humidity

[heyprettyrave]

i am still having trouble with this. i have seven plants in her enclosure and i mist it and water them/ the enclosure in the morning before i leave but ut just doesnt seem to keep the humidity, which worries me. her enclosure is in a dresser right now, and does not have a lid. tips please

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i was thinking about getting this

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0002DJ0QA/?tag=exoticpetnetw-20

would this work to keep the humidity up through the day?

 

[terryo]

Why don't you try putting some Plexiglass on the top as a lid? You could leave an opening for the heat source (I have a heat emitter stuck in a hole in a screen top.) The Plexiglass should hold in the humidity better. I don't know about the mister...I never had one.

 

[heyprettyrave]

could i buy plexiglass at a home depot? and if i had half of it open and half under the plexi, would that be alright, or should i do the whole thing?

thanks

 

[Madkins007]

Mister: Be sure to monitor the temps with these- they can drop temps by as much as 10 degrees.

Cover: This will depend on the ambient humidity of the room. If the room is dry (as most heated and a/c'ed rooms are), then you may need to cover most of the habitat for most of the day or night. I like airflow, though, so I rarely cover the whole thing unless things are really getting dry.

If you need to cut the cover yourself to get a good fit, or to make holes for the heater, etc., then get POLYCARBONATE instead of plexi or acrylic. It costs more but is less fragile and easier to cut, drill, etc.

Humidity: The general recipe for humidity is water + heat + containment. Covering the habitat gives us containment. Humidifying the room gives us the entire room as containment.

You can also try some tricks like:
- Humid hide. Instead of humidifying the entire habitat, cut a hole in the side of a plastic tub or box (with lid. It sometimes works best to make the lid the bottom), put some fluffy damp moss on the bottom and/or a cloth bag of moss dipped in water on the wall, and park it in a warm spot. Resoak the bag or dampen the moss as needed. (in your situation, I would start with the bag)
- Percolation. This one take a little work but works nicely. Put something coarse on the bottom of the tank- pebbles, lava rock, bark chips. Put the substrate over it. 'Fill' the bottom with water. If the area is warm enough, the warmed water will become vapor and percolate up through the soil and humidify the torts as it escapes into the air. If the water is not warm, you may need to warm it with an undertank or in-soil heater system.

I think you will find, though, that covering about 1/2 to 3/4ths of the habitat will do what you are looking for.

What sort of substrate are you using?

 

[lvstorts]

heyprettyrave,
My experience may help. I live in a really dry area so my house is extra dry. Through lots of trial and error this is what worked for my Redfoots:

Get a plastic storage container with a lid (dark color, large enough for the tort to turn around and be comfey). Cut an opening at one end large enough for the tort to go in and out. Keep lid on. Raise the tort enclosure a couple inches off the surface (I use 2x4's for support, it needs to stay off the surface). Under the storage container put a heating unit. I use the plastic one's for dog houses. Make sure it's AT LEAST an inch from the floor of the enclosure, you don't want the floor too hot. Now put a lot of long-fiber Spagum Moss in the hide (wetted, 1/2 full). The heat from the pad will travel up and the moisture from the moss with start to evaporate and be trapped by the lid. Makes a nice humid casa!

A word of caution: MONITOR THE TEMP ON THE FLOOR OF THE CONTAINER SO IT DOES NOT GET TOO HOT. You may have to adjust to get it right.

In extreme situations I've even cut a hole in the top and put a low wattage heat emitter through it. Makes more heat. If you use a heat emitter, make sure it's WELL above the torts back.

Again, a word of caution: monitor the floor temp 24 hours a day. Get a thermometer with a min/max on it. Taking this extra step will prevent an avoidable injury.

Hope this helps.

 

[DoctorCosmonaut]

Madkins, where do you buy your polycarbonate?

 

[heyprettyrave]

okay. so i have less than half covered by the plexi glass and it seems to be keeping the humidity, its been 70% for the past few hours which i am very happy about. but now im curious about my redfoot Ophelia, shes been in her water for the past thirty minutes and doesnt seem to want to come out. could this be due to the change in humidity?