Low Humidity In Wooden Vivarium

Hello, I am the owner of a young ball python whose been having trouble shedding. He seems healthy besides that and usually rubs off the skin after I bathe him but I'd really rather he be able to shed it naturally.

I currently have him on aspen substrate and a heat mat inside the wooden vivarium. I'd rather avoid under-the-tank heaters since I've heard that they aren't effective with wooden vivariums and I've heard that eco earth is a more humid substrate but it can grow mold if paired with a heat lamp and apparently it can't be in direct contact with a heat mat for some reason.

Does anyone have any good advice?

Yeah, ditch the wood. It's going to suck up your moisture and mold. And a heat mat belongs under the enclosure, not inside it where the snake can knock around the t-stat prop and pee on it and damage it. If you want to skip under tank heating, invest in an RHP.

Hey, I have my BP in a wooden display tank, I used to use aspen bedding but it's so dry and dusty I recently swapped to orchid bark which I belive is also called reptibark? Since this swap my humidity jumped 10% just with that change and I now have a steady level of mid 50's I dont use a UTH though as I think they're hard for wooden vivs I use a ceramic heat bulb on one side and it keeps a good temperature gradient from cool side to hot side, when he's about to shed I mist few times daily and twice a day anyway and he shed well everytime since, sometimes I pop an extra water bowl and a moss hide to really lift humidity up, hope this helps :)

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Originally Posted by Lizardlicks

Yeah, ditch the wood. It's going to suck up your moisture and mold. And a heat mat belongs under the enclosure, not inside it where the snake can knock around the t-stat prop and pee on it and damage it. If you want to skip under tank heating, invest in an RHP.

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What does RHP stand for ?

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Radiant heat panel. These things here.

Change your substrate up, I use coconut husk fibre. It holds humidity well and is meant for the tropical climate a BP is used to. For keeping humidity, I usually used a moist (warm) towel to cover part of the enclosure after misting. As well as give the enclosure a good spray down once or twice a day.

This is what I buy

https://www.amazon.ca/Hagen-PT2771-E.../dp/B001CY4ELE


Also, you can add a moist hide to your tank, a place where your BP can go to get extra moisture. You can do this buy either filling a tuperware bowl with some moss, or you can put the moss into a hide in your enclosure. I wouldnt recommend putting it in his only hide. :)

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Originally Posted by Lizardlicks

Radiant heat panel. These things here.

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does a RHP need a dedicated thermostat or does it have one built in. ... and am I missing something, the page you listed has no pricing and no "add to cart" button. the description on the page is very impressive. I'm always looking for more reliable and more energy efficient ways to heat enclosures.

I would line the wooden enclosure with something able to seal it. with my tiger wood display set up I lined the whole thing with shower liner and used spray foam to adhere it and silicone to seal up the seams. to use a UTH inside I had to create a glass panel with spacers to adhere it to so as to avoid heat encapsulation, I sandwiched the probe in between. you can see a pic in my gallery.

You know what, I've never ordered anything other than PAM from ProPoducts and I can't see if there's an order button I'm missing either :/. I assume to contact them to special order? Reptile basics and LLL both sell them as well. You do need to regulate it with a t-stat, but the claim (at least with the Proheat guys) is that it won't burn you/ the animal/catch fire even in the event of t-stat failure.

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Originally Posted by Lizardlicks

Radiant heat panel. These things here.

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I've not seen these before they look to be great I'm gonna loo into getting one of these what's your opinion on them

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Haven't used them personally yet, though I intend to get some AP-T8s for my bigger girls eventually, and will be heating those using RHPs. I had a lot of the same questions on how they worked and got some really good answers! I think there are also a couple stickies around here if you look.