Reptile & Amphibian Forums

To make my humdity right where I need it I bought a humidifier but I have to keep my bedroom door closed to keep the humidity inside. I've always had a problem with it being hot in there with the door closed but I had hoped that the cool humidity would keep it low. It doesn't get as hot as it used to but it still hovers around 80F. With the door open the humidity is between 50-60% depending on when the AC is on but it's at least 75-76F.

I've got my ceiling fan on high and another 18" fan directed at the tanks but it's still 77-80F. If I have to I will buy a window AC unit that has a thermostat but that may be a month from now. I really need to keep the humidity as high as possible because I now own a basilisk and if it's not humid enough it'll become constipated. I think I really need to keep it at 75% for the sake of my baby anoles too.

Should I not worry that my cool side isn't 72-75F? My green anoles, green tree frogs, and basilisk don't seemed to be stressed out. Does anybody have any experience with tower fans or window fans?

I have the same sort of problem with my herp room. The ambient air in the room is no less than 75 during the day and no less than 70 at night, maybe a little on cooler nights, but not much. So the cooler side of my terrariums is roughly between 75 and 80, and none of my reptiles seemed stressed by it in any way. My anoles actually like to get misted though, they run for it lol, so maybe this is a way for them to cool down. But I think if they were really bothered by it, it would be noticable. They're healthy, active, and green as can be, so I'm not worried about it. I don't think you have anything to be worried about, especially if they all seem to be doing good

Thank you for the reply, BlazedBetty (I've always wanted to ask you about your screen name, lol)!!! My anoles freak out and run away whenever I try misting them.

Since they still usually hang out near the hot side I don't think they've been stressing. It's just that sometimes its hard to tell how anoles feel. At times they can be so stubborn even when what they are doing is killing them.

Today I did something different and had the fan pointed strait toward the tanks. This helped a little but when the AC kicked on the temp would drop way down to about 72F. Hopefully if they do feel hot they take that time to cool down. The temp still reached 83F at one point. Maybe I shouldn't worry too much because in the wild they have very little to choose from when it's uber-hot.

It looks like I may have to buy a window unit afterall because I think fans only blow the hot air around. I'm afraid that when the weather outside becomes hot the fans won't be enough. Unless of course the central air stays on a lot but I don't want an extremely high electricity bill again.

Well I can't say I have a problem with the high heat where I live (I thnk the hottest it ever gets here is 30 and that only lasts for one day lol). But having one room full of herps gets it pretty hot, and there's some days I don't have the heat lights on for very long because it would just get too hot. That's another reason why rheostats and thermostats are a really good idea.
I'm not sure if this would help you out at all, but Atrax27407 gave me a really good idea for fans one day and they work awesome. So you should post a question to him, maybe that could help you out, but I'm not sure if that's what you're looking for.

The 4" muffin fan (computer cooling fan) that I have suspended about 2" above the screen top of my 40 gallon will drop the temperature at the basking spot by 5 degrees or so. There is a correponding temperature drop at the cool side of the enclosure as well.I have 3 60 Watt bulbs across the back of the enclosure for heat (in winter 75 or 100 watt). It allows me to use higher wattage bulbs than normal which also produce more light. The light makes it easier for the Anoles to hunt.
The trick is find the right wattage of bulb to use but a bit of experimentation will determine that. I have an array of incandescent bulbs from 40 to 100 watt that I change depending on the time of year and ambient room temperature.

I'll look into that but I can't think of how I would suspend the fan. I have my basking lights hanging from the ceiling on chains but I don't think I would want to do that with the fan. I'll check out how much a transformer costs when I'm near a Radioshack. Wait a minute, I have a few extra power supplies for PC's so that should work! Especially since I'll need 3-4 fans for all of my tanks.

At this moment everything seems okay but it's getting hotter outside everyday. I live in Texas and sooner or later I'll need to do something extra. Hopefully the central AC in the house will still keep everything how it is now. I've decided on not using a window unit because it will definetely be expensive to run with or without a perfect thermostat.

I use rheostats when needed but with the 5 basking and 8 fluorescent bulbs in the room a few less watts won't make a dent. I'll have to get creative with fans and maybe cracking the door a little. I plugged in my regular fan into a timer so that it would turn on an hour after the lights come on so that I don't cool them off too much. Those tower fans are pretty cheap and I think they would mix the cool air at the bottom with the warmer air near the top. I'll probably also end up upgrading my misting system so that leaving the door open won't cause my humidity in the tanks to drop below 60% anymore. Right now they are at 70-80% but the when the AC kicks on it drops to 60%.

I put together a DIY light bar. I took a couple of 3" angle irons and attached them to 1" X 2" uprights which, in turn, were attached to a long 1" X 2" cross piece that runs the length of the 40 gallon. The angle irons are turned in and fit nicely under the enclosure. I have three 5" clamp lights across the back that hang from the light bar. Two strip lights (one UVB and one GE Sunshine) are in front of the clamp lights over the screen. I made a bracket out of some scrap aluminum and the fan is attached to the light bar with screws. Everything is on a timer and all comes on at the same time. It takes about 30-40 minutes for the basking spots to come up to 90-93 degrees and they stabilize there for the entire day. The cool side (right front corner) is usually between 75-80 degrees (the warmer temperature at the end of the day). I hope this helps.
Oh yes, I also have a DIY vacuum cleaner attachment for cleaning debris out of the enclosure and removing runaway crickets but that is another story.

That's pretty cool! I'm not looking into adding a light bar because I like how I have my lights set up for my adult green anole tank. If it's too cold or too hot I raise or lower the lights by a few links in the chains. How about if I just have the fan on the screen lid? I think I also have a smaller fan that's 2.5".

I'm not worried about my baby anole tanks or basilisk tank anymore because they seem totally fine and I see them all other the tank. The adult green anoles are almost always hiding even after turning one of their basking lights off. Tommorow I'll be setting up the fan and turning that light back on.

That would work. I just found it to be a real pain to have to move the fan every time I opened the enclosure to drop in prey items or clean up some debris. If you are going to put it directly on the screen, get some of those rubber/plastic adhesive "feet" from Radio Shack and put one on each corner of the fan. It will be more stable that way and won't have the tendency to "walk" from the vibrations it creates while running.

Oh, I shouldn't have that problem. My dual fluorescent fixture is resting on the screen so I'll secure it to that. I just slide the whole screen back or slightly raise it when I throw in prey. I only have to be careful not to slide it too far back otherwise the weight of the fluorescent light will cause it to fall off. Well, I pretty have that same problem with most of my tanks. Whenever I switch to Reptariums I won't have that problem and heat will be less of a problem.

At first I didn't realize that you usually need a motherboard to make a power supply turn on but I figured out which leads to jumper and got it running. I really like how it has increased the humidity by bringing in the more humid air from within the room. I placed both a 4" and 2.5" fan on top to get the maximum effect until I think of a better combo. I also placed a fan that is normally used to cool down hard drives where the basking lights are. I hope that it can pull out some of that hot air while the other 2 bring in somewhat cooler air.

The lights didn't need moving for me to place it in this perfect spot.

Doesn't anybody like it?

Looks familiar -- very similar to my setup. I have found that the air flow is very good with the fans set to exhaust the air from the enclosure. The slight cooling effect also allows me to use higher wattage (and brighter) lighting.

Thanks for the reply! I would set all the fans to exhaust but I'm trying to inject more humidity into the tank. If I had a misting system that doesn't flood the substrate I would have them on exhaust too. I might have to unplug the one that I'm using for an exhaust because I think it has been lowering the humidity.

I also noticed some kind of white substance on the screen under the inlet fans. The humidifer is supposed to filter out 'white dust' but this could be something else. It hasn't built up much since I cleaned it off. I'm not worried about it but I'll be keeping my eye on it.

The temperature in the tank has been very good. I haven't been able to figure out exactly how much lower it is but there is a lot more variation. The anoles are a lot more active and seem to enjoy the inlet fans. Now if only I could get all the anoles to eat while I'm in the room.

The white stuff is dust/debris that is floating around in the air in the room. Some of it gets deposited on the screen top by the air flow. Just clean the top from time to time with a vacuum cleaner.

A vacuum wouldn't pick all of it up. The part that isn't dust is rather sticky and since using the humidifier I've felt the same thing on certain surfaces. It's not a big problem but just an obvservation. Luckily I don't have any sensitive electronic equipment in the room. I do have collector cards but they're stored away in containers that are fairly air tight.

I found another large fan in my stuff and added that to the setup. After placing my digital thermometer in there it seems like the temps aren't where I want them. I think that maybe the fans are bringing in more hot air than it is pulling out. The new fan is set to exhaust but I'm moving the thermometer around to make sure it wasn't just that spot that seems hot.

The room itself is getting hotter. Mostly because when the thermostat is set at 76F the temp usually sits at 77F which means my room gets up to 84F. When the thermostat is at 75 it continuosly runs and dries out the air. Now I'm in a financial bind and I can't buy any room fans for a month. Hopefully cracking the door will help without too much humidity leaking out.

I've had the best results when the fan(s) on the top of the enclosure exhaust. If you place the fan near one side of the enclosure, you will get an intake of air on the opposite side. I have the temps and humidity right on the mark in my 40 gallon with a single 4" fan.

The placement of the fans is still in a constant state of changing. My room is only getting hotter even with the door wide open. My basilisk is now showing the signs of overheating so hopefully I can get long enough wires to install a fan on her cage. It looks like I may still need some tower fans, a misting system or humidifier, and any other creative idea to increase the humidity and lower the temperature.

The only other suggestion(s) that I can think of are a room sized air conditioner or a large box fan to exhaust air from the room.

Do you know of a room sized AC unit that doesn't suck major amps and doesn't cost $200-500? 15 amps at 115v means it's using 1725w per second and if the unit is on for even only 4 hours per day that means it would cost $20 a month in power. The unit I'm referring to produces 5100 btu and I really don't need that much but the unit costs $80. The free standing non-window units cost more and probably use just as much power. Although if they didn't use too much power they woud be awesome to have because they add humidity to the air rather than dry it out like most AC units do!

Is a box fan one of those simple fans that sit on the ground? Walmart has small round ones for $7 each but I was figuring that a 40' tower fan or two would be more effective. There are so many different kinds of fans out there and there's got to be one that's made for what I need it for.

Man, this really blows because no matter how hard I try my baskilisk almost always has her mouth open. Another sign that she's overheating is the fect that she used to hate the water but is no soaking in it quite often. I'm starting to think that she'll have to switch places with the anoles. She's going to outgrow her tank soon enough anyways and I think she'll enjoy the muffin fans more.