Misting systems?

[SatInpw]

I'm having a lot of trouble keeping the humidity above 60% in Olivier's cage, and I even came home yesterday and the humidity was at 40% despite misting the cage thoroughly before I left.

Right now I'm using moist paper towels and put the water bowl under the CHE and hopefully that keeps it up a bit while I'm not there or asleep, but in the future I may be gone for extended periods and don't want to have a snakesitter come over every few hours to spray. Are there any misters that y'all would recommend?

(The humidity level rarely gets below 50% in my house just because Missouri is ridiculously humid, but I think the CHE is sucking a lot of the moisture out. I can't get rid of the CHE without screwing up the ambient though. Using the towel over the mesh lid trick right now.)

[AnnieHeart]

How much of the lid are you covering with the towel?

[SatInpw]

At least 3/4 of it.

[pretends2bnormal]

SatInpw, looks like you're new to the forum, so welcome! Folks here are very friendly, but definitely won't hesitate to be blunt about what your snake needs you to do.

I have wound up making a fairly long post. A lot of this info is on the forum from other similar threads or in the stickies for husbandry or ball pythons on the forum. I highly suggest checking those out.


In general, I don't know if a misting system is a good idea for a snake, even moderate-high humidity species like a ball python. I would think not, since they are prone to scale rot on constantly moist/wet substrate or too high of humidity (not to mention respiratory infection [RI]). I'll leave it to more experience keepers here to say whether or not it would be a good plan. Too frequent or too much water sprayed could certainly cause problems, so if you do get a misting system, you would have to be diligent testing it.

Since you mention a screen lid, I'm guessing that you're using a glass enclosure (exo terra-type or aquarium). Based on that, I think there are probably steps you can take to keep humidity up that cost a lot less than a misting system that you haven't tried yet from the numbers you've said. If you aren't covering the just about the entire screen lid (excluding where the CHE sits, of course) with something that will keep in humidity, then you need to try that first. Folks here usually suggest things like cardboard wrapped in foil or plastic wrap to cover with (cut out a circle for the CHE and lamp fixture so no foil/plastic touches it). Also, putting foam board or similar insulating materials on the back, bottom, and left/right sides would help to hold heat in the tank which would result in a thermostat-controlled CHE running a lot less often. CHE running less means less drying out of the air in the cage. I think most people find that the combination of those two works well to raise in-tank humidity even from much lower household humidity than you say you have. Since you're starting from 50% humidity in the house, I would expect that would do the trick for you as well.

If you're using an analog dial to measure the humidity, you may want to buy a <$10 digital one (I like these). The analog ones don't seem to be very accurate, and it's possible your humidity is fine and your method of measuring is just reading low in error. Alternately, if you only have 1 device, there is a small chance it is defective and not reading properly. This is another inexpensive thing to try before you jump into something expensive like a misting system.

If the CHE is not controlled by a thermostat (leaving aside MASSIVE risk of animal injury), then it is running very hot (unregulated runs something like 400+ degree F) and likely to suck all the humidity out of the cage no matter what you do (even a mist system). Thermostat options if you don't have one include: inexpensive and more expensive + more features and forum favorite proportional thermostat.

I don't really do much with CHE, but with a similar household humidity, avg 48% (the result of several aquariums throughout the house), I didn't ever see a below 48% measurement in an experiment I did a few months back. (Considered setting up a 10 gal w/ screen lid + CHE for a young sand boa. Did some testing without snake using non-misted aspen, ambient room temp of 75-77, and CHE on top of the lid target temp of 90, I never saw anything lower than 50% even with no water bowl in the cage.)

However, my husband is looking into giant day geckos (tropical species that requires daily misting) and we found high praise from people in those threads and dart frogs, etc. about the MistKing misting systems. They're considered top of the line for automated misting in those groups as far as I can tell. They're fairly pricey though, so I think you'll be better served with the usual solutions for raising humidity in your enclosure that get recommended on the forum.

[SatInpw]

Thank you so much, I'll definitely try out the plastic. My dad works a lot with construction and I've heard some good things about plexiglass, so I may ask him to help my cut out a top to cover it. I ordered a digital hygrometer so hopefully that should be arriving soon and giving me a bit more accuracy in the readings.

The CHE isn't on a thermostat, but it is on a dimmer set to a pretty low setting which keeps the ambient temps ~79-80 degrees from the 75 my house usually is set at. I've been checking the temps and everything pretty obsessively. If I notice that she's getting curious about that area though I'll probably end up figuring out the clamp, because I don't want her getting burned. Out of curiosity, my uth is hooked up to a thermostat--would things get funky if there were two separate thermostats running two different heating elements?

[pretends2bnormal]

Out of curiosity, my uth is hooked up to a thermostat--would things get funky if there were two separate thermostats running two different heating elements?

No, they won't be funky as long as you have their respective probes in the right place. The one below the CHE (hanging just inside the tank or sitting on the lid below it are the common locations, I think) would not be seeing floor temps and the floor probe outside the tank would be reading the UTH itself and not be effected by the in tank ambient temperature.

A dimmer is ok for CHE (far better than none), but a thermostat is much safer... if there is a fluctuation in your room temperature up (say, 75 turns into 80 one day), it will still provide the same amount of power and what was 80 ambient is not 85 ambient. You see?

I do know that the less expensive thermostats are on/off types are not favored for CHE. Those bulbs can get very hot very fast with full power and may get pretty hot for short bursts. Not super likely to cause an accident if the bulb is in a dome on top of the screen (not inside the tank), but there is some risk of it heating part of the screen itself above the temp you want before the thermostat registers the change and turns back off. I'm not sure if it's enough to cause a burn since they cant lay on the ceiling, but something that would concern me personally. (vs the Herpstat 1, 2, or 4 which provides a percentage of power to get a desired temp AKA proportional)

If you do think about getting a thermostat for it, I'd highly suggest the Herpstat 2. Then you could control both your UTH and CHE in one unit and take advantage of the proportional power control to keep things safe for your noodle.


It would also be beneficial to put some sort of insulation like that pink insulation foam from the hardware store where you can. Even if only back side and the bottom will help . Especially if you have it on a table with air below that would be you room temp. Heat escapes through glass itself very easily. (One main reason people really like PVC/plastic enclosures on here)

The plastic lid cover would be a very snazzy option since you have access to tools/help. If I kept glass tanks, I would wish I could do that too.

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[SatInpw]

Yep yep, if i got a thermostat (hopefully I'll be a little more flush with $$ in the next month or two) I would want to go for quality. That really eases my mind too, about the probe, so I'll probably spring for it. Thanks so much for the advice!

[SatInpw]

Good news, Olivier shed! The breeder told us that she would be shedding soon, but we didn't think it would be this soon (for the record we got her on Sunday) but it seems like she shed all in one piece (I haven't gotten a good look at her face, but I will once it's been a few more days to make sure her eye caps and everything came off smoothly). That was my biggest worry with keeping the humidity up.

So it looks like I can breathe a bit easier, but I'll still be looking into those other solutions.

[pretends2bnormal]

Great to hear the first one went well!

If you can find the head end of the shed, you can see where the eye caps are. If they're present (aka, not a pair or a single hole at about the position eyes would be) on the shed, then she got them off and you don't have to worry about seeing her face.

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[Bistem]

Great to hear the first one went well!

If you can find the head end of the shed, you can see where the eye caps are. If they're present (aka, not a pair or a single hole at about the position eyes would be) on the shed, then she got them off and you don't have to worry about seeing her face.

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+1 to this. I inspect the shed skin every time any of mine shed. If the shed is dry and brittle, a light mist with a spray bottle of water will make it soft again (and a bit smelly) but will allow you to gently extend it, and unroll it to look at every inch. It is easy to see and feel the eyecaps when you get to them. The shed skin tears very easily so be gentle with the tugging and unrolling. This also prevents un-necessary stress to the snake from poking and prodding around it's head inspecting for eyecaps.