Husbandry and Controlling Humidity

[D-.No]

So I got a delivery earlier this week with some new substrate (Coco chips and cypress mulch) along with a pair of improved Hygrometer/Thermometers to help me along with the change. Currently Roxanne is on Aspen so before I swapped out the substrate and disinfected her cage I put the Hygrometer/Thermometers to see the current levels and now I’m stuck.
I recently added another UTH and it worked wonders to maintain an ideal surface gradient (86-75, 2-4° warmer under the substrate) and to keep both of her hides at optimal temperature but it’s been boosting the humidity. There is no direct heat under the water bowl, I actually raised it so it wouldn’t be touching the bottom of the bin. Right now the ambient temperature is 74 to 79° but so is the humidity levels. On my first inspection the humidity actually rose into the 80s before I drilled a half a dozen new holes in the top of the enclosure.
Outside of the enclosure our living area is a pretty steady 70° (usually warmer in the Eve) with 50% humidity but this New York weather has been going up and down often and thankfully I’m here to check on my girl often.
Roxy seems to be doing fine but this is definitely motivating me to purchase an acrylic enclosure ASAP for better control and monitoring.
But as I’m dealing with her current enclosure and the circumstances of living in a basement should I keep her on the Aspen if the humidity levels are this high? I was even considering putting more aspen substrate on the bottom and using a smaller UTH for under her cool side hide to see if I could figure this out.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Zincubus]

I detest Aspen .. it looks unnatural and this makes the viv/ surroundings look unnatural.

It’s useless for holding / controlling humidity plus most snakes don’t look good on it .

Orchid bark for example has the exact opposite properties



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[Neko_snake]

If you're really worried about the humidity, I know people sometimes bake their substrate but I wouldn't really worry about the humidity being too high. As long as you have a clean enclosure you don't really have too much to worry about at least in my experience, please if I'm wrong someone correct me. My humidity is typically pretty high, mostly because of it being a closed enclosure and the house humidity also being high and I haven't really had any problems. I increase the humidity when my snake is shedding and then I let it dry out until the next shed. From my understanding humidity is typically measured in the actual air for wild ball pythons but they tend to live in burrows which have a higher humidity anyway so they can handle the humidity. It's more just making sure it's clean so you don't get upper respiratory issues.

Sent from my moto z3 using Tapatalk