Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've recently took in two brown anoles and have been building a better habitat for them. They were in a small, plastic terrarium with no light and had an M&M tube for a shelter. They're now in a 10-gal aquarium and have lots of things to climb on and light.

I've been spraying them down daily, but am worried about dehydration if I go out of town over weekends or the holidays. What is the best way to maintain humidity and supply water to drink in their tank while I'm away?

Any do's or don'ts would be helpful...

I can tell you my experiences with foggers and misters. I tried a fogger first since I wanted to raise humidity, but that was a disaster. It's very messy and I ended up with moldy substrate. Since then I've installed Habba Mist machines in both my cages. Mostly they do fine, though you have to be sure to check them periodically to make sure the sprayer isn't clogged or pinched closed. The good sides - I can be away and not worry about the lizards, plus you can choose how often and how long you want them to spray. Bad sides - they are VERY loud, plus kind of big and ugly. They don't really change the humidity levels that much, though I'm told live plants will help with that. I have fake plants.

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Torey
Salem, Oregon, USA
1.1 Uromastyx Geyri (Joe and Arthur)
2.0.1 Uromastyx Dispar Maliensis (Tank, Turtle, and new neighbor Spike)
1.2 Anolis Carolinensis (Bowser, Leeloo, and Sprocket)
1.1 African Dwarf Frogs (Bruce and Sheila)
1.0 Betta Splendens (Mr. Miagi)
1.1 Felis Domesticus (Roscolux and Jenny)
And several miscellaneous community fish

I have set up many sucessfull humidifiers. The trick is to not use the cheap garbage made for pets but the heavy duty room kind. You can get one for 500sqft for about 40$ at Longs Drugs or Frys (any department store really...Osh, Home Depot perhaps). It is key you get one with a round opening on top because you need it to fit a PVC pipe (usually 2". Make sure to get the cold humidifier version and perhaps a timer which can turn it on and off periodically. The totals should be under 50 and it creates a thick fog which raises the humidity as high as you want (varible setting). Some pics below.

That's super keen! Is it noisy? And how does it work with a screen top? Does it have to run a lot to keep the humidity up? Do you need to seal off more of the screen?
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Torey
Eugene, Oregon, USA
1.1 Uromastyx Geyri (Joe and Arthur)
2.0.1 Uromastyx Dispar Maliensis (Tank, Turtle, and new neighbor Spike)
1.2 Anolis Carolinensis (Bowser, Leeloo, and Sprocket)
1.1 African Dwarf Frogs (Bruce and Sheila)
1.0 Betta Splendens (Mr. Miagi)
1.1 Felis Domesticus (Roscolux and Jenny)
And several miscellaneous community fish

I love that humidifier set-up.

i just setup my tank for my first two anoles and im currently using a combo waterfall/sonic fogger. the waterfall creates a nice running water effect (ive read anoles only drink running water or droplets on leaves) and the fogger really raises humidity when i need it. the waterfall itself does a pretty good job of keeping humidity around 60%. the fogger i turn on in the morning to create a nice blanket of seemingly fresh dew (more natural) on my plants and when the humidity falls low overrall. plus i can timer the fogger. my humidty used to fall to 40% and a tad lower unless i misted like a mad bandit, but with the waterfall and fogger, it hardly ever goes below 60%. keep in mind tho i am new to reptile care but this is what seems to work really well for me to keep a constant 60% humidity that they like.

I also run the waterfall fogger combo and it does OK. When the fogger is new it produces enough fog to cover the bottom 4 inches of a 40 gallon tank. But then it slowly dies out and then with in about 1-2 months will stop working. You need to rebuild them about once a month to keep them going. I would recommend you put them on a timer and only run them as much as needed. I too had moldy substrate from over use.

I also used another system to get humidity. It is a large plastic bottle with 2 hoses going in/out of it. One end comes from an aquarium air pump and goes to an air stone inside the water in the tank. Air gets pumped through the stone and you get bubbles. The other hose then lets the humid air out and to the tank. A: I don't think the hoses flow enough volume to keep up with the needs of a 40 gallon tank with decent ventilation. B: I hate the sound of the dang air pump running all the time.

I just mist the leaves and water the substrate as needed and run the waterfall.

Thank you for your description of your set-up. I finally got my misting machine together (pictures to follow soon).

Unfortunately, I bought a crappy timer that didn't turn off the machine as planned. Of course, it worked okay the first time I sat and watched it, but the first day I left it alone, I came home to it having been on for 6 hours straight! My anoles were mad, but dried out okay. It's a good thing I had a log for them to hide in!

I'm trying to set it for about 15-minutes once a day. Does that sound about right? I haven't worried about it being real humid. I have brown anoles and I've read that they prefer it to be a little drier than the greens....