Do You Test Your Hygrometers for Accuracy?

PsychoSnake · 12-19-16, 07:27 PM

In the event of my recent RI saga with my female retic I've learned that out of four hygrometers I used with her (two analogue, two digital), only the cheap analogue ZooMed hygrometer was correct. How did I come to this conclusion?

I noticed that despite my snake room feeling sweltering hot and humid most of my hygrometers could not agree on a percentage and most showed that the humidity was low. I had three humidifiers running at the same time. Obviously, something is wrong with this picture and it needs to be fixed to help my retic get over her RI. That's where I came upon the salt test, used to test hygrometers in the cigar hobby.

Evidently if you make a small mixture of two parts table salt to one part water (consistency of wet sand) and place both the mixture and hygrometer (not touching!) into a Ziplock bag for 8-12 hours, the correct reading on the hydrometer should be 75%, which was exactly what my cheap ZooMed hygrometer came up with. The others were about 20-25% off.

I have never heard of this test in the reptile hobby so I thought I would share.

Piggybuns · 12-19-16, 07:51 PM

Wow, thank you for the tip! I've never heard of that before; I hope your retic girl starts to feel better soon.

bigsnakegirl785 · 12-19-16, 07:56 PM

I haven't used hygrometers in awhile. I do know of the salt test, but haven't tried it, so when I get around to buying a couple hygrometers I'll probably try it. Once you know what to look for in terms of hydration in your snakes, a hygrometer isn't really necessary, but they are useful for figuring out the numbers when needed, if you can trust them.

dave himself · 12-20-16, 08:16 AM

Thanks for the tip useful to know

Aayrick · 12-20-16, 02:22 PM

Wow, never knew about that test. I'd figured my digital stuff was probably off, since it constantly shows about 30%. I'll have to try this out and see which ones are good and which ones I should toss. Thanks

TRD · 12-31-16, 04:27 PM

And don't forget that air at different temperatures hold significantly more or less water. F.e.

RH of 60% at ~77 F is holding the same water as RH 41% at ~90 F.

Some people keep heating up their enclosures and at result RH drops, then they add more water and this eventually leads to RIs and other nasty stuff.

Go read up on the subject of how much water air can hold at different temperatures so you understand exactly what you are doing when you are 'bumping up the humidity'

BR,
TRD

akane · 01-02-17, 10:22 PM

Digital weather temp and hygrometers I find are more accurate and you can connect them all to a base station to monitor at one place in your house. I used to hatch massive amounts of chickens and quail and I'd pop one in each incubator and could check them all at once for water top off or spikes in humidity might signal the start of hatching. If the house door blew open which it tended to do if not locked in winter the drop in temp when the incubators could no longer keep up even had an alarm setting. The whole system wasn't more than $100.