Temps and Humidity Problems

[tomgarland]

Ive had my corn for..... (just thinking) for seven months now. It hatched in late december 2005 so its just coming up to a year old now and is eating 2 small fuzzies a week. I use an old aquarium as a vivarium, that is 24 x 12 x 17ish (in height). I use aspen bedding and have a 12 x 12 heat mat, and a 100 watt (i think) heat bulb over it. I also have a digi thermometer with probe, all of which is in the tank and gives readings of the temps on both sides of the tank, simultaneously (im sure to most of you they are familiar).
During the day the temps are 32-33 degrees celscious on the warm side and 21-22 on the cold side. Untill recently i had no idea of humidity levels, so bought a hygrometer, and was horrified to find that although in the day the humidity was 50-60% (which by my understanding is ok for corns, maybe a little high) the nightime humidity raises to around 70-80%, far too high right? Im thinking at the moment that this may be because i turn off the heat bulb during the night, lowering temperatures to about 20 on cold side, 25 on warm side.

Is there anyway to lower humidity levels? i cant make the tank anymore ventilated it has a 12 x 3 inch ventilation point. Do my temperatures sound right (especially the night temps)? How far do you guys drop your temps during the night (if at all). Oh and by the way I live in Liverpool, and outiside the humidity is 76% at the moment (during the day).

Thankyou for reading, any advice would be appreciated.

 

[nhaislip]

The suggested humidty is from about 30%-50% unless they are shedding, then it is 60-70%. What I would do is lower the total humidity. If you lower it to about 30 to 40% then at night it should only go up to about 50 maybe 60%. Your temps seem pretty good, but it is a pretty good jump but I think it is still fine. My temperatures only drop a few degrees between day and night but that is because I have a very weird temperature gradient. I have places from 31 to 26 to 22 constantly. These temperatures really don't vary too much but I am getting off topic. I think that if you just lower the humidity in the day time then you will be fine because then at night it should not be 60-70%. Hope this helps.

 

[BeckyG]

Um, he knows that he should lower the humidity. What he is looking for is suggestions as to how to do just that.

What kind of top do you have on your tank? A screen top will allow more air flow and may help reduce humidity.

 

[tomgarland]

hey sorry im not too sure as to what a screen top is? Is that like a tight wire mesh? At the moment I have like a glass sliding (horizontally) sheet. Ive heard that moving the water bowl to the cold side of the tank may help aswell, will this work? After nhaislip's response I feel more worried about this high humidity. The humidity where i live is very high at the moment (as winters setting in) and to be honest my humidity levels arent close to being as low as 40-50%. Could this cause respiratory infections? or have any other effects?
Please help! thankyou for reading
Tom

 

[TheHated]

Its a screen mesh that goes on top of your tank and you can buy clips to secure it. Remeber snakes have one lung and high humitity ( if i am wrong correct me please ) might bother the snakes breathing.

 

[BeckyG]

Screen tops usually have a metal frame with wire mesh in it. They can be found at most pet stores.


High humidity can cause a respiratory infection.

 

[Lennycorn]

Screen "tops" or lids are used sometime with fish tanks that us snake owners convert to snake cages but....with the glass slider that you stated you have sound like you don't have a converted fish tank but a "custom" cage. Which lead me to believe that you should have some vent hole in the cage. If you could increase the amount of holes this and moving the water could help. Can you check out the humidity level at other location in you home to see if it lower??? If so maybe you could move the cage there.
Lowering the humidity as be a problems with only a few answers.
Good Luck

 

[nhaislip]

Yeah sorry my last post really didn't help at all. I was distracted so I didn't say what I wanted to finally say. I would not mist the cage so much or maybe reduce the length of time that the light is on. Sorry for the earlier post

 

[tomgarland]

So higher humidity is a hard problem to resolve? Hopefully, attached are some (poorly taken) pictures of my setup to remove the confusion about the lid and to see if they can help with a solution.
Thankyou for all the advice to date

 

[nhaislip]

The setup looks really nice. Good job with that. Since it doesn't look like you can make any more ventilation holes, I would do like you suggested and put the water at the cool end of the cage. That would reduce the humidity. I would also put another smaller water dish on the hot side so the snake could drink warm water if it wanted to. It also depends if your snake likes to bathe or not. Mine doesn't so it doesn't matter than the water is in the cooler side, but if your snake does like to bathe, then you might want to keep it in the warmer side of the cage and just not mist the cage so much. Also, like I said before, cutting down the length of time that the light is on will decrease the humidity as well. My set up, I have a water dish in the hot end and a water dish in the cool end. She can drink, or even bathe which she doesn't do often, at different temperatures. The water dish on the hot end evaporates really quick and increases the humidity so I really don't mist too much at all because my humidity comes from the water dish in the hot end of the tank. Hope this helps more than my first post.