A Few Questions

I just have a few things that I am curious about and hope you could tell me.

I have a digital thermometer which measures humidity and temperature. Its one of those thermometers that measures indoor and outdoor temperatures so I know both cool and warm sides.

I always had my thermometer on one side of the tank, on the substrate on the warm side and the outdoor sensor on the cool side but yesterday I moved it to the cool side and I moved the outdoor sensor to the warm side. (I hope I am not making this sound confusing ) This time instead of lying the thermometer on the substrate I put it standing up.

What I am wondering is that last week (when it was in the first position and on the substrate) the humidity was around 40-50%, but now when its on the other side of the viv and standing up, its 90%!

I didn't really do anything different, I just moved the water bowl to the warm side, but there shouldn't be that much of an increase in humidity should there?

Usually my snake when it sheds the tail end doesn't shed, so doesn't that mean its not humid enough?

I'm confused! :shrugs:

That was just my first question lol!

Next question is also relating to the thermometer. I have one of those thermostats that regulates the temperature and has a temperature sensor. How acurate are these things? Should I put the sensor on the substrate or under it?

What temperature should it be at? As you probably know, when the termostat reaches the required temp, the light turns off, showing that its at that temperature, right? But on my thermometer it has a different temperature, usually higher.

Are thermometers very fussy about where they are positioned or what, or is it that my thermometer is inacurate.

Please help because I don't want my snake frozen, burnt or humidified! Lol

Thanks

Ocelot said:

Are thermometers very fussy about where they are positioned or what

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They better be! That's the principal upon which they operate. They should be very fussy about where they are positioned. If you are asking "Are they fussy about how they are positioned?" then that's a slightly different question.
As far as temp probes go, it shouldn't matter how they are positioned. It's sort of hard to mis-position a probe. If you're talking about the actual thermometer that can sit in the palm of your hand, it still shouldn't matter too much. But, depending on how you lay it on the substrate or sit it up above the substrate, and depending on where the sensor is located inside the instrument, I would imagine it could mean a difference of a couple of degrees.


HUMIDITY:

I don't know how much of a difference moving the water bowl would have. 90% seems a bit drastic, but I guess it depends on what type of viv you are using, how enclosed it is, and how hot it is. Also, the substrate probably absorbs some humidity effectively lowering the humidity of the air just above the surface. Again, I don't think it would be a difference of 40% like you observed. How close is the hygrometer to the water dish?

TEMP PROBE PLACEMENT:

On the warm side, I always put probes under the substrate. It's partly personal preference. If I don't know how hot the glass is underneath the substrate then how is that going to help me know if it is too hot?
I just keep the glass at a temperature that I would still feel safe if my snake came into contact with it. I don't worry about the temp on top the substrate. If the temp on the substrate is only 81, but the temp on the glass is 88 (just an example) then I can't raise the temp anymore without risking my snake getting a burn if she burrows, which she does. So it doesn't help me to know what the temp on the substrate is. I just keep the temp on the glass below 86 and I've never had a problem.

Are your thermostat probes and thermometer probes side by side?


Hopefully that info wasn't terribly confusing...

EDIT: I forgot to answer about the tail tip shedding question...I wouldn't say that a retained tail tip is always a sign of low humidity. Is the rest of the shed in one piece? If the shed is coming off in pieces and the tail tip isn't coming off, there may be a problem.
I have one snake that has the slightest little curl at the tip of his tail, which often keeps the very tip of his sheds from coming off. There are no humidity problems, just that the tip of his tail isn't 100% straight.

Well, looking at my thermometer it says the Viv is 34C on the warm side, but my thermostat is set to 26C! I don't know why this is happening because they are both side by side.

The thermometer isn't beside the water bowl either, and its still remaining at 89%! My viv has all 4 little air vents open aswell, maybe I should move the bow back to the cool side?

A picture of all of this would be very helpful if at all possible.

I would try moving the bowl closer to the cool side and see if you notice a difference. The combination of moving it to the warm side and only having 4 air holes is probably why you saw a spike in the humidity like that.

Like I said, a picture might be helpful in describing your thermometer/thermostat problems. I don't understand why they would be so far off unless there is another factor you aren't realizing or maybe it isn't set correctly and you just don't realize it. I'm not saying this to be mean. It's easy to make mistakes or overlook things sometimes.

Right, so here is the pic you wanted:



I've marked the 4 air vents with circles, the water dish and thermometer with arrows and the two probes (from thermometer and thermostat) with a circle also.

Now, I tried moving the thermostat in further, because it was sort of at the corner, and I did the same with the probe. My God, what a difference. I mean for a couple of inches the temperature changed from around 24C to thirty something!

This might solve the problem I was having before with such high temps.....

But about humidity, its at 87% now. Could it possibly have something to do with it being beside the viv wall? I mean water might condense there and affect the reading. No?

zwyatt said:

HUMIDITY:
What I am wondering is that last week (when it was in the first position and on the substrate) the humidity was around 40-50%, but now when its on the other side of the viv and standing up, its 90%!

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Since you are using a light as a heat sourse it looks like it could play a big role in humidity. It will evaporate the water a lot quicker bringing the humidity up more. I don't know about 50% more but it could be so. I used that trick on my ball cages while I was waiting for my supplies for my rubbermaid tubs. Where did you put your "outside" probe. If that was closer to the water dish it could account for the spike too. It is probably a combination of the two.

Lars5277 said:

Since you are using a light as a heat sourse it looks like it could play a big role in humidity. It will evaporate the water a lot quicker bringing the humidity up more.

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I don't use lights, but everytime I read about people using lights everyone says they dry the air rather than making it more humid. :shrugs:

I still think moving the water dish closer to the heat in combination with those 4 small air holes could be contributing to the spike in humidity. Is there a reason that there are so few air holes? My 12qt tubs all have at least 50 or more 1/8" holes and some of them have humidity around 60%.

It sounds like you might have your temperatures on the right track. There's no real science to it. You just have to move things around and play with the placement of the probes and other elements until you achieve a happy balance.


One last piece of advice that you can take if you'd like...If the rock hide, that your snake is using in the picture, isn't over the UTH I would switch it places with the log looking things that are directly above the temp probes. Snakes are going to stay where the feel the most secure and it just doesn't look like he/she would feel very secure in the wide open space above the UTH, and it's nice for them to have a warm/secure place to hide and digest.

Just my .02