Reptile & Amphibian Forums

thank you

Until recently I have been using and swearing by hot vapor humidifiers. But about a month ago or so I had one of these short out and almost cause a fire in one of my snake rooms (big no no!) So I went shopping and got some cool mist humidifiers at Wal-Mart. I must say, the cool mist humidifiers have come a LONG way since I last used one 13 years ago. These babies are AWESOME. Needless to say I got the model with the largest capacity. They are 1.5 gallons and can go 20 hours without a change. They put out an intense blast of constant and visible fog. I am very happy with how well they work. The only thing that I am NOT happy with is that they are a pain in the arse to change. The water resevoir has to be removed, inverted, a tight cap removed, put the 1.5 gallons of water in and replace this heavy ungainly tank PRECISELY between and around delecate sensing componants. With the ridiculous design it would be real easy for a clutz to break something (undoubtedly intentional so as to make us buy another even sooner). But other than that they are great and work fantastically. I used to have to use 2 hot vapor units per room, but one of these babies keeps each snake room between 80 and 85% humidity. It's like walking into a foggy 90 degree jungle. And that's only at HALF POWER! I love these things.
The brand name is Reli-On, and it is an "Ultrasonic" cool mist humidifier 1.5 gallon capacity, model H-0565-0. They are in the Health and Beauty section of Wal-Mart and they are only 40 bucks after tax.
I hope this works for you and anyone else.

>>thank you
-----
The fastest way to achieve great wealth is by living more poorly for much longer.

If you use a humidifier do you have to use anything else to het up your cages or is that all you need? sorry if this is a stupid question but I want the best for my animals.

I heat whole rooms and don't bother with individual cage heating. I use oil-type electric space heaters. They are very efficient and reliable. If you are talking about increasing the humidity in single cages and the heating of single cages that is a whole new ballgame. Rob Carmichael had some pretty good ideas about directing humidity into a cage from an outside humidifier using pvc pipe works. This sounded like a pretty good idea to me, but as I have yet to try this I don't know the best way to go about it. And as far as heating goes, I suppose a heat panel on a thermostat and night and day light domes on timers would work well if you have a cage that allows for this modification.

>>If you use a humidifier do you have to use anything else to het up your cages or is that all you need? sorry if this is a stupid question but I want the best for my animals.
-----
The fastest way to achieve great wealth is by living more poorly for much longer.

?

I don't know your set up or how many cages you have or how they are arranged. But humidifiers are not meant to be used as a heat source. Even though hot vapor humidifiers work off of a heated water principle, I doubt they can be used with any acuracy to heat a cage properly. Besides, after one of my hot vapor humidifiers shorted out and almost caused a fire I am not advocating the use of those anymore and am instead pushing the cool mist humidifiers. As for heating your cages, I think you had better first describe how many cages there are and how they are set up and then other members and possibly myself might have a few suggestions for you.

>>?
-----
The fastest way to achieve great wealth is by living more poorly for much longer.

I am going build 6 new cages made out of wood for all of my burms. I will be using your cage plans. I use heat lamps to heat my cages but I dont know how to heat the cages that i am building.

Oh man,.. I just wrote a long-assed post in a detailed answer to this and then I clicked "Back to burmese forum" without hitting "Post Message". I'll answer this tomorrow after I get some rest.

>>I am going build 6 new cages made out of wood for all of my burms. I will be using your cage plans. I use heat lamps to heat my cages but I dont know how to heat the cages that i am building.
-----
The fastest way to achieve great wealth is by living more poorly for much longer.

P

s

What I had said in the other post that I accidently deleted was something to this effect:

When you say you have 6 of these cages, does this mean that you built 6 whole cages, or just 3 and that you divided them? I'm really just curious, it has nothing to do with heating them. Also, I suggested that you might heat the room they are going into to about 84-86 (still comfortable for you) and then use dome-type spotlights for hotspots. Other than that, I have never used radiant heat panels, but they come highly reccomended by other forum members that have used and do use them. How to use them I don't know, you'll have to ask them. But if you like my idea of heating the room to near ideal temps and then supplimenting it, I have optional fronts other than sliding glass for these cages. On many of my own cages I build them with a complete plywood piece over the front and literally cut my door and viewport out of it. Then I attach 1/2 inch wire mesh (hardware cloth) As I maintain most of my python rooms at 89-90 and a relative humidity of 80-88% this allows for optimal ventilation and etc and eliminates the need for cutting an extra vent. For some male snakes and or species that there is a likelyhood of nosing I go ahead and cut the vent and instead attach plexiglass on this same viewport. I only use the sliding glass type fronts for the lowest level of cages as a "flop-down" door would be in my way during cleaning (hitting the floor). But all the rest are the cut-out, flop down design. I find these work best and are the most trouble-free, not to mention the easiest to build. If you are interested in seeing what I am talking about just email me at BrianSmithReptiles@hotmail.co m and I will gladly email you different pictures of the cages and different angles of different doors. I hope this helps. Again, sorry for the delay, believe it or not I have been very very busy the last week or so.

>>s
-----
The fastest way to achieve great wealth is by living more poorly for much longer.

I was building 6 but know i have to build 8. thank you for the reply I will email you for pictures.

When building these cages with the intention of stacking, you can build the lower 2 or 3 without ceilings. The cage above will serve as the ceiling and you can save on wood. Not to mention,.. if you are going to be putting this on wheels (I highly reccomend this. 6 wheels per tower, evenly spaced, rated for 330 lbs each, large rubber swivel-type 4 bucks each at Harbor Freight) then the weight of the overall structure is lessened by about 100 pounds. All you have to do is slightly reinforce the tops with a little internal 1x3's to frame it straight.

>>I was building 6 but know i have to build 8. thank you for the reply I will email you for pictures.
-----
The fastest way to achieve great wealth is by living more poorly for much longer.

I will build it that way, but intsead of sliding doors i am going to make the doors open out.