Best Substrate for Increased Humidity? (and other suggestions welcome)

[Bellatrix_LeSnake]

Our little BP just had her first shed with us and it came off in two pieces. We've been having a hard time maintaining humidity levels for a couple of reasons. Our level has been pretty solidly 55%. The first, is that we keep her in a glass tank and despite all the misting in the world, the humidity disperses pretty quickly. The tank has two vents, and I have covered the entire screen lid with aluminium foil with a card-board core. She still has a pretty sizeable vent to allow airflow, but before we covered the top we were lucky to get 40% humidity. The second problem is that I have horrific allergies throughout the summer (we're talking prescription level drugs, an epi-pen etc) and therefore keep a de-humidifier running in the apartment itself.

She is currently on aspen, but is there another type of bedding we could try that will work better for humidity levels? The level may sort itself out once I can turn off the de-humidifier, but that won't be for another month.

[SRMD]

Try covering the top with a damp towel, that usually will keep the humidity in, I am not really sure about bedding i use paper towels and the humidity seems to be fine!

But yeah try the damp paper towel or when your ball is in shed just give her a Humid hide!

Also glass tanks do not hold humidity well.

[KMG]

Your humidity is fine if it is above 40%. When your snake starts going into shed place moist moss in each hide. Just mist it and keep it moist not soggy. This will create a micro climate within the hides and expose your snake to a higher humidity than the rest of the tank. This works well because it is easy to create higher humidity within the hides and that is where your snake will be most of the time. I keep moss in my hides at all times and mist it every few days when not in shed and usually daily when in shed. It is at both big box pet stores.

When you say two pieces for the shed do you mean one little short piece that came from the head area and another longer piece from the body. If so this is normal and nothing to worry about. Even if not it sounds like your snake is doing pretty well. If you didnt have any stuck shed and the snake got all of the skin off by itself it is very possible that the skin just ripped in two when it was rubbing it off.

Try the moss to create a humid hide and I bet your next shed will be perfect.

[Bellatrix_LeSnake]

I will try to put the moss in the hides before the next shed, I do have some sphagnum moss that is chilling out in the frig. The shed was in about two equal-sized pieces, but I didn't get a close enough look at it to tell what part of the body they came from. Nothing stuck to the snake; I did inspect her pretty carefully this morning to be sure. The shed was extremely brittle when I picked it up and I don't think I would have been able to to handle it more thoroughly without breaking it into even more pieces. I am also going to get her a bigger water dish as she's growing much faster than we thought she would (has grown from 107g to 169g in 3 1/2 weeks), and it already looks like her water bowl would be a tight squeeze.

[1nstinct]

Tru cypress mulch, one of my bps is in a 40 gallon breeder, with cypresses mulch.the humidity stay at 52-55% and in shed i just spray it and it jacks it up to 70-76%

[KMG]

Sounds good. I bet it just broke into two pieces rubbing around. It really is something how fast the shed skin dries up.

My ball has a hide that is a bit to large so the moss helps it to feel secure by making the hide seem smaller. A good trick when your having a hard time finding that perfect size hide.

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I use cypress to help my tank but I can't cover the whole top, because of my cold house I have to add lamps for extra heat. When its time to switch your substrate you could try cypress but for right now 55 is really good and adding cypress may make it to high. I would stick with what you having working. If its not broke don't fix it.