Humidity

[Nutella]

Hi all. I'm pretty new to caring for snakes. I have a corn snake in one terrarium and a ball python in the other. The woman who sold me the BP told me to keep the humidity around 60%, and I have a gauge that's both a thermometer and measures the humidity in his enclosure, and I can't get it to stay about 32%. I have a big water dish, I spray a few times a day, and I just bought a $60 fogger from National Geographic that runs intermittently, and it just got done with one of its run times and the humidity is 31%. I could run it all the time, but then you have to refill it every couple of hours, and with everything else going on (work, kids, etc.), that's just not going to be possible.

So... is there anything else I can do?

The terrarium he's in is an Exo Terra with doors in front and a screen top. I have aluminum covering almost all of the top to discourage the cats from messing with it. I was hoping that might also help keep the humidity in, but it's not. I'm using this dirt and bark combo for bedding that the woman at the reptile place sold me.

[trailblazer295]

What is your heat source? how much of the screen is covered? All the vents in the exo terra is where your humidity is going. What is the humidity in the room? I have a exo terra with 3/4 of the top covered with a che heating the other. I have a mister that sprays twice a day. Humidity is 40-50%

[Nutella]

Originally Posted by trailblazer295

What is your heat source? how much of the screen is covered? All the vents in the exo terra is where your humidity is going. What is the humidity in the room? I have a exo terra with 3/4 of the top covered with a che heating the other. I have a mister that sprays twice a day. Humidity is 40-50%

Thanks for the response.

The room is at 45%.

The heat is a Zilla minihalogen with a 50W red bulb, on all the time. The screen is probably 90% covered though very loosely. I just tried adding wet paper towels on part of it and I think that helped a little, the humidity is now 39%.

What's a "che"?

I was reading another thread: what's a humid hide?

At the moment my BP seems to want to spend all his time curled up on top of the fogger. He has about 3/4 of an inch of space between it and the screen.

The fogger mists for 45 seconds every 45 minutes. I manually mist probably 3-4 times a day; I'm afraid it freaks the snake out when I do it, though.

[trailblazer295]

A CHE is a ceramic heat emitter, they thread into any light standard light socket. They produce infared heat but no light. Also don't dry your cage out. They come in various outputs depending on what you need.



A humid hide is a small enclosed hide like a tupperware with a hole cut in it. Most people will put moss in them and spray the moss. This creates a small area of high humidity. I use one for my kingsnake when she is getting ready to shed. I bought one of these because I liked the natural look. A simple tupperware with a hole will work. Just have to make sure it doesn't have sharp edges.

[akane]

I don't really have as much problem with natural soil mix bioactive tanks because most of the time I can make the soil match how much moisture it needs to absorb to keep releasing into the tank. You can also set a larger container of actual water under/on a heat source to evaporate more water. I do use a regular $40 humidifier from the hardware store sometimes. It can hold and put out up to about a gallon in 36hrs so it's not much maintenance. If I take out the directional piece it just basically all goes straight down but it's constant water. More often I set it nearby with some spread over and help increase overall room humidity too. It reduces how much I have to load down some tank substrates with water at once every day. Otherwise I'm dumping that gallon basically straight into my python tank to rely on evaporation and that has it's own problems. I am getting some CHE with a bunch of bulbs blowing up again recently and a discount on multiple CHE from a seller so the cost is the same. I do have more complexities to account for changing the evaporation on actual soil mixes for bioactive.

[Nutella]

So do you actually soak the soil substrate?

It sounds like maybe I should get a CHE.

I also was just thinking I should try running this little humidifier we have by the enclosure. I'm not sure how much of a difference it would make being on the outside of the enclosure, but it can't hurt to try.

The enclosure is 24X18X12, and not big enough to fit the humidifier inside. I've been thinking I may want a bigger enclosure (though we can't afford it right now) because I want to be able to set up a second water dish and second hide, and there's no room for either with the current hide and fogger and water dish in it.

[dannybgoode]

Yes you keep the substrate moist to keep the humidity up. I'd pretty much echo what Akane has put-control the humidity a) by the composition of the substrate and b) by how moist you make it.

Until I get my MistKing system though I just use a plant sprayer to damp the substrate accordingly.

[akane]

You just have to make sure snakes not built for it do not stay touching very wet things all the time and various reptile substrates that are not normal soil or similar materials may have health risks like mold if kept wet. If you have actual soil or commercial substrates you can directly water it. Being sick I just told my husband to fill a gallon jug, mostly aim at the stone hides to help make it spread out and run off slower, and otherwise pour the thing through the sumatran python tank with a very absorbent soil. I'd apply more thought to it myself but the snake has places to get dry and they live along water spending a lot of time in it so he'll be fine with a quick approach for now. I have a humid hide for him that just needs a hole but I went ahead and sized it big planning to move him quickly and then he stayed in too small of bin to fit it. Typically we also have "rain days" where every tank gets a heavier amount of water spread across it according to ecosystem for the inhabitant.

[trailblazer295]

What are you using for substrate in the BPs cage? A corn is fine with lower humidity, I'd offer a humid hide when going into shed. I let my king have ambient house humidity.

[Nutella]

I have about 2 inches of "Eco Earth" loose coconut fiber substrate topped with a layer of "Forest Floor" cypress mulch. I poured water directly into it today and the humidity is staying at 65%! The woman who sold me the whole terrarium and set up said it was okay to get this stuff wet so I hope it's not going to mold now.

[regi375]

One thing I'd question is the humidity gauge that you got. It may be of poor quality, broken, or just reading improperly. I get a hygrometer with a probe from amazon that has been really accurate for me. Also, Eco earth is really good. Just don't keep it constantly wet throughout the entire terrarium otherwise your snake may eventually develope scale rot.

[trailblazer295]

A damp substrate is okay but not wet. But echoing regi, what are you using to measure humidity?

[Nutella]

Originally Posted by trailblazer295

A damp substrate is okay but not wet. But echoing regi, what are you using to measure humidity?

It's a digital temperature/hydro gauge. I think it's functioning fine because when I've accidentally sprayed the gauge's doodad it reads 99% for a little while and then adjusts back to normal as it dries out.

So far wetting the coconut substrate seems to have done the trick. I didn't realize you could just pour water on it, so having done that, I'm now occasionally misting when it drops to the 50s to bring it back up, and that seems to be working well.

[akane]

Like I said if your snake is not built for it you don't want them constantly touching something fully wet and you want to watch for anything that will mold so really soaking all the time a not draining or drying, not actual soil substrate instead of misting it damper as needed can actually be potentially bad then. If it has ventilation and especially heat bulbs that will dry I would probably soak it directly with water the first time I used it to get started anyway so it's all evenly holding water and I soaked my coconut fiber in buckets of water before use. After that with the drying of the heat bulbs it's not staying directly soaked between waterings so that is one of those heat bulb to che things to watch. It won't reach as dry as long between watering to kill anything that can grow on it. Even without that effect I know both those and that combo are popular as a damp, high humidity tank substrate for planted vivarium with frogs or some lizards that will be specific location watered and overall sprayed a lot but I haven't done high humidity snakes much and I haven't fully tested what the coconut fiber does to drain, dry, or hold water in various situations. I plan it to be the main layer of my crested gecko tanks but I was going to mix it with some soil and it will have a small drainage layer under it to remove excess water. For the whole tank for snakes I more often use various ratios of the resulting compost soil of coconut fiber and palm as a rich substrate that can hold water while still draining rather than the not yet microbe processed fibers. Ugh, my native, rich Iowa soil without the drying effect of actual bulbs such as when using CHE, other heat methods, or not required heating just turns to mud and you can't get that stuff dry even with weeks of fans pointed at it in a low humidity room. It's slick goo forever but you won't have humidity problems in a short tank lol I had to rip it out to mix with the composted coconut and more sand so it would drain excess water to the bottom. Since it holds and stays wet so well I only use the fine mist setting once a day. It has a crested gecko in it now that doesn't need heat and the suggestion is to bring them all the way up to about 90% humidity once a day and then let it dry to a lower humidity instead of a steady misting system so hand misting is easy.

Overall while making things wetter don't make mud or rotting plant fibers. Unless you add a cleanup crew and then they love rotting plant fibers so you can soak away on wood. Even any mold is useful food instead of bad for health. Different set of rules for bioactive and not exactly soil components.