Quote Originally Posted by SandmansDreams View Post
Hmm...its been 6 hours with the lid tight and night is now falling. The temps are dropping slightly as was predicted.

Current readings;
HOT - 84 degrees. 45% humidity
COLD - 84 degrees. 51% humidity

These are ambient air temps only and do NOT include the hide temps.
The humidity now seems to be doing MUCH better and typically has ridden between 45 and 55 degrees ever since I better insulated everything. It took that hot side 6-8 hrs to fall to below 50%, which is a huge improvement, but the tank will probably still require 1x or 2x daily misting to maintain proper levels, which is no big deal.

What does concern me is that there doesn't seem to be a temperature gradient throughout the tank. Is this important? Or should I ignore it?
I assume since I moved the CHE to the middle it has more evenly and effectively distributed the temps as you can see in the reading I just mentioned.

I need to make a quick run, but when I get back I'll get some hide temps probed and we'll see how things stand with those...
Your kind of misunderstanding what this set up does.. You donhave a gradiant but not ambiant.. Your UTH should be 88-91 and your cool side (CHE) 76-81... Thats your Cool/Hot gradiant in this case...
If you decide to run a larger enclosure at some point, 48"x15"x12" (40G long) or a T8 PVC you can use one heat source, a RHP with a Herpstat portional tstat. That will be a Hot side of 90 and the other side (no heat source) will be around 76-80... Your not going to get that in a small tank using a CHE for ambiant and uth for basking spot .. your cool side is a bit to warm and thats why I was saying a 60 watt is ok for smaller tanks. I cant remember do you have a Jumpstart Tstat or what is controling the CHE? It needs to be turned down a bit..