Aspen, Humidity troubles, question!!

[Kristy]

OKay, first of all, Aspen sucks. At least in North Idaho in the winter, for holding humidity. It is so extrememely dry here. I have a humidifier running and its not doing anything. My household humidity is 24% right now. I think my humidifiers broken, but I had to try it.

Heres what happeing, I am having to mist my bp's enclosures about once every hour or so so keep it above 50%. They are in tanks, I have covered most of the screen tops with plastic and duct tape. Not working. So I am about to head out to the store, I either want to get cypress bed, or coconut fiber. But I am not sure which one of those will hold humidity better.

So which one do you guys prefer.

Oh, I am so switching to tubs as soon as we move next month. I am leaving the tanks to the leopard geckos from now on.
Kristy

[AkivaSmith]

I made the switch to tubs just for that reason, but here is what you can do for right now and you wont have to spend a whole bunch.


Get some newspaper (about 1 inch thick and 4x4 inch square) soak it in water. Then push the aspen aside and put it on the glass . Make sure that you do not put it over the UTH (it might cause the glass to crack) If you have a new unused big sponge -- that works even better. Then when the paper starts to look dry pour water onto it -- I used an empty (cleaned out) 20 oz. soda bottle to hold the water.

My BP used to slither all over the sponge to get wet.

Good luck with your humidity -- as I said, I made the switch to tubs because of the hassle.

[TekWarren]

Glass tanks can be very difficult to maintain temps if the room is cool and that ties in difficulty with holding humidity as well. Glad to hear your switching to tubs that was going to be one of my suggestions. I use aspen and it works fine, I will mist once and while but I would not suggest every hour. You run the risk of mold and causing RI if you have standing water. What sort of water container are you using? Sometimes a slightly larger water container will help with proper temps. My home is pretty dry as well so I know the difficulties.

[Kristy]

Thanks for your replies,
Right now there is a pretty good size ceramic water dish in the tank. I have some extra moss from my geckos I found in my closet full of herp supplies. I will throw that in there for now to boost the humidity a little bit until I get to the store.

I don't have any problems with the temps, but keeping the temps right requires me keeping the basboard heaters on which really dries out the house.

I will add the moss and mist one more time. Then see what happens. I haven't been heavily misting though, just enough to get the humidity up. I don't want mold or RI's. It dries out so fast though.

[aaajohnson]

Its really dry here in Colorado also. For us moving to tubs was the perfect solution.

In the meantime, cypress holdsthumidity a lot better...

Neil

[Pork Chops N' Corn Bread]

I agree, tubs are much easier. I was having trouble keeping the humidity above 30% when I used tanks and with tubs, I recently had to drill more holes since the humidity was in the 70-80% range WITHOUT misting