Humidity box
 

Hello! I recently made a humidity box for my ghost corn snake with moss in a plastic container. I made this box not even a few days ago, and I think there’s already mold on the moss? What could I do to prevent this or make a better box? Is this dangerous to my snake?
Thank you!

What moss did you use? Moss is supposed to be pretty mold resistant and I've personally never had issues with that using sphagnum moss.

I used sphagnum terrarium moss From zoo med

That is odd! I've used that stuff without issue many times. Maybe you just got a "bad batch". I'd just throw it away and try another package or another brand.

I've never had that problem.

Do you think it happened because it’s too wet? I’m gonna guess that’s most likely what happened?

Most molds prefer the exact conditions that are ideal for moss in your humidity box (i.e., damp but not dripping wet). Typically, I just wet the moss, ring out by hand and toss it in a plastic container with a hole in the lid. Is your snake housed in a bioactive set-up that might have more "things" growing in it, or is your snake in a more traditional set-up with ?aspen bedding?

Too much water, dirty hands handling the moss, dirty container the moss was placed in, or the moss itself was dirty. Mold needs moisture, air, food and correct temps to grow. The food is "Any Organic Material." So it is possible for mold to grow on moss.

Is that a bad thing? Not all molds are dangerous. So maybe yes, maybe no.

Mold grows from spores. The spores had to come from somewhere. Perhaps it was already in the Moss, perhaps the spores were on your hands, or in the container, or somewhere in the cage.

I've been using sphagnum moss for decades and have never had a mold problem. But I can see how it could happen.

My suggestion would be a thorough cleaning of the cage, your hands, a new bag of moss, a different container and try it again. Don't use too much water. Just lightly mist the moss and squeeze it out. Re-Mist it every 2 or 3 days and replace it weekly.

My snake doesn’t have aspen, but he has a paper bedding. And the moss was full of an overwhelming amount of dirt when I took it out of the box, but I figured wetting it a bit would get rid of some of that so it wouldn’t bother my snake, I probably wetted it too much as well.

Thank you guys for the tips! Are there any specific mosses/brands you would recommend for this?