Faulty thermometer or faulty owner?

[Suzy]

My snake José just shed for the first time with me tonight. He went blue on the 1st, and cleared up on the 4th. When I noticed that he went blue, I decided to mist the tub that he's in. I noticed that it got really foggy, and I was having problems with my thermometer, because I thought the humidity gauge was on the probe part of it. It turns out that it wasn't, so I put the whole thing in there. I put it on the cool side behind his water bowl (It was probably a good 4 inches or so away from the water), and it started reading really high. It was reading (at the highest) 80%. I thought that was a URI waiting to happen, so I drilled more holes in his viv.
So, cut to tonight when he shed. I just got in there about 15 minutes ago, and noticed a piece of a shed right in front of his cave hide. I opened up the viv, and noticed that there was another piece on the cool hide. So, I took those out, and got him out. I noticed the tip of his tail had some stuck shed, so I got that off. I double checked his eyes, and just looked over his whole body and didn't see any more stuck shed. Now my question isn't about the stuck shed. I know now it was because the humidity was too low. My question is, do you think it was a thermometer error, or did I have the thermometer in the wrong spot? Like I said, it was reading 80% (Which I thought was wrong anyway, because the sides of his viv weren't fogged up, which I thought they would have been if it was that high.), so I really don't know. His temps seem about right - 82-85 on the hot side, and about 10 degrees cooler on the cold side.
Should I move my water bowl? (Or maybe even get a smaller one?) Or should I move the thermometer?
Thank you guys for your help. I'm sorry if this is incoherent. I'm a little out of it right now.

 

[Suzy]

I forgot to mention, it's an Acu-rite digital thermometer/hygrometer. I didn't know if that would help at all.

 

[Flagg]

The accurite has the humidity sensor inside the unit, so you need to put the whole thing inside the viv to get the humidity. Easiest is to put the probe on the hot side right over the UTH and stand the unit in the cool side., that way you have both tempos and humidity all fairly accurate.

I wouldn't worry about the shed, as long as you got it all off. Humidity around 50-60 should be okay.

 

[norm]

Also I keep my frogs viv at 85%-90% humidity and it only shows condensation occasionally.

 

[bitsy]

I'd try another thermometer to double-check the readings.

The last two threads I've read in detail about potentially dodgy stats, have actually been down to the thermometers showing an incorrect temperature.

No matter what the control of the stat says, there is always the potential for them to differ depending on the wattage of the mat, the size of the viv, the depth of substrate etc.

 

[Jessicat]

You should give you snake a moist hide. Misting a snake can actually dehydrate it.

A moist hide can be very simple to construct. Get a plastic container (an old margarine tub works great), cut a slit large enough for the snake to crawl in, and fill the plastic container with warm damp Sphagnum Moss.

You can find dried Sphagnum Moss at any local pet store, or online at terrarium supplier's websites.

Wet the moss in warm water and let it soak for a few minutes. Squeeze excess water out of the moss and place it in the your plastic container. Save the lid to the container and make sure the lid is on and fitting snuggly!

I don't have any pictures right now of a moist hide, as I haven't made one in quite awhile. I'm sure someone else will chime in and post a picture of one for you though if my instructions were confusing.

The moist hide is great because it lets the snake decide when it wants to be in a high humidity environment, and the tight space combined with the texture of the moss help them pull their skin off.

Put the moist hide in when your snake goes blue and keep the moss fresh all week.