Possible solution to low humidity issues???

I bought a cheap personal (small) humidifier at walgreens for $20. Attached a tube and fed it into my snakes cage. Run it off a timer, use distilled water, never had a problem with mold or any badness. Keeps humidity spot on. Just adjust the timer to come on more/less longer/shorter duration at different times of the year and while in shed.

If you're using a tank, cover about 70% of the screen top with tin foil. Use a wider water bowl that is partially if not completely over the UTH (you will have to refill more often), and make sure that area is covered by the foil up top. Put the heat lamp at the opposite end of the tank as the water bowl. This helped me raise my humidity by 25% without any misting whatsoever. If you mist at night before bed it should bump you up enough

First experiment is gonna be the water/ ecoearth in a terra cotta dish. Soaked the dish for a few hours and now have it filled with water and substrate, covered in plastic so it soaks in. Then will somewhat bury it after uncovering it in a few hours. Luckily, we have a storm coming thru <won't rain but we are getting a natural bump in humidity.> of course it's unusual so now the temps are fluctuating.

Blm.... My cover is treated with foil and tape.

Kite...* Fingers crossed* And the room she lives in tends to sit at 73ish. I can't do the misting thing 4 times a day every day, I'll be tickled pink if I can find something that requires 2 days a week ish upkeep.

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Originally Posted by MsMissy

First experiment is gonna be the water/ ecoearth in a terra cotta dish. Soaked the dish for a few hours and now have it filled with water and substrate, covered in plastic so it soaks in. Then will somewhat bury it after uncovering it in a few hours. Luckily, we have a storm coming thru <won't rain but we are getting a natural bump in humidity.> of course it's unusual so now the temps are fluctuating.

Blm.... My cover is treated with foil and tape.

Kite...* Fingers crossed* And the room she lives in tends to sit at 73ish. I can't do the misting thing 4 times a day every day, I'll be tickled pink if I can find something that requires 2 days a week ish upkeep.

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Just do what I recommended, but I'm not sure if the Eco Earth will help or not, I've never done it with it, and I used that Zoo Med Cypress Mulch thing because it retains water good.

Eco earth holds far more water than cyprus so much so that when wet you can squeeze water out. I personally don't like using cyprus as it is not well managed and the future it will be endangered (currently it is threatened in many places) Eco earth (coco coir) is a by product and 100% renewable. It is a sound environmental option.

The terracotta can work just fine but if you switch to plastic it will also work well and doesn't leak water to over the UTH and is easier to clean.

I am not a fan of reducing the ventilation it is linked to health issues. that method is basically 'sick building syndrome' I would avoid reducing air flow in a tank that has not super great air flow to begin with. (think grocery store open top freezers if they vented well with clients moving past all the time it would thaw. They don't because cold air settles and there is very poor air flow) I live where summer RH and winter RH is drastically different, summer is in the 40% winter is in the 10% I never had a problem.

Humidifiers work well although the monumental amount of cleaning the ultrasonic ones need (daily) to remain at low bacteria levels it not worth it. They also tend to drop the ambient air temps drastically when the kick on (summer mine was on 100% of the time) I'd avoid them and only use the evaporation ones they however cannot be directed straight in as they run too hot.

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Originally Posted by kitedemon

Eco earth holds far more water than cyprus so much so that when wet you can squeeze water out. I personally don't like using cyprus as it is not well managed and the future it will be endangered (currently it is threatened in many places) Eco earth (coco coir) is a by product and 100% renewable. It is a sound environmental option.

The terracotta can work just fine but if you switch to plastic it will also work well and doesn't leak water to over the UTH and is easier to clean.

I am not a fan of reducing the ventilation it is linked to health issues. that method is basically 'sick building syndrome' I would avoid reducing air flow in a tank that has not super great air flow to begin with. (think grocery store open top freezers if they vented well with clients moving past all the time it would thaw. They don't because cold air settles and there is very poor air flow) I live where summer RH and winter RH is drastically different, summer is in the 40% winter is in the 10% I never had a problem.

Humidifiers work well although the monumental amount of cleaning the ultrasonic ones need (daily) to remain at low bacteria levels it not worth it. They also tend to drop the ambient air temps drastically when the kick on (summer mine was on 100% of the time) I'd avoid them and only use the evaporation ones they however cannot be directed straight in as they run too hot.

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CoCo Husk holds humidity as well. The only reason I said I'm not sure about Eco Earth is it may clog up the bottom, but then again maybe not. I just never tried it with it. I've used Eco Earth for scorpions but never with the way I did the Anaconda tank.

It's definitely a challenge. Thank goodness I'm up for it. Storms moving thru right now which dropped our temps 20 degrees and jacked up the humidity. not helping my experiments at all!!!

Currently heartbroken though, went tonight to pick up a nice fat snack for my girl and discovered my fave mom and pop shop is closing in less than a week. <And was already closed so she goes one more day> This presents a feeding issue that I was unprepared for. Nagini wouldn't even look at the darn f/t mouse so the hunt begins for a reputable source. I'll be doing some clearance sale shopping though *grin*.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MsMissy

It's definitely a challenge. Thank goodness I'm up for it. Storms moving thru right now which dropped our temps 20 degrees and jacked up the humidity. not helping my experiments at all!!!

Currently heartbroken though, went tonight to pick up a nice fat snack for my girl and discovered my fave mom and pop shop is closing in less than a week. <And was already closed so she goes one more day> This presents a feeding issue that I was unprepared for. Nagini wouldn't even look at the darn f/t mouse so the hunt begins for a reputable source. I'll be doing some clearance sale shopping though *grin*.

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One option if you can't do F/T is to look on craigslist for people who breed mice. I've found people on there willing to, err what's that word called.. Oh yea, they were looking to foster snakes, so basically give me stuff to feed to my snakes. I didn't do it because I prefer to keep them on F/T but if I needed to do it then I could.

No local feeder mice or rat breeders. Did find a relatively new and unknown pet shop that it taking over what the closing store had as far as feeders. Seem to be nice ppl and really big on reptiles. I picked up a few spare mice and have them set up in a tank for the next few weeks feedings while I 'investigate'. If I don't like what I find I'm just gonna breed myself and start a nice side biz.

My poor Nagini. She apparently hid out during her cloudy eye stage and went into shedding unknown to me <While I'm constantly messing with her tank, I leave her alone.> and took down a big fat mouse on Tuesday. Messy shed, fat and digesting and our local temps are 115. I've managed to stabilize the ambient temp at 83 but it's not going any lower and no true cool side. Humidity is really good so not sure why it's such a messy shed. She got her head done but not coming off well on her body.

ECO earth, coco coir, coco husk is all the same thing FYI.