Humidity questions

[Yzmasmom]

Sooooo... it's that nasty, hot, disgusting time of year again, and my bp room is heating up. The 40g enclosure with my adult is fine, but the cold side of my 20g with my 550g keeps spiking to 83.6+.

We now have a fan in the hall, blowing ac air towards the snake room, and ac fan at their door. We have the door open about a foot and I've turned her cold side lamp as low as possible. (Off makes it drop to 77 and lower.) With the door opened about a foot, her cold side was 81.6 when I last checked, which is fine. Problem is, the room humidifier is now useless and her humidity is 48% and dropping. The top of her enclosure is covered with packing tape, but we have to mist multiple times a day now. I churn up the bedding when I mist so it stays moist longer.

This takes her humidity to 75% and over a few hours it drops again.

1. Is the fluctuating humidity going to stress her?
2. Mold won't grow because I'm not soaking the bedding and it keeps drying, right?

We mist the adult as well, but her humidity stays between 50% and 60% usually. I guess it's like fish keeping - larger tanks are easier to maintain.

[KMG]

Have you tried keeping the door closed and turning the light off?

My snake room hits 84 almost every hot day. Being in southern Texas we have a few. I usually leave the door cracked too. Drops the temps to 78-81, usually.

As for misting I only mist my ETB and GTP daily. The rest usually don't get a misting unless they are in shed. My snake room humidity is usually in the high 30s with each cage being higher because of their water source and/or substrate. My room does not have a humidifier but I do have a fan in the room to keep the air moving. Good air exchange will help keep mold away.

An easy fix is to place damp moss in the hides. This gives higher humidity where your snake stays. It won't raise your tanks overall humidity but inside the hides it will which will greatly benefit your snake.

[Yzmasmom]

I always thought laying on anything damp caused scale rot. I can try the moss.

[KMG]

I always thought laying on anything damp caused scale rot. I can try the moss.

During a shed ill keep it damp.

During non shed periods I allow it to dry out before making it damp again.

Never had anything but great sheds doing it.

[Regius_049]

The top of her enclosure is covered with packing tape, but we have to mist multiple times a day now. I churn up the bedding when I mist so it stays moist longer.

This takes her humidity to 75% and over a few hours it drops again.

1. Is the fluctuating humidity going to stress her?
2. Mold won't grow because I'm not soaking the bedding and it keeps drying, right?

Fluctuating humidity within reasonable ranges will not overly stress a ball python in my experience. Their natural habitat fluctuates dramatically over the course of a year.

I would not recommend misting ball python enclosures with wood bedding. It is very hard to tell if the wood is completely drying out or not and, as you note, wood + water promotes fungal growth. Churning is likely increases the probability of fungal growth as moisture is more easily trapped.

Per the other poster, I never mist ball pythons in general. I have never seen scale rot on a ball python from this approach, but I have seen it cause scale problems in carpet pythons. The resultant increase in humidity from misting is too short lived and is a huge pain. I really feel that misting is only helpful as a very short term solution or in live bio-active enclosures. If you need a bump in humidity, I would suggest increasing the water bowl size (or removing some air flow), both of these will help and are longer term solutions. Some keepers have two water bowls: one for warmer months and one for cooler. If you wish to add some moist sphagnum moss before a shed, many keepers swear by this approach.