Reptile & Amphibian Forums

im having trouble keeping my humidity at 75% for my rhino viper..its steady at 70% but i just cant get that 5% increase for more than a half hour..i mist very often (begining to think to often) i have a large water dish in there and the substrate is cypress much with spots of sphagum moss. and i have 2 large live plants in there also and the leaves are always wet..and still it wont go over 70%..the substrate is damp but im worried if i wet it to much she will get blisters or other problems steming from being to wet..oh and the temp is 75 -80...does anyone have any ideas on how to raise the humid a lil..?? thanks alot

ps..my cage is custom made out of wood and plexiglass..could it be that the wood is absorbing the humidity?

It could be the wood and it could also be that your guage is not working correctly. That sure sounds like you should be having a high enough humidity. What do you have for ventalation? I would assume your cage opens from the front being that this is a B. nasicornis you are housing and there is no way I would go in through the top. You are not using any overhead heat elements like strong lights or CHE either I would assume because those can drastically dry your air..but I doubt you would be using them anyway. The only other thing I would think of is to place a bowl with damp towels or paper towels over the heat pad. This should give you the evaporation you are looking for and as long as you dont have a screen top then you wont lose a significant amount of it.

the gauge being broken did cross my mind but i just bought it so i assumed it wasent that..im gonna pick up another one and see if thats the problem..i have a small computer fan for ventilation that only gets turned on about once every 5 hours ..(if i keep the fan on it drops humity to 50% in minutes)..yes the cage is front opening the top flips up..i have a small compact flourescent shining through a small peice of tempered glass at the top...i do have a ceramic heat emitter at one side of the cage but it only gets turned on if the temps drop below 75..do you see anything here that can be hindering my humidity? thanks again

THe fan and the CHE are the only things I would see as a humidity proble, unless the top is screen. If you are using all side ventalation then I would think you should be fine. If you have enough ventalation on the sides I would say to use the fan less or none. How big of a room is the snake in? IF you have a small separate room for hots, I would run a humidifier that "boils" water in the room. This will keep your temps up a bit higher so you never need the CHE and it will boost humidity a touch. I would think a rhino viper should be kept in a separate room anyway so if you are controlling the room then you will have no need for the CHE. Try the bowl of towels as well. Good luck.

Hi:

I use big sponges that are inserted into a "shower soap holder" that I get at Walmart or Target. They work very well for my River Jack & Gabby.

Also I use a substrate "Reptilbark" from Zoomed that holds water too. Using a heat rock not a ceramic emmitter will help too. The Emitters just bake the cage out. The Heat Rock does not give up much heat to the surrounding air. I seldom, almost never see the snakes on the HR. They are happy with the ambient temp in the room ~70 degrees.

Good Luck,

Al

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Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints.

Also just to add; instead of getting another hygrometer, just set it above some boiling water and see if it hits 100%