Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Is it really necessary to put holes in the bins?

I have a small condominium bedroom converted to my ball room.

I have a space heater with a fan behind it keeping the room at 82-86 ambient.

I have a self made plywood 8 shelf rack with 41q tubs.

I am having humidity problems.

I use paper towel, or newspaper as substrate, but as soon as winter hit (chicago) my humidity plummeted.

I tried a humidifier that I need to refill EVERY 3 hours (1 gallon). I have no clue where the humidity in that room disappears to so quickly!

So I tried shredded aspen from Harlan.

4 of my snakes got sick, and I lost one before I could get the drugs for them.

I noticed the aspen molded very quickly, so I threw out the aspen and am back to paper towels and injecting 3 sick snakes that are starting to make a comeback.

I tried attaching the humidifier to a dimmer switch to make the water last longer, but when I went back to check on it, the dimmer was fried......*sigh*

What the heck am I supposed to do to KEEP humidity up, because one of the snakes got sick before I got the aspen, so I knew it was humidity, and then 3 more after the aspen, so that is why I am wondering if they would still get plenty of oxygen if I got all new tubs and just didn't put any holes in them.

I do see snake racks from time to time that don't have any holes in the tubs which is why I am asking.

PLEASE-throw me some info, I am very frustrated about this.

Thanks,
Matt

I live in grand rapids mich, so i know how the humidity sucks this time of year. I converted the spare bedroom in my house to my ball room. I went to target and they have a warm steam humidifier for $26.99 i keep it on low all day and it keeps the room at 50%-65% and it keeps the heat at 78 degrees. And i spray mine about once every 3 or 4 days.
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0.3 double het pied/carmel 1.3.2 normals, 1.3.1 pastels, 0.1 mojave, 0.1 pinstripe, 0.1 albino, 1.0 yellow belly, 1.1 het pied, 1.0 amelanistic corn, 0.1 normal corn, 2.1 miniture dachshunds, 0.1 beautiful fiance
*snakes are like oreos, no one can just have one!*

It holds humidity best.
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Brian Hettinger
480 Pythons
Contact us

I have two bags of cypress mulch freezing outside right now. Is this going to kill all of the parasites? And I am in the process of fabricating a BIG steralite tub with a hardware cloth/mesh lid that I can poor the cypress on and shake it to get ALL of the little dusty particles out of it to make as dust free as possible.

I've never had a problem with parasites in my mulch. Sometimes they get the little wood lice, but they are harmless to the snakes and I only see them in abundance when it is time to change out all the substrate. I keep the mulch quite moist though, which might prevent their eggs from hatching or something.

I've also never had a problem with it being dusty. The stuff I get is usually already moist and very loamy and stringy. Virtually dust free. I use it as the bulk bedding for my rodents for this reason since the Aspen I could get had quite a bit of dust and seemed to be irritating everyone.
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Lincoln, NE
0.1 Pastel, 1.0 Pastel het Pied, 0.1 Pied, 0.1 Cinn, 1.0 Black Pewter, 1.0 Woma (hidden gene?), 0.1 Yellowbelly
2.1 Normals, 1.0 Thayeri, 0.1 Thayeri X Alterna, 0.1 Whitesided P. catenifer sayi, 0.1 crazy cat, 1.0 husband

Im glad you don't mind wood mites, but when I bought my first big bag of aspen from petco about 3-4 years ago, we got these little red wood mites that ended up ALL OVER!..lol They were all over the rats, all over the carpeting. There were MILLIONS if not trillions. We were getting bit like crazy in our beds...it was horrific. We had to fumigate the whole upstairs. I found their nest at the bottom of the aspen bag. My God I will never go back do dealing with that again. I still look at the edges of the rat cages out of fear that I might catch a glimpse of another one. I have been lucky so far...(knocking on counter top). I will do what ever I have to do in order to eradicate any and all parasites from any bedding that comes into this house..lol. Thank you though.

Do you know the exact brand and model # for the humidifier so I can go look at it?

Things to try:
Switch to a large room (3-5 gal) humidifier. Warm mist ones are my favorite because they help heat the room and dispurses the moisture best.

Check the seals on your room. How good is the door to the room? Could it use some weather stripping or a towel under the door to help stop airflow? Check the window sealant too. Do you use an exhaust fan?

Switch half of your bedding in the tubs to cypress mulch/bark. This material holds moisture well, resists molding, and is relatively inexpensive. I have the forward half of my tubs in cypress mulch and the back half in aspen or paper, depending on the snake. This gives them a dry place to lay and prevents belly rot.
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Lincoln, NE
0.1 Pastel, 1.0 Pastel het Pied, 0.1 Pied, 0.1 Cinn, 1.0 Black Pewter, 1.0 Woma (hidden gene?), 0.1 Yellowbelly
2.1 Normals, 1.0 Thayeri, 0.1 Thayeri X Alterna, 0.1 Whitesided P. catenifer sayi, 0.1 crazy cat, 1.0 husband

I will be trying cypress soon. (see above post). I will look into getting a bigger humidifier. And the door is crap, so I will be looking to insulate it better. I feel that the humidifier is battling the house floor heater vent, because that kicks out very dry heat, but I need it to assist the room heat. I have to keep the oil heater on low because the thermostat I have for it is only rater to 500w. If I had something that could hold 1500w then I could probably block off the heater vent like I do in the other 3 seasons of the year.

go to home depot and if you can buy a bigger humidifier that does the hole house it cost me 169.99 holds 3 to 4 gallons of water the water went down really quick the first 2 days but after it got to 50 % humidity i add water once a day so it does not run out and it works really well i had the same problems you are going thru in michigan