Heat//Humidity

[veeval67]

I bought an Exo terra enclosure for Lucy yesterday. It's absolutely gorgeous, I love it. However I am having troubles maintaining heat and humidity. For some reason, the higher the humidity, the Lower the temperature, I'm not too certain why this is happening and how I can prevent constant fluctuation in his enclosure. My room is in the basement so I don't know if that has anything to do with it. I've tired covering the top screen so that way not a lot of heat will escape but all that does is bump up the humidity, and drops temperature slowly.
What substrate do you guys recommend? Also would it be a good idea to invest in a heat lamp? My only concern with that, is that it may dry up my little guy
SOS someone pls help. The fact that the heat and humidity won't stay where they should be is driving me insane

[predatorkeeper87]

what type of heat source are you using? and you need to cover a good portion the screen if you want the humidity to remain at a constant.

[veeval67]

I'll try that for the humidity, thanks for the tip! As for the heat source, I am using a heating pad, that's about it.

[predatorkeeper87]

is the heat pad being regulated with a tstat? those things are fairly unpredictable if you don't have it regulated, also if you get get a heat lamp that is going to kill your humidity more as well, and will need to be on a dimmer so you don't overheat both sides of the tank. Get the tank covered, get a bowl of water on the hot side and make sure you have some type of regulating device for the heat pad.

[Coluber42]

For heat, the first thing to do is insulate as much as you can. If the enclosure is sitting directly on a shelf or ESPECIALLY if it's sitting directly on the floor, put some sort of insulating material in between. A piece of foam such as an aquarium mat is perfect, but other kinds of foam or blankets will work too. Also insulate the sides and back, leaving only the front clear for viewing. Foam panels, foam core, cork panels, blankets, cardboard, etc.

Covering the screen will increase the humidity because it decreases ventilation. As the substrate gradually dries, you may need to cover more of it than you do wheen the substrate is new, and you may need to adjust how much is covered when the weather and humidity outside change. Wherever the screen is covered with foil, you can also cover that area with some other insulating material to help keep heat in.

If you're using a CHE or other lamp to heat the cage, you might switch to a radiant heat panel. An RHP can be mounted under the screen, and since it actually sits all the way inside the cage, it loses less heat to the room than a lamp fixture sitting above the cage. That means more heat benefit at lower wattage, and it's easier to safely insulate above it.

[veeval67]

That helps a whole bunch and make a lot of sense. Thank you so much 😭

[veeval67]

I will most definitely try those things. That helps me a lot, now I can tweak things to get the right temperature and humidity, thank you so much, I appreciate the information!!!

[Slither Seeker]

in recently making a new enclosure I am reminded of some things I learned from wrestling with this issue with incubating chicken eggs. I was reminded by a fellow enthusiast that humidity isn't just relative to heat but it goes the other way as well, heat is relative to humidity. latent heat of vaporization, the heat consumed by water evaporating actually lowers temperature, that's why we sweat, it's the principle of a swamp cooler. even though in technical terms it increases the "specific heat" (amount of heat) of the air. it seems invariably that a substrate when moist will maintain a lower temperature than once it dries out. it also seems that droplets of water condensation can influence a probe's ability to accurately detect temperature. I've seen all this lead to significant temperature swings in incubators I've used and I see it in my enclosures. it helps a lot to maintain a steady temp if you can reduce ventilation, while staying within the needs of the critter, to maintain a more steady humidity. if you let the humidity drop, the temperature can spike, if the humidity spikes, the temp will drop. I have given up on using heat lamps because they require having the enclosure so open that maintaining humidity becomes too tedious, then it just feels like a game of over shoot and under shoot. I by no means have this all figured out, I just know it's a bit of a "push me pull you".