Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi. I'm planning to get a rainbow in a month or two. I'm looking at several ways to keep the humidity right. One thing I came up with was using a humidifier for oxygen with an air pump like is used for a fish tank. For those not familiar, the premise is pretty simple. Oxygen (or in this case, room air) flows into a canister of water, then out an outlet tube at the top, through a hose. I can run the hose into the tank (it'll only require a hole about 1/4" in dia.)
has anyone every tried this? Think it would work?
As usual, thanks in advance for the input.

I agree w snakesitter, it sounds like too much work for too little reward. Something I have done for years, (though it would probably be too much work for large breeding populations), is to create an aquifer underneath the substrate. The original product that I used was called "hydroballs" by zoomed I think. It is a porous clay type rock, use 3/4' or so, fill to almost the top w water, cover it with a non reactive type screen (nylon or similar, not metal!) from a home improvement type store, and place about 1" of whatever type of moisture holding substrate you choose on top. Reduce the air flow as needed to keep the humidity from flowing out, but the substrate will always stay moist, just pull up the corner of the screen every 1-2 weeks and add water as necessary to keep the aquifer full. I keep the same rocks in the bottom for a year or so, I just rinse them out in a colander whenever I change out the substrate. They seem to available almost everywhere i am and online, hell, you could probably just use some fish gravel underneath, you'd probably just have to add water more often. I'm certainly not an expert, but i havent had to worry about humidity on my rainbows since i started this.

Dave

Cliff and Dave are correct IMO. One point they did not touch on is a electro-mechanical device to provide humidity means your snake is relying on the device working and power not being interrupted.

If you set up the enclosure to automatically provide humidity, yes you still need to refresh the water but you are not relying on any device still working.

The number one mistake as Cliff touched on is owners thinking "fresh air" or ventilation is key. ON the contrary, air exchange between the enclosure and the room/house it's in pretty much always results in humidity loss for the enclosure unless the room/house is also humid.
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Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC and still very fiesty)
0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count (02/01/2010):
42.61 BRB
27.40 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats