Increasing humidity levels....... tips and techniques

MDK · #1 (**permalink**) 10-04-2003, 06:03 AM

I would like to increase the humidity levels in my enclosure for my BCC... right now he is in a 30 x 12 glass / screen top enclosure... he is still young, only about 2 feet in length now...... Humidity is right around 45% and would like to bump it up a bit.... his last shed wasnt clean and I ended up soaking him quite a bit towards the end to get it all off.... currently, I mist the cage twice a day......

Room size hudifier, aquarium sized mister, fogger, water bowl on the hot side, moist moss in a bowl, creating a mini sauna with moist tissue in a tight enclosure on the hot side...... lots of alternatives........ what works best for you and .......... what humidity level do you suggest I target?

JonnyB · #2 (**permalink**) 10-04-2003, 08:10 AM

WEll MDK first welcome
what kinda of subtrate do you use?
I use cypress mulch that I bake at about 500 for about 5 min.
with that I have no problem keping my humidity in the 60-75 range with a heat pad under tank heat lamp over water and mist once to twice a day more when the snake is about to shed.
I have a 55gal tank and I found that covering the ends with a towel helps keep my temps and all alittle more stable

I hope that helps if not it won't be long before some one else comes along and can tell you exactly what to do

Shadrach · #3 (**permalink**) 10-04-2003, 03:08 PM

MDK take a piece of plastic and cover half of the screen top and this will increase the humidity. Misting daily will also help.

cb76 · #4 (**permalink**) 10-08-2003, 06:49 AM

what you can do is make sure the enclosure is in an enviornmentally stable area, ie no breezes, away from heating and cooling units, away from direct sunlight, away from an outside wall (if thats a prob), etc....

that will help you keep everything stable, you will then be able to heat and monitor the humidity waaay easier than you would.

thats all if this is a problem.

if all of that is good, using a cyprus substrate is a good idea. it can be liberally misted. it resist rot and mold growth more than other substrates.

covering half or more of the the screen lid with plastic is a great idea!

if you can try to build an enclosure. glass is the worst at holding heat and humidity.

good luck

billycat215 · #5 (**permalink**) 10-08-2003, 12:47 PM

i live in philly...and as an experiment, i gave up misting to see if they would have bad sheds... humidity is around 30-40 in their cages... they all had good sheds that month...1 peice, eyecaps and all... so i havent misted since.

JuliusSqueezer · #6 (**permalink**) 10-08-2003, 01:58 PM

Billy...you have BCC? they are a little less forgiving of humidity issues than BCI.

I recomend NEVER to put the water bowl on the warm side unless you have another one on the cool side. Noone wants to drink warm water. Beisdes that, while it will evaporate the water quicker, it just goes straight up and out the top anyway so nothing was gained. Creating the humidity is never the problem. Getting the humidity to stay inside the cage is. Covering the screen works well. Depending on the desired range I cover anywhere from all but 2 inches(if I don't need a heat lamp) to all but about 4-6-8 inches. With cypress, you don't even have to mist. Just pour a quart or so of warm water over the area where the heat pad is and watch the cage steam up. I have all of my emeralds, amazons, brbs etc in glass cages set up this way and have never had problems with humidity.

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