water dishes

[kitedemon]

Every one has great advise. I am going to add my 2 cents worth too. I placed the water dishes on top of hides this saves floor space and I have two water dishes on on each hide. It also gives weight to the hide so it won't topple over. My hides are upside down plant saucers (plastic) and the water bowls and smaller plant saucers that are ceramic glazed ones. I use eco earth and cyprus mix substrate that helps with humidity. I have very low humidity where I live. Now for my secret, ROCKS. I have two real rocks one in the enclosure and one out when the humidity starts to drop I soak the out one in water for a day then switch them you can bake them to sterilize them. The rocks are poreous and absorb water then slowely release it. It keeps the humidity up for 3 days or so then it starts to fall and I'll switch them out. I personally use raindow stone but fine textured sedimentary rocks would work too. Not too hard as they don't take up as much water. If it bubbles in water it will work if it just sits there like well a rock maybe not.
Alex

[Kaorte]

OP: You won't necessarily have to do any of these things depending on the normal humidity of your house. The only way to figure out what you need to do is to set it up and experiment.

If you don't use a lamp, chances are you won't have any problems with humidity. You might have to mist during shed to bring the humidity up, but that is about it. When I mist, I just do a light spray over everything. Nothing is sopping wet, just lightly dampened.

The water bowl size helps a little bit, but not enough to really make a difference, same with the moss. The moss will not really increase the over all tank humidity, just humidity in localized areas. If you do have problems with humidity you can set up a humid hide in addition to the two hides you have.


Go with the medium or small water bowl. That will be more then enough.

[mommanessy247]

i figured i'd go with 2 medium bowls, one on each side same as the hide boxes.
thanks

[Kaorte]

i figured i'd go with 2 medium bowls, one on each side same as the hide boxes.
thanks

But you don't need two water bowls. As mentioned before, its not going to help the humidity that much.

[kitedemon]

I agree with Kaorte 2 bowls don't do much for humidity I use it to keep the hides staying put. The rooms humidity will be the biggest issue. In my case the general room humidity is usually sub 20% in the winter the summer it goes up to the 50% range. I have loads of issues during the winter the summer I almost don't need to do much. Set up your enclosure water in the bowl(s) and see what you get after a few days then try one bowl wait and see. Keep trying this or that to see what works for me the moss I tried dried out super fast and didn't really make much of a difference so I used the rocks that are much slower to dry out in the extra low conditions I have that worked for me it may or not work for you. Test things out before you add a snake, things have odd effects sometimes I found that when I got the humidity right the temps tanked on me I kept tweeking things until it balanced out a bit of patience now will save stress for you and the snake later!
A

[mommanessy247]

oh ok thanks

[reno-cg]

Should water dishes be large enough to allow the snake to soak in?

[snake2615]

I think they should be i know my balls like to soak

[Kaorte]

Should water dishes be large enough to allow the snake to soak in?

They don't need to be, but it is okay if they are. Usually a ball python will only soak if it has mites, feels unsafe in its hides, the humidity is too low, or if it feels bloated from a large meal or poo.