Still can\'t get the Humidity up..

[Skittor]

I have tried putting the water bowl under the CHE on the hot side, putting plastic on a big portion of the cover and misting under the CHE and i still cant get the humidity up over 25-30%. Anyone have any other suggestions? [img]images/forum/icons/icon_confused.gif[/img]

	Ceramic Heat Emitter Ceramic Heat Emitter: A porcelain heating device that screws into a standard porcelain incandescent socket

[telefrag]

Is there anything in the room that may be drying the air out excessively?
(space heater, gas wall heater?)

Also, you may want to get a second hygrometer to verify that the one you are using is not smoking crack.

[Skittor]

No heaters in the room. I have one vent in the room and i moved him away from it last night.

	Cloaca is the posterior opening that serves as the only such opening for the intestinal, urinary, and (usually) genital tracts of certain animal species.All birds, reptiles, and amphibians possess this orifice, from which they excrete both urine and feces

[morti]

Tough to get that humidity right, huh?

Try plastic enclosures when your boa grows out of his....

Boaphile Plastics

-Your Sick Uncle Morti,
Still Plugging Jeff Ronne after all these years.

[ratsickle]

HI, Have the same problem with almost all my tanks. I finally started spraying water on the substrate lightly everytime i check on the herps or if the humidity is less that 50%.
I have natural gas heat and I can't even sleep at nite without a humidifer in the bedroom puming out a gal of water a nite.
I have three fresh water tanks that are pumping moisture into the house. I stil come in the herp room and find the meters on all the tanks 40-50%... so spraysprayspray..This works for me.. Its a little work but you have to change thier water daily any way..if i skip a day it gets a little cloudy ,, somebody was playing in the water dish again..
Happy herpin try to get tah humidity up or they may stop eating all together.
doug
psps you will find any open tank system with external heat will dry the air directly under the heat, under tank high heat mats do the same to the air above the mat.
I went to extra large cobra mats they cover 1/2 the tank on all my 40 breeder tanks, I spray water on the newspaper and cover the top of the tank with two towels to reduce the air flow. this allows more than enough oxygen to pass but holds the humidty at 60-80 % depending on how much water I spray on the paper.You can't use a che externally and achive the desired moisture,if you try to cover a tank with a che or a light you'll burn the house down. at least I couldn't in my super dry home. Iam sure everyone will have neat ways to get around this but the large cobra mat works for me.. ps put the water dish on the cool side snakes don't like to drink hot water.. no do I... my snakes either hang half on and half off the warm side,so i have to place the hide half on and half off the warm side think you gotta link a snake ha hissssss the experts at cobra mat company want you to cover the mat on the out side of the tank with the warm side of the mat againts the glass some type of insulation to help the mat equilibrate the tank,this help hold the heat, I used some of that silver sided wall insluationstuff that comes in a sheet at lowes...super cheap and you can cut it to fit the bottom of the tank, this helps hold the heat , the mat cycles at a round a 100 deg and will allow the tank to cool down to fast without the insulation on the bottom.the tank bottomis warm to the touch but I alway put substate in the tank this drops it a couple more degs.. the ambient air is around 82 the warm side 90 cool side 80
hope this help,s ps them mats are way cheaper onthe internet than a pet store.
the cheeper tape like mats get to warm for my likings.
doug
[img]images/forum/icons/icon_cool.gif[/img]

[addsig]

<font size=1>[ This message was edited by: ratsickle on 2002-01-04 13:23 ]</font>

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	Ceramic Heat Emitter Ceramic Heat Emitter: A porcelain heating device that screws into a standard porcelain incandescent socket

[Skittor]

Does the type of substrate make a difference or effect the humidity?

[ratsickle]

Ok
Iam sticking my neck out, but here goes I find the newspaper to be the perfect substrate if you spill a little water on the Paper the water wicks out until the paper is slightly damps this prevents that soggy bottom that can lead to blisster disease that them pythons tend to get real easy ..
when the snake pee/ pass stones your going to be amazed how much dirty water is passed with them stones on to that paper. It will discolor the paper and shows what needs changing. wipe the glass with a paper towel to remove that pee smell replace the newspaper and your back in bees wax.. Iam not crazy about using cleaners in the tank, its to hard to rinse out.. this has worked well for me haven't had any problems,, if it works don't fix it. My friends donate the paper, I've stopped buying them paper's got tired of reading about who shot who.. And if Iaint dead leave the obits alone.. ha good luck
doug [img]images/forum/icons/icon_cool.gif[/img] [addsig]

[morti]

I agree with the rat. I use newspaper or papertowles in all my enclosures. Paper doesn't help hold the humidity as well as some other substrates, but it works well for what it does.

Morti, Like that.

[Ravnos]

Might want to put a clean sponge in the water dish... to give the water more surface area to evaporate off. Covering as much screen as you can... and daily misting. I bought a big garden sprayer to mist down my large cages. Works quite well.

All aquariums inevitably run into the same problem due to the top being open to the air. I'm keeping a young blood python in an aquarium. I just have a piece of plywood covering most of the screen top. And in the bottom of the aquarium I have pebbles, about an inch deep... then marine carpet on top of them. I put water underneath, about half an inch... not enough to soak the carpet, but enough to get the pebbles pretty wet. Having alot of water does wonders to keep the humidity higher. Since you have to turn your under the tank heat source up higher to get through the inch layer, it works quite well. The surface temp at the warm end is 90, which makes the water about 95... of course, if your snake likes to destroy its cage furniture, this kind of setup could pose a problem - but lucky for me, my blood does very little. [img]images/forum/icons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Thanks goes to Julius for the idea, though.

Rav

[hisba]

CHEs always dry the air out... I don't like
them for that reason alone.. (well that and the
fact that once I set it too close to my old BP's
wooden tank and it started smoking.. eep! lucky
I saw it!) I agree with all the suggestions
given... you can also look into putting an
aquarium airstone in the water bowl... or
buying a humidifier even... sometimes just
getting one of those chameleon drip bottle
(which you can make yourself with a plastic
bottle, just poke a small hole in the bottom)
and put it above the water bowl.. the water in
the air and drips breaking the surface may help.
I also am a big newspaper fan. [img]images/forum/icons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

If all else fails and you just cannot get the
humidity up above 20%, get a tupperware
container (like those made to pour out
cereal from.. those work great cause they
already have a hole in the lid) and put some
wet sphagnam moss in there.. the snake will
use it as a humidity box when it needs to but
isn't sitting in the wet moss all the time, so no
worries about blister disease. If you keep the
box on the warm side, you have to re-wet the
moss often. Just an idea.. good luck![addsig]