Help with the homemade humidifer on this site?

well I did a little experimenting over the weekend. I tried using a 2 liter cranberry juice bottle INSTEAD of the 1 gallon cranberry juice bottle I was using previously. I didn't see any effect on air output or any significant change in humidity inside the enclousure. So I went back to using the 1-gallon bottle. I also tried using 2 air stones each on it's own hose coming from the 2-output air pump. This didn't seem to make much of a difference compared to useing the T-connector with 1 air stone as shown in the tuturial. Next thing I did was to shorten up the hoses a bit, this made the air come out a tiny bit faster but not much of a difference at all in humidity levels inside the enclousure. I have my water bottle with air pump sitting BELOW the cage on the floor about 3 foot under the encloursure. The air tube has to go vertically upward a few feet from the bottle to the cage where I drilled a hole in the back center of the cage to stick the air hose through. I have the air hose towards the top of the cage with about 4 inches of the hose sticking inside the cage, pointing to the floor of the cage.

The ONLY noticiable difference in humidity I find is with using HOT water in the bottle. Right after I fill the bottle up with HOT water and then run the pump, I notice my humidity levels JUMPS up about 20% in about 20 minutes time after starting the pump. As the water cools down in the bottle the humidity in the cage also goes down, then basically overnight, the humidity is back down into the 30-40% range. So I have come to the conclusion that I need HOT water in the bottle at all times, (makes sense since hot air holds more moisture, the hot water in the bottle is warming up the incoming air from the pump, thus making the hot air hold lots of moisture which is then pumped into the tank). I was thinking of a way to put some sort of aqaurium submersiable heater inside the bottle to keep the water hot in there, but I don't know how I could do this and keep an air tight seal in the bottle..

the other option I was thinking of, is scrapping the whole do-it-yourself humidifier idea, going to walmart and buying a 'warm-mist' humidifier and somehow rigging up tubing to go from the output of the humidifier and channel it into my snake cage. This way I think the humidity would go up much better and since the humidifier is already putting out warm mist, that would solve my hot water issues..

Bear with me because I am going to ask a stupid question:

How much of your enclosure do you have sealed off?

I have the animal plastics T3 cage, so if you check that out you will see... only small air slots on the back of the cage

I am really stumped, sorry. I have a glass enclosure and am also running both flexwatt and a 150 watt ceramic heater because of low ambients, and with the humidifier I am able to maintain the humidity around 55%.


You might try putting saran wrap or contact paper over the air slots. You really don't need much in the way of ventilation since you are pumping air into the enclosure.

well I don't know how big your glass enclousure is, but my T3 inside area is about equal to a 40-50 gallon aqurirum. so that could make a difference. Plus my ambient air temps in the room at 63-67 degrees and the relative humidity in the room is about 37% Your's could be different and thus make a difference inside the enclousure. I am running about 10% more humidity than my room humidity in the enclousure with the DIY humidifier running.

i would be a little cautious about the warm mist humidifier exhausting directly in the cage. warm temps and too much moisture could be 10x worse than a dry cage? mold,fungus,bacteria,etc!!! i really think the 150 watt che is zapping all the moisture out of the air, going to a uth or flexwatt that is sized for your setup might do the trick.

i've seen the pic with the humidfier setup exhausting directly in the cages and it looks like overkill and something off of star trek, like the "borg" would use lol
just my opinion.

vaughn

how about this idea, use the same setup as described in the DIY section on this site, and then get one of those electric warmer things that you can put pots ontop of that will keep the pot warm....? I can then put the water bottle ontop of this..

My set-up is smaller, the cage is probably about 20 gallons and I am using a 30 gallon pump, but the ambients in the room are probably similar to yours--Around 67 degrees. Humidity in the room is probably around 45%. You might be better off saving yourself the aggrevation and just making a humid hide or two so your snake can get humidity when he feels like it.