Advice for Day and Night Bulbs

[TRD]

Originally Posted by Dmurphy95

I am mainly worriedad about humidity for the Rosy simply because humidity at my house drops down really quick, and it likes to sit at around 40% as far as I've seen.
That's considered too low for Qizil, my Red-Tailed Boa, but so far I only know that Rosy's need "low" humidity, and am speculating that means around 40?
It's frustratingly hard to find more exact percentages for these guys!

Not sure how technical I can get with you, but 40% humidity doesn't tell me anything. Relative Humidity is called relative because it relates to the amount of water held in the air at the current temperature. So without knowing your ambient air temperature, it doesn't tell me a thing.. You have to look at both temperature and humidity together to make sense of it.

Example;
At 70 F a relative humidity of 60% holds just as much water in the air as 34% relative humidity at 88 F

This is why you get radically different humidity readings in your enclosure depending on where you place your meter (close or far from the heat source), while it's a confined space. Closer to the heat source the air is warmer, and as a result can hold more moisture. It's relative humidity has dropped.

At 100% relative humidity you have reached the so called dew point at the current temperature, which means the air can't hold more water and it starts to deposit it on the colder surfaces (usually the glass and plants) as little drips.

Hope this makes sense.

As for the Rosy, you can keep it safely at the humidity typically found in homes. There's no need to supply it any supplements, it's far more likely to make it too moist for it, than not moist enough.

[Dmurphy95]

I simply wanted an estamation, since no-one ever gave percentages. They literally just said it had to be "low" and I had no clue if that meant "50%" low, "30%" low or what.

From what I can tell for the Rosy it will likely be fine with only light periodic mistings, especially since I plan to use Eco Earth coco fiber bedding. A lot of other Rosy Owners I've seen use it and their Rosy's are just fine.

I know that right now Ambient air temps are staying around the 70's right now since Spring is starting and it's finally warm around here. X'D So I am pretty sure that letting it sit at 40 and only giving a light misting when it's shedding time will be perfectly fine.

What Qizil sits at for Humidity and temps now has been doing him just fine, so I won't change that. I was mostly worried about making sure I would know what i need to make the Rosy comfortable when it comes here.

Again, thanks for the reply!

[dannybgoode]

Hydro balls sit under the substrate, you essentially fill them with water. They're made of clay and retain water rather well. Then a layer of water permable material then the substrate. The keeps the substrate moist from below. You need to ensure the Viv is water tight of course!

Spraying the air does nothing for humidity - honestly nothing. You need to keep the substrate damp and hydro balls help with this as does sampling down the substrate as would a rain system of some description.

It also depends what substrate you're using. What is in Qizil's viv?

[Dmurphy95]

Ah right. X'D That is why I make sure when I spray it down I get the substrate and everything else like the walls! Spraying it makes the humidity go up REAL fast, but again...It just doesn't stay there. X'D

Right now he is on Aspen, but when I switch his cage once the new one is built I'll be using Eco Earth coco fiber bedding-- I'll be using this substrate for both Qizil and my Rosy when it gets here.

[dannybgoode]

Aspen is pretty terrible for holding humidity and doesn't react well to constant damping down-tends to rot.

A coco coir (eco earth) based substrate will be much much better. The aspen is your issue here.

[Dmurphy95]

I was beginning to think this, yes. X'D
Thankfully though this giant toothy noodle won't have to wait too long for his new cage + the new substrate will work wonders.
I can deal with spraying him down a few times a day to keep the humidity up until Dad gets his cage built. I just hope Qizil himself can. XD

I've pretty much covered all my bases now, so thank you all for your imput!
Now I'm just gonna have to keep on my Dad to make sure he ACTUALLY gets it built. Qizil can't wait any longer honestly, and neither can I. XD

[TRD]

@dannybgoode;
So for test I have put a UVB light above my MBK, With about 30 min he was laying under it... Now I need to get a UVI meter to actually see if I got the gradient right in the first go (doubt it, but I have to project UVB through a thick-ish metal mesh, so it's hard to guess without meter). In any case, the snake seems to seek it out and spend time under it. Didn't really expect that to happen, but it did.

Also found a nice research article, which covers UV exposure requirements of reptiles in captivity using different UVB sources and covers quite some species...

https://www.researchgate.net/publica...rorgjzararticl

[jjhill001]

I use the 5.0 UVB exo terra bulbs. They don't produce much relevant heat. But the natural light color just makes my snakes look so damn good. I any benefit my snakes get from it is great but I find that my entirely selfish reasoning to be a good enough reason to offer it to most snakes especially if set up in naturalistic enclosures.

[dannybgoode]

Originally Posted by TRD

@dannybgoode;
So for test I have put a UVB light above my MBK, With about 30 min he was laying under it... Now I need to get a UVI meter to actually see if I got the gradient right in the first go (doubt it, but I have to project UVB through a thick-ish metal mesh, so it's hard to guess without meter). In any case, the snake seems to seek it out and spend time under it. Didn't really expect that to happen, but it did.

Also found a nice research article, which covers UV exposure requirements of reptiles in captivity using different UVB sources and covers quite some species...

https://www.researchgate.net/publica...rorgjzararticl

Its astonishing a snake's response when offered it. I've seen meant examples of royals basking, boas, carpets love it as do most of the Australian species (unsurprising really given their climate) etc.

Thanks for the paper too. I'll have a read. I have access via a Facebook group to hundreds of papers on various aspects of husbandry and wading through them takes time! I'll link to some of them when I've got this house move out of the way...

[TRD]

Originally Posted by jjhill001

I use the 5.0 UVB exo terra bulbs. They don't produce much relevant heat. But the natural light color just makes my snakes look so damn good. I any benefit my snakes get from it is great but I find that my entirely selfish reasoning to be a good enough reason to offer it to most snakes especially if set up in naturalistic enclosures.

Well I'm all for natural light, but UV light output doesn't strike me one bit as natural. It's very blue-ish in color temperature.

Besides I have LEDs, so I hardly see if the UV is on or not. People say that the T5HO lights are bright, they really aren't... maybe 1000 lm or so for a 55cm bulb, that's not bright It may be bright from the snake's perspective though, given that it emits a bulk of UVA as well. Not sure.

[dannybgoode]

Originally Posted by TRD

@dannybgoode;
So for test I have put a UVB light above my MBK, With about 30 min he was laying under it... Now I need to get a UVI meter to actually see if I got the gradient right in the first go (doubt it, but I have to project UVB through a thick-ish metal mesh, so it's hard to guess without meter). In any case, the snake seems to seek it out and spend time under it. Didn't really expect that to happen, but it did.

Also found a nice research article, which covers UV exposure requirements of reptiles in captivity using different UVB sources and covers quite some species...

https://www.researchgate.net/publica...rorgjzararticl

I use that paper all the time when researching for new enclosures. Its a fantastic resource.

Fran Baines is a member of my goto Facebook group also-her research in this area is world leading and its great to hear her thoughts first hand from time to time on various species and their requirements.

[TRD]

Yes it's a good paper, though she's very clear that is by no means suppose to be taken as fact and the data may be based on single cases. Best case it is a guideline/starting point for your own experimentation. Getula sp. is not covered by the paper, though all snakes seem to be in the 1.0 UVI zone. I don't think a snake from the NW Mexico area would be bothered by higher UVI given enough hides and shades are available (half the vivarium get's UV, the other half doesn't). I doubt I provide 1.0 UVI, probably around 2.0 or just over. Also, it's a fully black snake...

PS. My MBK is using the UV fully, all day laying under it partially covered by a bushy plant, sleeping. This is pretty fantastic. Thanks for bringing it up driving me to start reading up on the subject again.

[dannybgoode]

Funnily enough the group were discussing Getula sp. yesterday. This is what Fran had to offer by way of advice:

Jessie, is that a T8 (1" diameter) tube or a T5-HO slim tube in your viv?
These tubes only lose, on average, 30 - 40% of their output over a full year of use, so that tube is probably still emitting a good amount of UV but it depends a lot on whether it's a T8 or T5-HO..
If it is a regular T8 tube then fitted with a reflector, at 12" distance, with a mesh cover over it, it's a good choice. You should get about UVI 1 - 1.5 at 12" distance from an Arcadia T8 D3+12%UVB or an Arcadia Euro Range 10%+ UVB, with a reflector and mesh cover, which I would consider ideal for an occasionally-basking, shade-dwelling or crepuscular species for daytime use. I would try to get the areas illuminated by the basking lamp and UV lamp to overlap more, though. Ideally they need to be absorbing UVB while they bask, for best effect.
If it is a T5-HO then I would be concerned about using a 12%UVB Arcadia T5-HO lamp in a reflective fixture at a distance of only 12" over a shade-dwelling species. The T5-HO is a far more powerful UV source and I wouldn't use a 12% T5 with a shade-dweller. I would replace it with a 6% T5.

[TRD]

Thanks.

I have a 6% Arcadia T5HO at 28-30cm distance through a mesh cover with a reflector, so that seems about right. I may get a UVI meter eventually, but the decent ones are costly. Also MBK coming from area's that reach pretty insane UVIs for a large portion of the year, I'm not too worried. Snakes from these area's are pretty heavy on melanin for a reason.

[dannybgoode]

I'm thinking of a uvi meter also as I am redoing all my enclosures when I move house and uvi will be a factor in the arrangement of the features.

Do check out the Advancing Herpetilogical Husbandry Group on Facebook of your on there...