Humidity death.

My humidity has gone dangerously low, around the 30's in the past day or two. I'm having the worst time trying to get it up. I've got a water bowl in the tank, which is a 20 gallon, heat lamp, which doens't help the humidity either.

Could it be the paper towels i have as her substrate? Absorbing any humidity in the air?

I've done all i can do to get this humidity up, besides ditching the heat lamp, i don't have enough money to order some flexwatt and get a big expensive tstat or what not.

I have a pretty large plastic bin available to me as well, i was maybe thinking about cutting a circle in the bin top and putting some of the screen top under the hole and letting the heat lamp chill on top of that. It's got a plastic top so humidity wouldn't be a problem with that i dont think.

I'm going up to the store today for a rat, so she can feed.



What kind of bulb would you reccomend for night time and day time use?????

Ditch the lamp. It will kill you only slightly less in the plastic setup you mentioned.

Is the screen closed off with anything?

Paper towels play a negligible part in your humidity problems - you'd see the same results with newspaper and given the use of a lamp probably only slight gains with barklike substrate.

Do you have a humid hide?

As a stopgap solution if you find a $9 heating pad, jack the tank up off the surface (table, whatever) so theres airflow below and use that until you can find something more applicable.

On the bulbs - what kind of lighting are you trying to provide or why?

Your heat lamp is definitely killing your humidity. The water bowl really doesn't do much to boost it, either. You can try putting in some cypress substrate. That tends to hold the humidity better than the paper towels. Also, your idea about the plastic top should help as well. Another trick you can try is to place a bowl in the cage with a sopping wet paper towel or two. The wet surface area should provide more humidity, but you'll have to replace it and keep it clean because it'll be a breeding ground for various nasty germs.

Your best bet will be to save up for a UTH and ditch the bulb.

Good luck!

If you've got a screen top, cover up a lot of it to hold in the humidity. A lot of people wrap portions of it in saran wrap, or place vinyl on top, or a towel. Rick and I had a custom piece of plex cut. With a ceramic heat emitter directly over the large water bowl, it evaporates water to keep the humidity, while the plex helps hold it in:

http://www.onlinethingy.com/files/cleoweb/cage2.jpg

If you get a cheapy UTH, get two, just one won't heat you cage enough, unless you go bigger than your tank, like one might say 'For a 20 gallon', but it won't heat a 20 to where you would want it.

I'm using a screened top. I covered the top with a thick paper, my humidity instantly rose to around 55-60 but an hour or so later dropped again.

For a while i was using a damp towell on top of the screen, it helped alot but got to be a pain.

Is UTH- Under thermal heat? That's my best guess.

I wanted to stick to a lamp becuase bulbs are cheap and what not.

I really want to change to a plastic bin enclosure but after hearing that the flexwatt tstats are over 100 dollars, i decided against it. But i'm still learning about flexwatt and such.

Right now i'm dead broke and i get my paycheck friday, meaning i'll be resupplied with some spendable cash, insurance has been eating my money lately.

I tried plastic wrap, but i need to find a better way of using it becuase Gem got real curious and tried to climb up into it, which was bad. Not to mention heat went up a crap load. But i can fix the heat easilly, the humidity is just pissing me off lately.

I wasn't planning on making her a humidity hide unless she was in shed, she's shed for me twice so far with no problems what so ever so temprament must be ideal...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Roundabout136

Is UTH- Under thermal heat? That's my best guess.

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Under Tank Heater. You don't really need an expensive thermostat if you're strapped for cash. You can get by with a sheet of Flexwatt and a Rheostat. You can probably get both for under $50, and it would be much better than a bulb. The plastic container is a great idea for keeping the humidity in, but you have to be careful if you plan on using it with a lamp due to the fire risk.

right now i have a humen heating pad, while im waiting for flexwatt and the other devices, im sure its not as good as flexwatt. but you can get a warm/slightly hot water "make sure ur snake doesn't go into the water" .. it will be humid in no time :)

We still run a few of these as well - if you are not ready to fund your flexwatt it is a workable stop-gap solution. Flex-watt/thermostat is really your best bet for long-term stability and safety. The heating pads do not have a very considerable half-life when they are left on continuously and are hardly the safest heating option.

true , thats why im ordering the flexwatt with ranco thermostat. thermo/hymometer .. bleh having problems with my mastercard/visa, cant be processed, so im sending the money by mail. anyways. "out of topic"

but yeah. after alot of search. flexwatt/thermostat is the best choice :)