 93 / 82 but humidity drops to 35%. (Once I think the warm side even reached 95 - yikes! - needless to say, we check OFTEN to monitor the situation, and luckily Mr. Snake is moving back and forth from warm to cool, so he seems to know what he needs). So I mist quite a bit (and NOT directly on the snake!) to bring humidity back up. Then the humidity rises to about 60% and the temps drop to 87/78. Then as it warms up again the humidity drops again - perfectly inverse correlation here, all the time!

The humidity and temps have also dropped a lot where we live in the past few days. Winter will be fun! (eastern panhandle of WV).

Any ideas, folks??? Should we try the moss, too?
Thanks!