Humidity problem

Chance (Red-tail BCI) is getting ready to shed.How do i keep my humidity up? Right now he is in a 10 gal, but tonight I am moving him to a 20 L w/ a screen top for now.

I really need help with humidity level.My husband is out buying a water bottle right now. I have a heating pad UNDER HALF the tank, and also have dome light on top of the cage.He has a half shape log for a hide and water dish.Right now, I have 2 water bowls.one is right under the light (hoping it will help raise the hum.?) and i also have a damp towel over the cool side.

what he looks like now

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...2/shedding.gif

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4.../shedding4.gif

and preshed

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...iX2/snake1.gif

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...iX2/snake3.jpg

oh.........at some point last night,the hum. got up to 80% (lights off)

Right now my stats are temp-83.8 (cool side :( ) and 51% hum.

really need some help

With humidity around 60% my boas have all had great sheds! Misting your tank or putting in some sphagnum moss works well. There are also tricks you can do with the top of your tank (like covering part of it with plexiglass) to help with the humidity :)

Put the damp paper towel on the warm side. ;]

Use hot water in a mist bottle and it'll cool down when you mist it but still be warm. Wet moss retains moisture well too.

If it's still not getting up very high (and you have a screen top?) then take a warm wet rag and damp the top of the screen with a bit of water. :]

Just ideas.

Thank you all!!

I have some moss (for my gecko), I can wet it and put it in there.I didnt know I could so that.Where do I put it? And what do I put it on?

My husband is also buying Aspen or Cypress right now too. (he just called, they dont have aspen only cypress but its mixed with something.he is checking with what right now)

looking at Chance's pictures, does he look normal?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SherriX2

Thank you all!!

I have some moss (for my gecko), I can wet it and put it in there.I didnt know I could so that.Where do I put it? And what do I put it on?

My husband is also buying Aspen or Cypress right now too. (he just called, they dont have aspen only cypress but its mixed with something.he is checking with what right now)

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You could put it in small bowl, small old water bowl would work fine with some luke warm water. (not enough to drown it!)

Don't put it directly under the heat, but put it above part of the area covered by the UTH so that it evaporates. :]

Dh called,cypress is mixed with..cypress?? the other store in town said there cypress is treated and they dont have aspen.

I'm supposed to cook the cypress for 30 min at 200 in oven right?

BTW~~ chance has mites,I was going to deal with them after he shed's.

my UTH is just a plain heating pad right now (and I dont know how thats working,the glass bottom barely feels warm to me)

bump again

buying cyrpess mulch from a pet store is quite expensive. buying cypress mulch from home depot and lowes is INCREDIBLY cheap. for a large 15 - 20lb bag was below 4 dollars. the cypress mulch really helped my wife and i control the humidity since it retains moisture well but doesnt mold. (a herp guy told me to do this)

also, i had a screen top too. i would put a towel over it so my heat wasnt escaping along with all my humidity. i have heard of people putting saran wrap on parts of their screen.

one more tip that helped me which i read on here was: put your water bowl above the area your under the tank heater was to produce more evaporation which in turn causes more humidity. i put half of my large water bowl over the UTH and it worked wonderfully.

one last thing. i noticed you might be using the classic humidity/temp gauges. i noticed my humidity seemed more accurate once i went to wal-mart and spent 11 dollars on a Digital combo temperature (indoor - outdoor with probe) / humidity gauge. my old classic dial humidity gauge measured the humidity at that precise spot. i could move it across the tank and get a completely different reading.

If he has mites, I wouldn't bother putting in anything other than paper towels until you get the mite problem corrected. Otherwise you will just be throwing out the bedding as you treat him and you won't be able to see the mites as well.

To keep your humidity up, a bigger surface area water bowl can be used to increase evaporation. Also, cover at least half if not 3/4 of the screen top with plastic wrap and/or aluminum foil. This will help keep the humidity in the tank instead of letting all out of the top.

I already posted this in another thread,but i wanted to update this thread.

my humidity is now to high,I think. its at 82%.My snake never did shed!I had to soak him and peel the skin off. I cant get it off his neck and head.Also his eye caps are still on (I'm not going to try to get them off)

someone suggestioned Vit E oil, but I forgot what they said to do.

what do i do about the remaining skin & caps?

To raise my hum. I put tin foil over the top,added moist moss,put crypress mulch and misted the cage alot. Now I need to lower it,right? how?

can u not edit post here? i need to fix my spelling

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SherriX2

I already posted this in another thread,but i wanted to update this thread.

my humidity is now to high,I think. its at 82%.My snake never did shed!I had to soak him and peel the skin off. I cant get it off his neck and head.Also his eye caps are still on (I'm not going to try to get them off)

someone suggestioned Vit E oil, but I forgot what they said to do.

what do i do about the remaining skin & caps?

To raise my hum. I put tin foil over the top,added moist moss,put crypress mulch and misted the cage alot. Now I need to lower it,right? how?

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What do you mean peel the skin off? Be careful not to force the shed off if it is not ready because it can rip some skin. I didn't read the whole thread so I can't answer all the questions.. I would try soaking longer, and maybe tie the snake in a pillow case with a damp cloth and place it in the tank so it does not get too cold - this way while it is moving around it will rub against the cloth and the skin should come off easily and naturally - not by peeling off by hand.

For the eye caps, you can wait and see if they come off with the next shed or get them off yourself. My hog island boa had one retained - heres the thread to some things people told me and what I ended up doing:
http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showthread.php?t=67999

To lower the humidity you will have pretty much no choice but to either take some of the tin foil off or fold it back - or take some of the wet moss/mulch out and let it dry - if you are going to have the top of the cage covered it will not take much misting to keep humidity up, don't over do it with misting, I keep my snakes on aspen with tin foil on the top of their cages and the water dish and a couple sprays once or twice a week keeps it at a pretty constant 50-52% unless they tip the water dish over and make a mess.

Thanks,I was trying to keep the humidity high to help it shed. I took off the tin foil and removed the moss.I check it again in a little while. thank you for the link,I'm going to read it now

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SherriX2

Thanks,I was trying to keep the humidity high to help it shed. I took off the tin foil and removed the moss.I check it again in a little while. thank you for the link,I'm going to read it now

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one time my humidity got too high from OVER-misting while i was using cypress mulch and it seemed to take way too long to go away. cypress really holds the moisture in. i had to simply remove all of my substrate (cypress) and put in fresh cypress. after that i misted very little and was able to control my humidity better.

i would leave the top off of my tank to let the humidity out and help dry out the tank a bit, but as soon as that top got put back on, within minutes the humidity would be in the 80's again.

welcome to the world of trial and error.

periods of high humidity is not bad and will eventually go down on its own. i would keep the screen top covered. you'll notice soon that your going to need it to be covered as it will be impossible to retain proper humidity levels when its not. take your time and dont rush to change things just because humidity has been 80 something percent for a couple hours or even a day. it will go down with time on its own and eventually you will have periods of higher or lower relative humidity.

so did you determine if your snake has mites or not?

My snake does have mites,or did.I havent seen any since he has shed. But I'm going to treat him and his home anyway.

Should I not worry about his head not shedding? including his eyes?

If there is no skin wrapped around the body-anywhere-then you can wait until the next shed; even with the eye caps still on. Just watch for Chance to go into blue and bump the humidity.

For mites, Provent-a-mite is the tried and proven remedy. You can get it on-line if your local stores don't sell it.

it is possible to remove the stuck shed from your boa you just need to soak him longer. put him in a small rubbermaid with shallow water and a small "towel island" and that may get him to remove it himself. if not you can take him out and gently remove it for him after placing the rubbermaid inside his enclosure and leaving him overnight if you have to. personally i would remove the stuck shed and not wait until his next one.

if you are going to treat you boa for mites then you shouldnt have put the substrate inside the tank yet. remove it, wash the tank and screen lid, PAM the whole thing and keep him on paper towel or newspaper for the month. obviously follow the directions on the PAM bottle so you can do it as safely and as effectively as possible. after a month if you see no mites then PAM it again and if you want to put cypress mulch inside the enclosure at that time then it should be fine. just dont reuse the same mulch you have in there now, throw it out.

good luck!