DIY Incubator - exposed water or not ???

Looking at various DIY's on incubators, the one difference I cannot understand is the open water placement for humidity.

In a plastic cooler open water is placed at the bottom or in metal trays with fans blowing heated air over the surface.

In a wine cooler or fridge sealed water bottles are used to retain heat and the fan is used to move warm air around the unit. No open water.

In both cases the egg boxes look to made the same. Why does the plastic cooler need open water? Thanks.

Depends on whether you want to keep the humidity inside the incubator up, or if you control humidity inside your egg boxes instead.
If the egg boxes are tightly sealed, you can do that, otherwise they tend to dry quickly if incubator humidity is low.

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Originally Posted by WingedWolfPsion

Depends on whether you want to keep the humidity inside the incubator up, or if you control humidity inside your egg boxes instead. If the egg boxes are tightly sealed, you can do that, otherwise they tend to dry quickly if incubator humidity is low.

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I understand what you are saying but in all of the plans I saw marine/beverage/food type plastic coolers had open water trays or water on the bottom. None of the fridge types had that.

Why is keeping the humidity up in the incubator important in a cooler and not in a fridge?

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Originally Posted by JohnNJ

I understand what you are saying but in all of the plans I saw marine/beverage/food type plastic coolers had open water trays or water on the bottom. None of the fridge types had that.

Why is keeping the humidity up in the incubator important in a cooler and not in a fridge?

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Its important in both. but not neccessary in either if they are keeping the humidity up in just the egg boxes alone. You may have just looked at ones that just happened to have one or the other. Some people put open water in both just to make sure the humidity is up to par to be cautionary. I just built one out of a cooler and am just using water bottles to keep the temps stable and so the temps can recover quickly after opening. Im doing this because I intend to keep my humidity up within the egg tubs themselves therefore it isnt necessary to have open water within the cooler itself. Hope this answers your question. GoodLuck.

The open water isn't necessary, just make sure you keep your substrate wet enough, much easier!

As for the water bottles, I do that. It helps stabilize your temps since the incubator doesn't have anything to hold in the heat when you open the door. When you put the water bottles in the incubator and open the door you only lose a few degrees, unlike when you open the door without them, I was losing as much as 10 degrees by the time I got the door shut. That can obviously cause spikes since your thermostat is trying to make up for the difference quickly. The water bottles are also really nice because if the power goes out they will hold the temp for a few hours.

I use a full size freezer as an incubator. My mixture of vemiculite to water is 1:1 by weight and I didn't have any problems. I also fill the front door and much of the space not taken up by egg boxes with sealed water bottles for temperature stabilization. Hopefully this season I have more egg boxes and less water bottles. Another thing I do is use the water in the bottles to mix my substrate so its already at a warmer temp when I put in the eggs. This worked so far and I'll do the exact same thing this year. Good luck